Rolling with the Punches

With all the rain, I was trying to get some training time on the rollers this morning. I jumped on the rollers with the track bike and spun up to 80rpm to get my heart rate up. The plan was to just go all out for a short interval, rest for a minute, and then go all out, rest, as many times as possible - all within a twenty minute time period (didn't have a lot of time)

On my first interval, I felt like I was gripping the handlebars too tightly and not relaxing, and also I wasn't working hard enough, so as I increased my rpm's I also changed my hand position and relaxed my arms. Too many things at once. The bike squirmed to the far right of the rollers, and right off the end, with me on it!

The Situation

These big rollers are 4 inches tall, mounted another inch high on a frame, so falling off is really scary. Some things are moving, like the wheels, and some things are not, like your body, and the ground. So your guess is as good as mine what happens when one falls off the rollers. I can report with absolute assurance that it is terrifying. As seen in the picture, I had a wall on my right, and today, a table on my left. My shoes were clipped in and I wasn't wearing a helmet.

Once the front wheel drove off the side of the roller, it hit the ground peeling out, and the rear wheel rolled off as well. The whole bike came to a stop against the wall on my right and fell to the left, across the rollers. By some miracle, I had unclipped my left foot in time to catch my footing, while at the same time grabbing the table on my left. But bike cleats are plastic, and I have a hardwood floor, my recovery efforts left a nice gouge in my floor, along with a black skidmark from the tires.

So I ended up in a wide-legged stance over bike,over rollers,bracing the table, smelling freshly melted rubber, I decided that riding rollers is very very dangerous for the inexperienced, rushed rider. Please rain, go away.