Product Review - Inside Ride E-motion Rollers

Introduction

This isn’t one of those consumer-oriented blogs dedicated to reviewing products—which is a shame in some ways, because if it were I’d probably reach a lot more people.  (A post last year in which I bagged on a teakettle) was very popular.)  That said, if you’re in the market for a set of rollers and would consider the Inside Ride E-motion setup, you’ve totally come to the right place (and may want to focus on the second half of this post—search on the text “What makes these rollers different” and start from there).  On the other hand, if you don’t even know or care what rollers are, but enjoy a good laugh at somebody else’s expense, you’ve also come to the right place (and will want to focus on the first half of this post).

Rough start

I got these E-motion rollers via a friend who has no use for them anymore, and I was looking forward to trying them out.  I already own regular rollers and you can read here about some of the difficulties I had jerry-rigging resistance on them, because in this one small area of my life I actually need more resistance.  What’s worse, with the old rollers I kept getting flat tires, which makes zero sense, being the bike equivalent of shoes whose soles spontaneously fail due to contact with carpet.  My solution to this flat tire problem was to ride outdoors, which has become less attractive as winter (albeit the mild California version) has set in.

My first ride on the E-motion rollers started off very badly.  First of all, I didn’t have the owner’s manual and was too lazy to look online for it—so when adjusting the wheelbase setting I just winged it.  The process is actually completely intuitive for anybody with a cool head, but I hadn’t ridden in like a week, was totally stressed out for various reasons, and was impatient.  So I fiddled with the knobs quickly and recklessly and cut my finger.  (Due to age, I guess, my skin has become very flimsy, somehow combining the soft delicateness of moss with the dry, brittle, diaphanous fragility of baked phyllo.)

I got the bike and the fan set up and then, because I cannot ride indoors without music, I spent 20 minutes in vain looking for my MP3 player.  I never did find it and had to use my smartphone, which I hung from the ceiling (to protect it from sweat).  Then I started riding but my heart rate monitor wouldn’t work.  I cannot ride indoors without knowing my heart rate.  I had to troubleshoot.  I am not the kind of person, particularly when I’m stressed out, who can just move on.  It isn’t in me.

I went looking for my daughter’s heart rate monitor.  I gave up after 10 minutes.  I did find her HR monitor chest strap.  I didn’t want to adjust the strap to fit me because it’s really hard to dial those in just right.  So I had to hold the strap against my chest with one hand, which is awkward because I had to stretch out my hand so both electrodes would contact my skin.  The HR monitor still wouldn’t pick up my heart rate, but when I walked across the room it started working.  WTF?!

The troubleshooting was exacerbated because the HR monitor is also a bike computer, and won’t always show the heart rate if the wheel isn’t spinning.  It will show it for a little while after the wheel stops spinning, but I don’t know what this interval is.  I really needed to actually ride the new rollers while holding the strap across my chest.  Super-awkward.  Impossible, in fact.  I felt like a doomed, hapless idiot.

I decided to try a new battery in my heart rate monitor strap.  There’s a special tool needed to remove the battery cap, and I spent 5 minutes finding it.  Then I dropped it.  I spent another 5 minutes looking for it, in vain.  (It’s small and black, kind of a “household camo” form factor.)  Between my failing eyesight, which is infuriating, and the fact that I was already furious, I gave up looking for the little tool.  I did grasp the absurdity of this, which increased my fury.  (The tool did turn up a week later, in a box of Clif bars on a high shelf in the kitchen.  A mystery, as I hadn’t gone near the Clif bar box that morning.)

I spent another 10 minutes looking for my backup battery cap tool, which I did, amazingly, find.  I removed the battery and tested it:  it had a full charge.  I spent another 3 minutes looking for a new battery anyway.  Amazingly, the individualized packaging on my backup batteries had failed en masse so the new batteries and their defective packaging were all mixed up with merely new-ish batteries.  I tested all the batteries and installed the best one.  No change:  the heart rate monitor still wouldn’t pick up within 6 feet of the new rollers.

I needed to determine if the magnetic field generated by the resistance device on the new rollers was interfering with the heart rate monitor’s signals.  This would presumably only happen when the bike is in motion.  So I decided I had to use the HR monitor in hiking mode, so that I could compare its performance when merely seated on the bike vs. while pedaling on it, without needing to worry about the HR monitor’s pointless idiosyncrasy of ignoring HR signals when the bike is stopped.  But hiking mode only works when the monitor is mounted to the wrist strap.  There are two wrist straps in this household:  mine and my daughter’s.  I looked for 15 minutes for either one of these.  My rage was so extreme by this point that I was almost literally blind.  Finally I managed to stop racing around peeking under things and just thought for a moment, and realized that my strap would be wrapped around the handlebars of my backup bike from the last time, many months ago, that I rode rollers.  There it was!  My satisfaction at finding it was considerably reduced by absurd amount of time I’d spent on the search.

I tried the HR monitor in hiking mode.  Even when just sitting on the bike, on the rollers, the monitor would not pick up my heart rate.  The crux, it seemed, was that the HR monitor just didn’t like my new rollers.  Which is a problem.  It seemed that no matter how much these rollers might outperform my old ones, it wouldn’t matter because I need that heart rate feedback or I’ll just loaf.  It’s human nature (mine, at least).

At this point I arrived at a crossroads.  If I didn’t succeed in solving the HR monitor issue, I’d have to eat the sunk cost of my hunt:  that is, I’d have to concede that I’d spent like an hour futzing with all this (in addition to the 20 minutes looking for my MP3 player and another 10 or so suiting up, digging the fan out of the garage, finding the extension cord, etc.) and would have nothing to show for my efforts.  On the other hand, if I spent one more minute of my precious weekend dinking with the HR monitor, I was probably going to blow.  I had to get on that bike, period.

But first I decided I needed to do one more thing:  look for help on the Internet.  How long could that take, right?  Alas, no Google search produced any results whatsoever.  I am evidently the only person who had ever had problems using his HR monitor with these rollers.  I did learn from the manufacturer’s FAQ that, due to the little wheels positioned at either side of each roller drum, “It’s not possible to ride off the drums.  You can try as hard as you want and it won’t happen.”  In my enraged state, I took this as some kind of dare.  A double-dog dare, in fact.

I climbed on, started riding, noted again the infuriating absence of heart rate data, started riding harder, and then steered my front wheel into the little guide wheel at the edge of the drum.  The tire touched it, started it spinning, and the bike just stayed in position.  So yeah, the guide wheel works.  But “it’s not possible” to ride off the drums?  And “you can try as hard as you want”?  I hadn’t yet tried as hard as I wanted.  So I started slamming the front wheel violently into the guide wheel.  I increased my speed and tried again.  On the 4th or 5th try I had so much sideways momentum I kind of high-sided.  What is high-siding?  Imagine riding on a rain-slippery road or trail and turning so hard that the tire starts to slide out—but then it suddenly catches, and flips you like a pancake.  That’s high-siding.  I basically flipped my bike right off the rollers.  I managed to stick the landing, but in the process of this crazily abrupt dismount I clotheslined myself on my headphone cord (because my smartphone was hanging from the ceiling, remember?).

This was the proprietary cord of my $300 Bose noise-canceling headphones, and it was now ruined.  This angered me.  And if memory serves, I had been kind of angry already.  (Is my comic understatement working here?)  I had to find some other headphones.  After 5 minutes I found some, remounted the bike, and then discovered that the headphones’ cord was too short.  So I hunted around for my headphone extension cord (yes, I actually have one) and tried that, but it was too long, and no scheme I could contrive to take up the slack would work (since my brain was melting down due to anger).  So I decided to put the smartphone in my jersey pocket, which meant finding a plastic bag to put it in.

Finally I got back going.  As you can see, I began my first E-motion roller ride with a level of fury surely unrivaled in history.  It would take a pretty special product to earn a glowing review under these circumstances.  Not since Richard III set about wooing the widow of the man he’d just murdered had a deck been stacked so unfavorably.

What makes these rollers different?

Regular rollers consist of a rigid frame that holds the three drums.  Riding these rollers requires a fair amount of balance (significantly more than riding a bike on the road).  The bike doesn’t automatically stay straight so you have to kind of steer to keep it more or less in the middle of the roller.  If you drift too far to either side you’ll go off the drum, which causes a very abrupt dismount that, while not terribly dangerous, is unpleasant and breaks your stride.

This difficulty increases if you contrive some kind of resistance and really start hammering.  If your body rocks or bounces at all, the bike wants to creep forward on the rollers and is destabilized.  Riding out of the saddle is possible on traditional rollers, but it’s really tricky going from sitting to standing without pitching forward.  Rocking the bike back and forth, meanwhile, is basically impossible. 

Anybody who tells you that riding rollers is a cinch is probably accustomed to riding them without resistance.  Riding rollers this way is pretty easy—but also pointless.  I have found, over the last year or two of riding rollers with resistance, that my back gets sore, probably because I am a bit tense and having to keep my upper body too still.  Moreover, I have really missed being able to ride out of the saddle in a natural way.

The E-motion rollers are different.  The drums still mount to a rigid frame, but this frame doesn’t sit right on the floor.  Instead, it rides a second frame (that does sit on the floor).  There is “float” between these two frames, so the rigid, spring-loaded top frame can move forward and backward.  So even if you are hammering so hard your form is crap, and your upper body is rocking up and down, the bike is stable, and the ride smooth and natural, with the rollers’ floating mechanism taking up all the slop.  Moreover, there are these smaller-diameter guide rollers positioned fore and aft of the rear wheel, which come into play when you stand up on the pedals.  The bike moves quite a bit when you stand up, but then the rear wheel hits the little guide roller, which shifts the floating frame forward, again taking up the slack so your bike doesn’t leave the rollers behind and crash into your fan (which has in fact happened to me with my old setup).

The floating frame also makes it possible to really shove on the pedals when out of the saddle, and to rock the bike from side to side like you would on the road.  In short, riding these rollers is just like real riding, except the air around you is warm and dry instead of cold and wet, and you don’t have to restrict your training to daylight hours.  (The other difference is that it’s still not as interesting as real riding, but music can help with that.)

These rollers are so easy to ride, I haven’t suffered my usual back pain when riding them.  With the old rollers I could ride no-handed, even with some resistance, but doing so made me a bit nervous; with these new ones, I not only can ride no-handed with ease, but when the zipper of my jersey got jammed, I was able to sit up and un-jam it while riding.

Here’s a video showing how well the E-motion rollers work.  This isn’t footage of some specially trained stunt double with impeccable form, either … it’s your randomly selected blogger, who likes to mosh big gears, doesn’t do yoga on the side, and isn’t overly concerned with being super-smooth.  Go ahead and view this video in full-screen mode and look at how much the top frame floats on the bottom one.

So … these rollers really work?

Yes, they really work.  They’re amazing, in fact.  The innovative design absolutely does achieve everything I’ve described above.  Also, the drums are really quiet, much more so than my old aluminum rollers which tended to “sing” at high speeds.  (Apparently these E-motion drums are aluminum as well, which is better than plastic because it’s more durable and has a more perfectly round cross-section.  But these are coated somehow which I think is why they’re so quiet.)  The magnetic resistance also works really well and is silent.

It is very rare, I’ve found, for one manufacturer’s product to be so obviously superior to every competing product on the market.  These rollers are such a huge step forward, I was almost laughing with delight.  This reaction is particularly noteworthy considering how enraged I was prior to riding these for the first time.  (If you didn’t read the first half of this review, maybe it’s time to go do that.)  Because by this point I hated everyone and everything in the universe, including myself, I perversely wanted to find fault with the E-motions but the fact is, I could not.  These rollers are a total game-changer.  At the end of my workout, I was in a really, really good mood because I was (and am) so stoked to own such a sweet set of rollers.

I don’t think I’ve been so completely satisfied with a product in 30 years (since I bought my first English-made Simplex teakettle, whose perfection is matched only by the utter uselessness and almost criminal crappiness of its modern Chinese successor … but that’s another story).

Is there any downside to the E-motion rollers?

The main problem with this product is that it has, for most people, no practical use.  The vast majority of people lack the desire and/or skill to ride rollers, and/or don’t have the psychological stamina (or is it mere tolerance of tedium?) to train indoors regularly.  Rollers in general are a total niche product.  There’s something almost Quixotic about setting out to produce the best rollers on the planet … kind of like if somebody decided the state of the art in steel-toed, waterproof, chainmail-reinforced, Internet-connected, antibacterial golf shoes was in need of an overhaul.  Of course this isn’t really a criticism of the Inside Ride E-motion rollers; it’s more of a critique of rollers in general, and of my fellow man.

There’s also the matter of price.  These rollers are about 50% more expensive than the second-most-expensive brand on the market, Al Kreitler.  The E-motions would be a pretty decadent purchase in most cases, given that they probably wouldn’t get much use.  On the other hand, for a serious cyclist with the tenacity to actually do a lot of training indoors, who spends all kinds of money on lighter wheels, fancy clothing, and other state-of-the-art gear, the price of the E-motions is reasonable.  (Good luck making this case with your significant other, though.)

These rollers do not fold up, so it would be hard to take them in your car to warm up before a race or before riding the track.  But who among us doesn’t have an old stationary trainer for that purpose?

If you think I’m going to complain about the tendency of these rollers to jam heart rate monitor signals, I have good news there as well.  Oddly, though I didn’t get consistent heart rate data during my first workout, I discovered I could spot-check my heart rate by standing up on the pedals.  (My theory is that riding out of the saddle moved the HR transmitter far enough away from the rollers’ magnetic resistance unit to work properly.)  I made peace with the idea that I wouldn’t have average HR, max HR, time-above-HR-target-zone, and other data to sift through after my roller rides, because everything else about these rollers is so kickass.  And then, upon riding them a second time a few days later, I was surprised to see that the HR monitor worked perfectly.  Two more flawless rides confirmed that the HR monitor problem was just a fluke thing, like the missing battery-cap tool.  Sometimes life is like that.

There is only one other possible downside to these rollers.  I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we occasionally have earthquakes.  If an earthquake were to happen during a workout, when I’m rocking out to my workout megamix via noise-canceling headphones, the E-motions’ floating frame might be so effective that I fail to notice the earthquake, which could put me in some kind of danger. (As you can see, you have to work pretty hard to find fault with this product.)

--~--~--~--~--~--~--~---~--
For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Workout Megamix Liner Notes - Part II

NOTE:  This post is rated R for mild strong language and coarse humor.

Update

Hear my entire Megamix (200+ songs) on Spotify - click here!

Introduction

In my last post I described my decades-long project of creating the best collection of rock & rap songs to listen to while riding my indoor bike trainer or rollers.  Not all music is suitable for hammering away all winter, and music is a bare necessity for this activity.  (Note the inconspicuous, but all-important, headphone cord in this photo.)

I’m aware that some people watch movies or cycling videos while riding indoors.  I suppose this could be somewhat diverting—but that’s kind of the problem.  You can’t be diverted from the suffering at hand, if you’re going to do this right.  You need music with a driving beat, and it never hurts if it has some attitude, so you can find the proper frame of mind (which is somewhere between excitement and rage).  Oh, and the music has to be sophisticated enough that you don’t get sick of it after repeated listening.  There are pop songs I was already sick of before I’d finished hearing them the first time.

As I mentioned before, my Ultimate Workout Megamix has 165 tracks, which is about 11 hours of music, all in alphabetical order by track.  In my last post I was able to cover A thru G.  Tonight I provide the list—replete with liner notes on selected songs—for H thru M.

Liner notes – Dana’s Ultimate Superfly Workout Megamix Part II

Happiness is a Warm Gun - The Breeders

            Perhaps you’re familiar with the original Beatles version of this.  That wouldn’t be lively enough for the trainer.  The Breeders add a snarling guitar to it and it works great.  A college roommate of mine expressed astonishment that this was an all-female band despite the low voice of one of the singers.  Turns out my roommate was fooled by some photo where the guy was in drag.  That’s about all I know about the Breeders other than it was started by Kim Deal, formerly of the Pixies.

Head Down – Soundgarden

            This song helpfully reminds you to put your head down, which is useful while hammering, at least on the indoor trainer.  As the grammar coach of the UC Berkeley road team, I explained to everybody that “head down” is a figure of speech; while racing you really need to watch the road.  A former teammate of mine was once time trialing with his head down and rode right into the back of a parked car.  DAAAAAAAAAMN!

Heart In a Cage - The Strokes

            Good, fast tempo, the relentless driving beat so characteristic of the Strokes (it’s called a “triplet” according to my daughter, who knows something about music), and even some grumbling about how “I’m stuck in a city but I belong in a field” which captures that trapped feeling you get riding indoors for the third month in a row … this song has it all!  This is from “First Impressions of Earth,” an underrated Strokes album (all their others are overrated).

Heart Shaped Box – Nirvana

            Like “Black Hole Sun,” this song had quite the video.  It creeped me out big time when I first saw it.  At that time I was living in a literally flea-ridden apartment with a roommate who got baked like five times a day and had all the cable channels.  Just now I checked the video out again and probably the creepiest part is Kurt Cobain’s artificially blue eyes.  I once had an office job where the copier broke down constantly and I got to know the repairman, who had these dazzling blue contact lenses and a huge Swatch watch selection.  Nobody photocopies anymore … I wonder what that guy’s up to.  Maybe he’s in a band.

Heartbeat - Ice-T

            One of the best workout songs ever, as it reminds you to keep your heart rate up.  Plus it’s just a jammin’ song anyway.  “Listen to my heartbeat, it’s beatin’ like a wild man/ But that’s natural, ‘cause you know that I am/ No punk, no chump, no fool, no toy/ Try to get ill and I’ll serve you, boy!”  I sing along until I’m gasping for breath.

Hustlers - Nas
            This guy started rapping when he was just a pup, and was basically brilliant right out of the gate.  His quality control takes a bit of a hit because he produces albums almost constantly.  He’s kind of the Woody Allen of rap in that regard:  prolific but oddly willing to put out mediocre stuff now and then.  (He released two albums in one year, 1999; one went double platinum and the other fizzled.) This track is from “Hip Hop Is Dead,” which is my favorite of his albums.  An odd fact about Nas:  though he’s gotta be pretty wealthy, having sold over 15 million records in the U.S. alone, he also owns a shoe store.  I guess he just really likes shoes.

Hypnotize - The White Stripes

I Am A God - Kanye West

            Again, I cannot quite describe how I feel about Kanye West.  Actually, if I paraphrase the writer Adam Gopnik, maybe I can:  I don’t like Kanye West, but I like to listen to him.  (Gopnik was quoting his 6-year old talking about Barney, the purple dinosaur.)  This song is the epitome of braggadocio, but it’s got a good, weird, dark atmosphere and some great lines:  “I am a god/ So hurry up with my damn massage/ In a French-ass restaurant/ Hurry up with my damn croissants.”

I Am Not a Human Being - Lil Wayne

            What a great segue, from “I Am a God” right into “I Am Not a Human Being.”  This is one of my favorite Lil Wayne songs.  It has more effective guitar than any other rap song I can think of except maybe “The Girl Tried to Kill Me” by Ice-T or “Sing For the Moment” by Eminem.  I challenge you to listen to this on the trainer without starting to pedal harder.  I’m playing it right now to help with this commentary, and damn it, where’s my bike?!  LET’S ROLL, YOU AND ME, RIGHT NOW MUTHAFUCKA!

I Could Have Lied - Red Hot Chili Peppers

I Go To Work - Kool Moe Dee

            This is the rare nap song you can sing to your kids.  Did I really just type “nap song”?  Elton John would be a nap song.  I meant to say, this is the rare rap song you can sing to your kids.  There’s no profanity at all.  I was surprised the other day when my older daughter suddenly busted out with the whole first verse (which is a lot—237 words).  I started rapping this at my mom’s house at Thanksgiving recently, pleasantly camouflaged against the chatter of a bunch of kids, nieces and nephews, but suddenly they all went silent so they could hear.  It was a little scary, like suddenly being on stage.

I'm Back - Eminem

            Good, solid stuff.  I don’t know what this guy has against Christopher Reeves.  Maybe he’s just reminding us listeners that he’s the most tasteless rapper alive.  But good!

I'm Your Pusher - Ice-T

If I Had - Eminem

            My favorite line?  “If I had one wish, I would ask for a big enough ass for the whole world to kiss.”  This is funny all by itself, but even funnier for people my age who remember that corny Coke ad he’s mocking, from 1971:  “I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love.”

It Takes a Muscle - M.I.A.

Jack My Dick - Obie Trice

            This song might not work for your trainer ride the first few times you hear it because you’ll be laughing so hard your legs might turn to jelly.  Here, Obie presents the only convincing case for abstinence I’ve ever heard.  Not that this is the kind of song the Religious Right would ever embrace, and I can’t see it being put into service as a Public Service Announcement.

Jesus Christ Pose - Soundgarden

Just Lose It – Eminem

            Another song from the least of Eminem’s albums, “Encore,” but good for the trainer.  I think this is supposed to be a dance track.  It’s got a good beat, I could dance to it (if I could dance, but I can’t, so I ride rollers instead) … I give it a 7!

Killing Lies - The Strokes

Knives Out – Radiohead

            “If you’d been a dog they would have drowned you at birth.”  Nuff said.

Know It Ain't Right - M.I.A.

Last Nite - The Strokes

Legacy - Eminem

Like Suicide – Soundgarden

            Look, I know I have a lot of Soundgarden on this list.  I can’t help it.  I’m not saying they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread (and I’m not actually even that fond of sliced bread), but the drumming in this song, particularly toward the end, makes me want to ride to death.

Little Acorns - The White Stripes

Loco-Motive - Nas

Lollipop - Lil Wayne

            Some critic got all hot and bothered because this or that masterpiece of songcraft lost out to “Lollipop” for the Grammy in 2009.  The reader was expected to share this outrage, and I must say, “Lollipop” is just a bunch of gutter talk, very sophomoric, absolutely the kind of music you only listen to via headphones.  But none of this matters.  If you listen to this during exercise, you will get a better workout.

Longview - Green Day

Look In My Eyes - Obie Trice

Lose Yourself - Eminem

Love Me - 50 Cent

            I guess this is technically an Eminem song, but for some reason I think of it as 50 Cent.  I know nothing about 50 Cent.  My favorite line on this song is actually by Obie Trice.  It goes like this:  “Show me love … bitch.”  That just cracks me up every time.  I mean, it’s pretty bad when you have to tell your woman to love you.  I mean, you’re already on the wrong foot there, like people can just love on command.  But to make matters worse (perhaps out of reflex?) the speaker shows emphasis by calling her “bitch.” Yeah, dude, that will win her over.  It’s just funny.  Perhaps a feminist wouldn’t find this funny at all.  But think about it:  the funny part is how lame the guy is.  Feminists should use this as a case study for one of the many things wrong with men!  Who knows, maybe they do.

Love Me or Hate Me - Lady Sovereign

            Really, really great song, and I think this genre—grime—is generally a very good one for the trainer.  It’s fast, lots of wacky sounds, plenty to hook your bored brain on.  And the chorus here is good advice for the kind of person who tries so hard to be reasonable and likable, she just can’t cut herself any slack.  (Or he/himself … whatever.)  That advice is, “If you like me then thank you/ If you hate me, than fuck you.”  I sometimes play this one on speakers (rather than headphones), and whenever the f-word comes around I cough really loudly to drown it out, for the kids’ sake.  Today I finally let Alexa (age 14) hear the whole thing.  “I’d been wondering why this song always made you cough so much,” she said.

Love the Way You Lie - Eminem

Matangi - M.I.A.

Mockingbird - Eminem

Money Over Bullsh*t - Nas

Mother - Pink Floyd

            Okay, this isn’t actually ideal trainer music, but it’s just such a great song.  And actually, the guitar solo is pretty rousing.  If you’re into the movie “Pink Floyd The Wall,” you should check out my exegesis, in which I put forth this song as the key to understanding the entire movie.  Click here.

Mr. Carter - Lil Wayne

Mrs. Officer - Bobby Valentino/Lil Wayne

My Dad's Gone Crazy - Eminem

My England - Lady Sovereign

            One of my favorites.  If I understand this one right, it’s making fun of Anglophiles who think they know something about England because they read Bridget Jones’ Diary or saw the movie.  Meanwhile, Lady Sovereign both celebrates and denigrates her homeland in a way that never fails to amuse me.  Check it out!

My Mom - Eminem
            This is the best workout song I know of concerning Munchausen syndrome by proxy.  If you’re aware of other rousing rap or rock songs on this topic, please let me know.  If I gather enough of these, perhaps I’ll create a Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy Workout Megamix.  Actually, that might end up being kind of depressing, but it would still beat going to the gym.

My Name Is - Eminem

My Wave - Soundgarden

Stay tuned

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve focused on a relatively small number of bands/singers in this list.  Well duh, that’s to help you!  Not everybody consumes music by buying one MP3 at a time.  You could actually buy a few CDs, perhaps used, to take a gamble on this music.  Or just keep listening to that Sting album you bought back in college … see if I care.

Tune in next time for the penultimate installment (probably N thru S).  Click here for Part III, and enjoy your turbo-training!

More reading

Here are links to the rest of my series of Workout Megamix liner notes:

• Part I
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V
• Part VI
• Entire playlist on Spotify

--~--~--~--~--~--~--~---~--
For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Workout Megamix Liner Notes - Part I

NOTE:  This post is rated R for mild strong language.

Update

Hear my entire Megamix (200+ songs) on Spotify - click here!

Introduction

A couple friends asked me for recommendations for music to listen to while riding the stationary bike or indoor trainer.  I’ve been crafting the all-time #1 ultimate Workout Megamix for about two decades.  My quest began back in the mid-‘90s when I tried to ride the trainer while listening to The Cranberries.  Nothing against them, but it wasn’t helping me get that heart rate up.

Around this time I e-mailed all my friends for recommendations and was shocked at the dearth of fast, hard, rockin’ good stuff.  People were suggesting albums like “Buena Vista Social Club” and Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue.”  As you can see, I really needed to find some cool friends, but that’s hard to do, so I started experimenting with different music and I think that’s gone pretty well.

So in compiling my Workout Megamix, I thought to myself, Why stop at a mere list when I could be describing the song and/or the band and/or the reason I think it belongs in the list?  And so my Liner Notes idea was born.  Because this is a lot of work, I’m extending the distribution of these notes from 2 persons to 3.17 billion (the number of souls on this planet with Internet access).

The full list comprises 165 tracks, which at roughly 4 minutes per track gives about 11 hours of music, which should last for about 15 indoor workouts.  If you do 3 workouts a week this will last you 5 weeks before you get your first rerun.  That ain’t so bad.  These tracks are in alphabetical order by title because that’s the order they play on my MP3 player.  This post covers A-G and I’ll get to the rest in subsequent posts.

Before I begin, a quick caveat:  I’m not saying I know anything about music.  Whenever I find myself in the position of expounding in detail on a thorny subject (i.e., most of the time), I find myself winging it.  I hope that’s good enough for you.

One last thing:  particularly if your trainer is on the loud side (or even your rollers—mine have aluminum drums that tend to “sing” at high speed), please do yourself a favor and spring for noise-canceling headphones.  Indoor cycling is supposed to be good for you—don’t slowly deafen yourself in the process!

Liner Notes – Dana’s Ultimate Superfly Workout Megamix

'Till I Collapse – Eminem

            This is a perfect one for the trainer, thematically.  It even talks about your legs getting tired:  “Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out, Till my legs give out, can’t shut my mouth.”  And you can’t ride the trainer with your mouth shut, either.  How true that is.

8 Miles & Runnin' - Freeway/Jay-Z

            This is from the soundtrack to “8 Mile,” which was the movie that got me back into rap after more than a decade of nothing … the wilderness years, if you will.  “The New Yorker” gave “8 Mile”  a good review, which I hadn’t expected.  When that movie came out I knew almost nothing about Eminem, other than what I’d gleaned from an outraged editorial quoting some of his crude lyrics.  I remember thinking, “Man, this guy is really foul ... for him to be popular, he must have talent or something.”  The movie convinced me.  Go see it if you haven’t, or even if you have.

911 Is a Joke - Public Enemy

            Public Enemy was one of the first rap groups I ever got into.  I kind of burned out on them eventually, but that’s not their fault.  Chuck D is the main guy, with Flavor Flav kind of his court jester.  Nice combo.

A Punchup at a Wedding – Radiohead

            This is the only song I know of that’s about a fistfight breaking out at a wedding.  Fortunately, my wedding was free of fisticuffs, though I did consider beating down an attendee.  It was an outdoor wedding in an amphitheater, and some douchebag college kid took the liberty of sitting down to watch.  It would be one thing if it were a giant wedding, but I only had like 12 or 13 guests—plus him.  Meanwhile, the guy’s dog was getting a bit too close to the wedding cake.  Lucky for him I didn’t want to fight while wearing my nice suit.

A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T - The Hives

            The Hives is a band I discovered through the music review section of “The New Yorker.”  They hail from the Swedish industrial city of Fagersta.  As the magazine described it, “The Hives quickly became huge in Sweden, which is sort of like being the strongest person in your house.”  They have a fast, angry sound perfect for the indoor trainer.

Adrenaline Rush - Obie Trice

            I was introduced to Obie Trice by the “8 Mile” soundtrack.  Like Eminem, he’s from Detroit.  Here’s a crazy biographical detail:  he was shot in the head back in 2005 and is still carrying around the bullet in his skull.  This doesn’t seem to affect his brain—his rap is kickass.  “Adrenaline Rush” is not actually one of his best songs, but it’s a good one for the trainer.  I call it as “the motherfucka song” because he says “motherfucka” about 3 dozen times.  It’ll grow on you, trust me.

Airbag – Radiohead

            This song was inspired by a British insurance company magazine (like what you might get from AAA here) and the headline, “An airbag saved my life.”  The lead singer gave this commentary on the song:  “Has an airbag saved my life? Nah…but I tell you something, every time you have a near accident, instead of just sighing and carrying on, you should pull over, get out of the car and run down the street screaming, ‘I’m BACK! I’m ALIVE! My life has started again today!’  In fact, you should do that every time you get out of a car.”  Awesome guitar on this track.  Actually I think it’s two dueling guitars, but as I said I’m not very knowledgeable about music.

Ass Like That – Eminem

            This song has an unfortunate chorus:  “I ain't never seen an ass like that/ The way you move it, you make my pee pee go / Doing, doing, doing.”  (The “doing” rhymes with “boing,” not with the gerund form of “to do.”  I have just realized this is a heteronym I never noticed before ... but I digress.)  This song is from the weakest of Eminem’s albums, “Encore,” and I really had to ask myself, “Can I listen to, much less enjoy, a song that includes “make my pee pee go doing, doing, doing?”  After much deliberation, the answer is yes, I can and do.  If you can get past this bit, it’s really a great track ... very funny.  It has held up well.  Listen for Eminem’s impersonation of Triumph, the puppet dog, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Average Man - Obie Trice

            This one is badass.  Lots of gun-related sounds, which can so often be embarrassing, like in action flicks where cocking the gun is almost as loud as shooting it.  But Obie Trice pulls it off. 

Bad Girls - M.I.A.

            I stumbled on M.I.A. quite by accident.  M.I.A. stands for “Missing In Acton” (not “Action” as Wikipedia erroneously reports).  Acton is a part of London I know about from taking the Underground.  M.I.A. (full name Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam) is British/Sri Lankan and I’d say her genre is a hybrid of dance, grime, hip-hop, and world music.  I first learned of her through a magazine I randomly started getting in the mail called “Complex.”  I never did gather whether this was COM-plex, like the psychological conflict, or com-PLEX, as in complicated.  (Another heteronym!)  It was a weird magazine.  Not quite white, not quite black, not quite about music, just a hodgepodge.  I kind of liked it because it was so random, and featured babes.  “Complex” did a profile of M.I.A., and I bought a disc on a whim, and it turns out she’s tot’ly wicked.  This song has become one of my favorites, though I didn’t much like it at first.  Be sure to check out the YouTube video too.

Bad Guy – Eminem

            This song is fricking brilliant.  But you have to listen to “Stan” first or it won’t make much sense.  If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be a rapper, and he’d envy Eminem.  I know that sounds crazy but trust me on this ... I was an English major.

Be Somebody - Kings of Leon

            Way back in like 2002, a friend randomly sent me a Kings of Leon a disc in the hope that I’d like it.  I did, and do.  I like their newer stuff better; originally the lead singer kind of mumbled because he was afraid his mom would hear the lyrics and be offended.  Nowadays I hear Kings of Leon on the radio, which makes me think I’m cool because I knew [of] them back in the day, man.

Beautiful – Eminem

            This song, though quite good, is admittedly just a little cheesy.  But, as the father of daughters, I can’t help but admire it, and hope that if anybody ever insults my daughter’s looks, she can remember this song and say, “You can go get f*cked.”

Beautiful Pain - Eminem w/ Sia

            This song follows what’s becoming a pretty established motif for Eminem:  he does the rapping, but the chorus is sung by some popular female singer with a great voice.  I guess there are purists who don’t like the obvious commercial motivation behind this format, but why the hell would I care?  Is it really a problem if Eminem or someone like him has more money than some robber baron or advertising exec?  I think the snarling rapper and great singer go well together.

Best Rapper Alive - Lil Wayne

            I’m not very familiar with all the hip-hop acts out there, much less pop, but at some point I became vaguely aware there was a rapper called Lil Wayne, so on a lark I bought a CD of his at Target.  Turns out he’s rather good and occasionally brilliant.  This isn’t his best song but it’s got the driving beat, and sometimes you gotta bulk out the megamix or those crème-de-la-crème tracks will get old.

Black Hole Sun – Soundgarden

            I thought the video for this was mind-blowing back in 1994.  I watched it more recently and it hasn’t aged well.  The song, though, is still great.  These guys are from Seattle which means they probably drink a lot of coffee and like to take the elevator up inside the Space Needle.  (Can you tell I did extensive research for these liner notes?)

Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos - Public Enemy

            One of the best PE tracks they is.  Sing along!  Perform it for your kids!

Blow Up the Outside World – Soundgarden

            This is the best song Soundgarden ever recorded.  I’ll confess it seemed pointless at first, but at some point its brilliance dawned on me, and I’ve now adopted it as my credo, my mantra, and my mission statement.  If you’re riding hard enough on the trainer or the rollers, and the music is doing its job, you’ll feel something kind of like excitement, kind of like fight-or-flight, and kind of like anger, as you thrash away, ensconced in your headphones and your private pain cave.  In this state it seems completely reasonable to blow up the outside world.

Born Free - M.I.A

            A workout megamix needs to include either this song or the John Barry song  written for the 1966 movie, about lions, called “Born Free.”  In the end this one won out, because a) the other one sucks, and b) if I get the other one in my head, I always substitute my brother’s lyrics, which went, “Born dead/ The baby had no head.”

Brain Stew - Green Day

            I saw these guys in concert at one of those music festivals in Golden Gate Park (WOMAD, I think) and didn’t think they were that good.  Over the next two decades my wife kept asking me to get her an album by these guys and finally I relented.  Turns out plenty of the songs I’d enjoyed on our local alternative (i.e., mainstream) rock station are by Green Day.  (I didn’t realize this because modern deejays are far too cool to ever provide the name of a song or whom it’s by, and they never use the word “whom” either.)  Green Day is not a great band—one song sounds too much like another IMHO—but the two guys who started it are from Rodeo, a godforsaken little cow town I have to ride through on some bike rides, and I applaud them for transcending such humble roots.  Plus they got their start playing at a little punk club that’s walking distance from my house (though I’m not cool enough to go there).  “Brain Stew” has a very simple but thrashable guitar line.  Can I say “guitar line”?  Does that even mean anything?

Bucky Done Gun - M.I.A.

            “Done” and “Gun” don’t look like they should rhyme, but they do.  I don’t really know what (if anything) this song is “about,” and I don’t care.

Burden in My Hand – Soundgarden

            “Burden in my hand” is just one of those phrases that sound cool.  Don’t overthink it.  That’s my advice for lots of this music.  Riding the trainer isn’t like going to a poetry reading, okay?

Cash Money Millionaires - Lil Wayne

            This song is pretty dumb, in the best possible way.  Go Weezy!

Cha Ching (Cheq 1-2 Remix) - Lady Sovereign

            This is off “Run the Road,” a grime compilation.  Grime is kind of like hip-hop, but British, and maybe a bit faster.  Lady Sovereign is a very short person and has one of those ponytails that sticks out of the side of her head like the girl in “Napoleon Dynamite.”  I wish Lady Sovereign would come to a party at my house.  If she turned out to be a smoker, I’d even let her smoke in the house—that’s how cool she is.  I hope she doesn’t smoke, though.  It’s gross and bad for you.

Charmer - Kings of Leon

            Everyone I know hates this song.  What’s wrong with everybody?  If you hate it, I don’t want to hear about it.  I like it.  Obviously.

Cheers - Obie Trice

            This is a great track.  I sometimes sing along, though that gets awkward because he uses the n-word.  He’s allowed to, of course.  It’s okay because I’m usually too out of breath to sing anyway.

Closer - Kings of Leon

            You know how with some bands all the songs sound alike?  Not so with Kings of Leon.  This one is way cool and a good track to hammer to as you fight to become a King of Lean.

Come As You Are – Nirvana

            I’m not actually sure Nirvana is a good band for working out to … the tempo might be a bit wrong.  But you can set your brakes to drag and stand up.  I kind of feel like supporting this band since as everybody knows their lead singer killed himself.  It would be such a shame if he were forgotten, like Men At Work.  At least those guys are still alive and kicking, as far as I know.

Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

            Clearly this song needs no introduction.  By the way, I’m sick of people saying “Dark Side of the Moon” is Pink Floyd’s best album.  Of course that’s a great album but “The Wall” is better.  This Roman Meal bakery thought you’d like to know.

Cool Cats - Obie Trice

            My favorite part?  When Obie says “blaow!”

Creep – Radiohead

            Of course you heard this on the radio all the time back in the ‘90s.  This isn’t quite as strong as the other stuff on this list, but you might as well re-familiarize yourself with it so you can sing it in the shower.

Cry Now - Obie Trice

Desperation - Eminem

Diamonds From Sierra Leone - Kanye West

            I don’t know what to make of Kanye West.  On the one hand, several of his songs, such as this one, seem pretty cool.  On the other hand, somebody showed me the video of “Bound 2” and I almost vomited into my soup.  And I wasn’t even eating soup!  That video would be a crime against humanity even without Kim Kardashian in it.  But I liked “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” before I saw the “Bound 2” video; why should that change?  

Don't Shoot (I'm a Man) - Devo

            It was a little frightening buying Devo’s first album in two decades.  I really liked Devo back in the day and didn’t want to hear them embarrass themselves.  But this album, “Something for Everybody,” is great!  As is this song!

Drive Slow - Kanye West

I like this song a lot.  More than it deserves, probably.  It always reminds me of a “New Yorker” story from July 10, 2000 called “The Saturday Morning Car Wash Club” by James Ellis Thomas.  Somehow I get the pleasure of that story just by hearing this song … all while training indoors!  It’s like alchemy or something!

Déjà Vu – Eminem deja

            This song is about overdosing in front of your kids.  Pretty heavy.  But it’s a kickass song and the only rap song I know with two different French accent marks in its title.

Easy to Crash – Cake

            Cake is from Sacramento and used to play the coffeehouse circuit there.  Did you know Sacramento had a coffeehouse circuit?   Me neither.  This song is not about crashing while riding rollers, but I did do that the other day.  I was riding out of the saddle and made the mistake of shifting up and accelerating.  I rode right off the front of the rollers, hit the carpet, went flying (surfing my bike at this point), hit the fan, knocked it ass-over-teakettle right into my main road bike (which was leaning against the wall), tipping it over.  I managed to dismount my rain bike and catch my other bike by the handlebar just before it would have hit the floor.  Alexa saw the whole thing and was duly impressed.

Enter Sandman – Metallica

            I became aware of Metallica all the way back in high school when this stoner kid used to talk about them.  He had super long fluffy white hair and puffy red eyes and was oddly chummy with me.  “Dude, it’s my birthday and my dad’s throwin’ me a party.  I’m not talkin’ no birthday cake and candles either … we’re gonna get drunk!”  This dialogue didn’t involve Metallica per se, but I always associated them with that kid.  Anyhow, fast forward a few decades to when I watched “Some Kind of Monster,” a documentary about Metallica hiring a consultant to help them get along while cutting an album.  Fascinated, and dimly aware that Metallica had made music with the SF symphony, I bought their eponymous album and guess what?  It R4WKs!  It’s kind of silly as well, I have to say.  These guys are a bit on the earnest side, but heavy metal shouldn’t be tongue in cheek or ironic.  Just roll with it.  Belt out “We’re off to never never land” in front of your kids and watch them cringe.

Fell In Love With a Girl - The White Stripes

            I didn’t expect to like the White Stripes because so many people bagged on them.  But oddly, the biggest complaint I heard was that they’re overrated.  How can they be overrated when everybody bags on them?  And anyway, who cares?  They’re quite good, if a bit sloppy.  This song has a video with cats playing guitars, which I showed to my kids when they were tiny, and to this day they love this song.  Since I love them, it’s just a big love-in whenever I hear this.

Fell On Black Days - Soundgarden

Fight the Power - Public Enemy

Follow My Life - Obie Trice

Fresh - Devo

Galang - M.I.A.

Girls LGBNAF - Ice-T

            You absolutely mustn’t play this song on the hi-fi when your kids are around.  The lyrics are filthy, at least by ‘80s standards.  Also, don’t play it on your boom box out in the driveway unless you’re ready to silence it very quickly.  I was working on my bike, playing this, and a famous writer/illustrator of children’s books came walking down the sidewalk with her dog.  I had to scramble to prevent an embarrassing episode!  Ice-T is from L.A. and was one of my early favorites.  He’s held up well!

Give It Away - Red Hot Chili Peppers

            Another band from L.A.  One of my college roommates, a rich kid with over 400 CDs in his collection (yes, I counted them once) used to play this song almost constantly, along with “Down In It” by Nine Inch Nails.  They were the only two songs I ever heard him play.  I didn’t realize I liked this song (and band) until years later when I’d recovered from that roommate.  A colleague of mine once encountered this band’s bass player, Flea, on an airplane.  They were both flying first class to Europe.  Flea seemed to be on drugs and decided to climb up into the overhead bin to sleep.  (He’s not a very big guy.)  This caused a major altercation with the flight attendant.

Got Hungry - Obie Trice

             Obie hit a long dry spell (from 2006 to 2012) between his second and third studio albums.  I started anticipating his third album in 2008 and was getting mighty impatient when in 2009 he decided, probably just to pay the bills, to release a compilation of old stuff, which he called “Special Reserve.”  It was kind of unpolished, but full of highly energetic stuff like this song.  Perfect with a lactic acid chaser!

Stay tuned

Obviously I still have H thru Z to go.  I hope you like this topic because it'll be the next 4 or 5 posts at this rate. Click here for Part II.

More reading

Here are links to the rest of my series of Workout Megamix liner notes:

• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V
• Part VI
• Entire playlist on Spotify

--~--~--~--~--~--~--~---~--

For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Riding Rollers - Frequently Asked Questions

NOTE:  This post is rated PG-13 for mature themes and mild strong language.

Introduction

Decades ago, when there was no such thing as a mountain bike and the stationary trainer was in its infancy, any racer who could afford it bought a set of rollers.  I wasn’t so lucky, and though as a teen I did win a turbo-trainer in a (rigged) raffle at the Coors Classic Christmas party, I didn’t own a set of rollers until college.  I somehow managed to lose those (maybe my roommate snagged them?) and didn’t buy another set until somewhat recently. 

I’m back riding rollers now, and this post is both a tribute and a useful how-to guide that will tell you (almost) everything you ever wanted to know, or didn’t even know you wanted to know, about riding rollers.  (I say “almost” because I don’t explain herein how to ride rollers.  Just get on and do it, and if you fall off, well, brush yourself off, acknowledge that it is sweet and fitting to hate yourself, and get back on.)

Did I miss something?  E-mail me. 

Riding Rollers – Frequently Asked Questions

Q.  Why should I ride indoors at all?  After all, the Velominati “Rules” website says, “If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass.  Period.”

A.  First of all, the authority of the Velominati has been thoroughly dismissed in these pages.  I’ve also written at length about the absurdity of choosing to ride in the rain.  Unless you live in such a cold or rainy place you have to capitulate, training indoors makes a lot of sense.

Q.  Why ride rollers instead of a trainer?

A.  You can always tell when a guy has been riding a trainer a lot because he’s pedaling squares.  Rollers, on the other hand, smooth out your form and enhance your grace on the bike.  But that’s only part of why you should ride them.

Frankly, you should ride rollers simply because it’s tricky—because as you get older you need to convince yourself you’ve still got it.  Plus, if you’re the parent of a teenager—a member of the narcissistic “selfie” generation—you must show him or her that there are still cool things you can do that he or she can’t. 

(My teenage daughter, reading this over my shoulder, takes umbrage at the suggestion she’s narcissistic.  She certainly isn’t, and has never taken a selfie, but since I’m running out of things I’m better at than she, it’s important that she sees me riding rollers and is suitably impressed.)

Besides, anything that improves your balance mitigates the risk that when you’re really old you’ll fall and break your hip, which is so often the beginning  of the end for the elderly. 

Q.  I’m a teenager, and I think learning to ride rollers looks like a lot of hassle.  And I don’t need to worry about balance because I will never get old and I will never die. 

A.  Wow, my blog attracted a teenager!  That’s amazing!  Wait, where are you going?  Come back, I won’t bite! 

Okay, look.  It’s time to admit that you’ll never have a massive presence on Vine, and nobody is going to “like” that Instagram photo of your cheesecake as much as the identical cheesecake photo sent around by a popular or attractive kid.  But imagine posting a YouTube video of yourself eating half a grapefruit, properly, with a spoon, while riding rollers no-handed (the acid test of m4d sk1llz in this albeit remote realm).  If your video were to end with you tilting your head back to drink the juice and thus crashing, that video might get a lot of hits!  Man, it’s a shame there was no Internet or YouTube when I was thirteen…

Q.  Say I buy a pair of rollers and like them.  Should I get rid of my fluid trainer?

A.  No, keep it around because sometimes you just want to zone out, mosh on the pedals stupidly, and not have to keep up that finesse.  I’m keeping my trainer even though the damn thing has developed this horrible knocking sound I’m too lazy to troubleshoot, which is embarrassing because years ago I positioned myself as an authority on choosing a trainer, and now this thing’s dying even though it’s not that old.  At least, it doesn’t seem that old.  Though actually, I came across this video involving the box that trainer came in, and I guess it’s not that new.

That little girl in the video?  She (the aforementioned non-narcissistic teenager) is over 5-foot-3 now and rode up Mount Diablo with me not long ago.

Q.  My wife has a policy about physical objects that take up space in the home or garage:  to justify its existence, she says on object “has to either be making me happy, or making me money.”  By this standard, how can I justify owning both a trainer and rollers?

A.  If we’re permitted to define happiness as “absence of unhappiness,” remind your wife how crucial exercise is to your physical and mental health.  Given your hopeless starch addiction, If you didn’t have all the tools necessary to facilitate your exercise, you’d end up looking like Henry VIII.  Would your wife really enjoy being crushed under all that weight?  Besides, without exercise you’d also be as grumpy as Henry VIII, and we all know how that panned out.  (This is an especially powerful argument in my household, as my wife has failed to produce a male heir.)

(By the way, I have made money via riding rollers.  When I was a UC Santa Barbara student, the cycling team set up a roller demonstration in the student plaza to raise money for our trip to nationals.  We put out a hat to collect donations, and offered to try really advanced tricks—stuff that had “never before been attempted,” like riding rollers no-handed or at 50 mph—if somebody would drop in a $10 or $20 bill.  Plus, when one of our more hunky roller-demo riders, the affectionately nicknamed Brad Longshlong, got his photo on the front page of the school paper, that was arguably better publicity than the team got when we won a national title.)

Q.  My rollers don’t have a magnetic resistance thingy.  I can pedal along at over 25 mph without actually getting much of a workout.  Is there any way to add resistance without spending any money?

A.  The best rollers, which would be Al Kreitlers with the Headwind Fan, give you all the resistance you could want.  But even if you have more basic rollers, there are a couple things you can do.

First off, when riding rollers, use your old “rain bike” with its non-compact crank (i.e., higher gearing) and its old-school, less aerodynamic wheels.  You can also put cards in the spokes to hamper the aerodynamics.  I haven’t done any scientific tests to see if this actually helps, but as everybody knows, cards in the spokes is just plain fun.  [Update:  new Q/A answered at the end of this post describing the results of this experiment.]

If you’re really serious about a good workout, your best bet is to set up your brakes so they’re always on.  You could do this with a toe-strap crudely wrapped around the brake lever, but the better way is to open the brake quick-release cam and then tighten the brake, using the barrel-adjuster, so it’s almost rubbing.  Then, during the ride, you can adjust the braking by turning down the QR cam to the desired resistance.

Q.  But won’t having my brakes on the whole time cause my rims to get super-hot, thus damaging my brake pads?

A.  As it turns out, the amount of drag necessary to give you a good workout doesn’t actually generate very much heat.  What really makes rims hot is braking on a descent, which involves much greater forces, such as gravity.  Consider this hypothetical scenario:  you and your brother Bryan are descending by bike to a party being held in a remote house along a mountain road.  The driveway is unmarked, so your other brother has promised to put out a sign or some balloons so you can find it… but he forgets, so you miss the turnoff, and then the mountain road turns to dirt, and you puncture several times until you’re out of spare tubes and patches, and you have to ride double on Bryan’s bike with your own bike over your shoulder.  Bryan is braking pretty hard to keep from stacking, which makes his hands so tired he has to stop periodically to rest them.  As you awkwardly climb off his bike, you actually burn yourself on his bike’s rim.  See?  All that weight, concentrated on one bike, gets those brakes hotter than your wrath toward the third brother … and yet, descending solo, your rims never get that hot, unless they’re carbon rims and you’re an under-skilled and overweight stockbroker riding Levi’s Granfondo.

Q.  The floor of my man-cave isn’t perfectly level.  How can I level my rollers?

A.  Palace a coin under each foot on one side.  Use British pound coins; they’re thicker.  If this isn’t enough to level your rollers, you need to re-pour the foundation of your man-cave, or set the rollers up in your wife’s secret underground lair (in which case you should put a tarp down to protect the hardwood floor).

Q.  Say I’m a teenager and don’t have my own rollers so I’m at my friend’s place riding his, and his foster parents’ four-year-old is fishing for attention by running across the room and diving into a bean bag chair, and I’m ignoring her because I don’t want to encourage her attention-junkie ways, and/or I’m just a dick, and finally she gets so frustrated at the lack of attention she comes up and grabs my handlebars and pulls me off the rollers.  What should I do?

A.  Do nothing.  In particular, don’t yell at her because then she’ll start crying and run and get her mom, who is one weird lady.

Q.  What if my cat, mesmerized by the spinning wheels and also not very bright, tries to jump right through my wheel?

A.  This could never happen.  No cat is that stupid.  The person who warned you about that “possibility” is a broken-down alcoholic and it’s really sad.

Q.  What if the power goes out while I’m riding rollers, and there’s not enough natural light to see by?

A.  If you’re in the basement of your apartment building and not near a wall, all you can do is crash.  If you’re near the wall and the power is going out for just a few seconds at a time (for example, if it’s 6 a.m. and the biggest winter storm in ten years is wreaking havoc), brace an elbow on the wall until the lights come back on.  If they go out for good, but you’ve already taken your NoDoz and you’re halfway through your workout and thus too amped-up and sweaty to go back to bed and don’t care to shower in the dark, just set up some candles on either side of the front roller, to use like airport landing lights.  You may find this mood lighting takes your relationship with your rollers to a whole new level. Next time I think I’ll scatter little rose petals around as well.

Q.  But wait, if the power is out, the fan won’t work!  What about the ravages of sweat on my equipment?  And won’t I overheat?

A.  Open some windows.  This works great if you can get some cross-ventilation, especially if it’s cold out and the wind is really blowing.

Q.  But what if the rain comes blowing in the window and gets all over my expensive wireless LAN equipment?

A.  Spec your man-cave out with a Meraki MR72 Ruggedized Access Point.  That bad boy is built to withstand harsh environmental conditions:  not just rain, but extreme temperature ranges from -40°F to 140°F.  (Trust me:  if it’s -40° or 140° out, you’re really better off riding indoors.)

Addenda

A couple of readers wrote in with more questions, and even did me the service of providing the answers. Plus, I now have the results of my cards-in-the-spokes experiment.

Q. Should I watch bike videos/races while riding my rollers?

A. Probably not. Even a very skilled rider (like my East Bay Velo Club pal Ryan, who wrote in with this question) may occasionally get too wrapped up in what’s onscreen, and veer off the side. This isn’t the same as a high-speed crash, but the bike can leave you behind and careen forward, possibly even into the TV. Meanwhile, as Ryan points out, “It is very difficult to watch a descent without leaning when you see the cyclists on TV lean in the turns.”

Q. What’s with these crazy-looking rollers that have a smaller diameter than mine? I’m oddly impressed and intimidated by them but I don’t know why.

A. You’re right to feel intimidated. As detailed here, smaller-diameter rollers provide greater resistance. Kreitler explains why: “For a given wheel speed, smaller drums rotate at higher RPM’s than larger drums, producing more friction in the sealed cartridge bearings. Smaller drums also create more tire friction because the roller has a smaller contact patch and indents the tire more.” If you don’t have the money to spring for a set of Kreitler rollers with 2.25-inch drums, perhaps letting some air out of your tires (so they indent more, increasing friction) would help. (Thanks to my cycling pal Phil for bringing this up.)

Q. So how did the cards in the spokes work out?

A. Really well, actually! Probably in part because my high-power fan (see photo above) points up at the front wheel, the wind drag of those cards makes pedaling a lot harder. In fact, depending on what cadence you prefer, how high your gearing is, how hard you like to go, and how strong you are, the cards in the spokes might offer all the resistance you need (thus obviating the need for messing with the barrel-adjusters on your brakes).