No rolling resistance on rollers, so it's down to what training you want to do. Strength/stamina/endurance, you need a turbo.

For recovery, or for improving riding position and style, rollers.

Get a turbo tyre as well. Saves you wearing out your road tyres.

Having used a turbo and then switched to rollers I would recommend rollers. I have a set that offer three settings 0 (no resistance) and 1 & 2 where a small fan engages on the rear roller. I very rarely use the 1 and 2 settings as it's hard enough work with no resistance provided you work your way through the gears and do intervals. I rarely do more than 12 miles when working hard on the rollers as you can be stuffed in half an hour unlike the the turbo. At first it's feels like riding on black ice but as you master a fluid and smooth pedaling style it becomes much easier. Time passes quickly as you have to concentrate on your position and learn to relax; a rough gear change or scratching your nose can throw you off at first if your concentration lapses. Once you master the technique though you can do flat out high speed bursts (sitting down of course) and even ride out of the saddle (don't try this too soon though!). I also like the fact I can unfold my rollers in seconds and sit any bike (of the same wheelbase) straight on them and start riding.
I gave my turbo away in the end as I never wanted to ride it again after experiencing the rollers.

For real hard, quality, tempo or interval type training turbo is much better as you can put yourself through real pain without having to concentrate on staying upright which can be a problem on rollers when you're really knackered. Also if it's icy out and you want to do a reasonably long stint indoors then you need a turbo and a telly / dvd player or a kindle to relieve the boredom of steady riding indoors. On rollers it's difficult to read or watch telly as you tend to ride off the edge if you're not careful plus your backside wrecks after about 30 minutes on the rollers as you can't hitch in and out of the saddle like you can on a turbo.

I know what Paul means about the feel of rollers and I occasionally use mine for a gentle leg spin, as you do feel more like you're on the road because the bike moves around beneath you, whereas the bike is fixed on the turbo. I have some cheap plastic drum rollers and some expensive stainless steel rollers and the steel ones offer more resistance so are better if you want a good workout. Unfortunately you have to pay quite a bit to get a good road like feel on a turbo as the cheaper ones can be jerky and more like cheap exercise gym bikes. I paid a lot of money for my turbo and you can vary the power settings and really accurately monitor and record your progress and I think it's money well spent if you take your training seriously. Ady has a VR trainer (Virtual Reality). These are also about £1k but you can ride courses and races on the screen and even ride against people on line if that tickles your fancy.

I agree it's a minefield but like most things in life, you get what you pay for so whichever you go for don't go for anything too cheap and if you ask nicely some shops will let you try them out. If you want to try my all singing all dancing turbo and my cheap rollers any time you're welcome. Jack has my decent steel rollers in Derby so you can only try those if you ride to Derby first! You can then try out some cheaper turbos and feel the difference.

Cheers

Dave

P.S. I believe you work with my old mate Steve Hindley. I was talking to him a couple of weeks ago at the Nova CC dinner.

I do have a VR trainer, which I really like. Mine was also dead cheap as I bought a knackered one from eBay and repaired the motorbrake.
It gives you stacks of feedback about power (not that I produce much!) etc, and gives you plenty of control of the resistance.

I used to have a set of rollers, but I ditched them in favour of the turbo. Much prefer it to give myself a battering. Usually use it with either Tacx videos, or use it just for varying resistance while doing sufferfest vids. The other advantage is that I can transfer the data from any TT that I do ride into the system, and effectively ride the TT (all bar the pot holes, wind, rain, Chelford roundabout and traffic!!)

On the subject of quiet. Almost no chance! I think they're all pretty noisy.

Thanks for all the advice guys, all of which is very useful, i tend to be leaning towards a Turbo rather than rollers (probably more because i can see me killing myself on them 😆 ) Would prefer a VR, and like you say Dave, you get what you pay for. Ady, which model you have.

PS. Yes i do work with Steve Hindley, i have known him for nearly 10 years, he is a really nice lad.

I have the Tacx Fortius VR model. I can recommend Tacx, but the one you linked to looks pretty good too.

Check out the newer Tacx models as they come with the Tacx 4.0+ software, which is much better. And it also support a full bike. You have to take the front wheel off on the one I have.

Oh, and like jules says, give a turbo tyre. Aside from the issue of wear, the turbo tyres are a lot quieter and don't suffer from slipping under high resistance.

@JimDuffy wrote:

. Ady, which model you have.

I have a really old Tacx Fortius. A great piece of kit. I'm still running the original software on an old Shuttle PC in the shed.Works really well though, despite the odd problem from the motorbrake on occasion.
[attachment=0:13z7ehgp]turbo.jpg[/attachment:13z7ehgp]

Hi Jim,

Mine is a Cyclops powerbeam pro made by the same people who make the power hubs, so the resistance unit and power readings are very accurate and it has a really useful feature that I use all the time whereby you can set the training power that you want to ride at, either pre-programmed or manually using a little joystick on the wireless console on the handlebars. Then as you ride it maintains the resistance at the power level you want, whatever you do with the cadence. This is great as it means that you don't have to continually watch the readout to make sure you are riding at the correct power for your session as it adjusts automatically and you don't have to keep changing gear all of the time to vary the resistance as the resistance unit does that job. Also as gears become redundant I have an old hack bike on fixed wheel permanently sat on the turbo and because it's on fixed it cost nothing to throw together from old bits in the shed and it doesn't matter if it gets trashed by the many gallons of sweat that this weapon of torture creates! Bear this in mind, as it's a real faf if you have to keep setting the bike up every session plus you don't want loads of salty sweat on your expensive road bike as they corrode very quickly.

I believe that the latest Powerbeam Pro also offers VR and it's about £1k like the Fortius but I researched all the options when I got this one and the Cyclops machine is a more useful training tool in terms of accuracy of data and practicality in use but maybe the VR version isn't as good as Tackx as Cyclops are new to the VR market.

Why not try out both and see what you think before shelling out a lot of dosh. I'm sure either Ady of Kris will let you have a play on their arcade machines. 😀

Cheers

Dave

Hi Ady,

Get rid of those old bits of wood in the corner as you'll never use them! 😆

I used to use a Tackx sweat guard thingy like the one in your picture but the sweat was getting everywhere so now I use two towels on the top tube and the handlebars with clothes pegs to stop the top tube one falling off. Low tech but does the job and you can throw them in the washing machine after every sweatfest. I weigh myself before and after every session to get an idea of fluid loss and my record on the turbo was 5Lbs in a 2 hour pyramid workout. Also I drank 1 litre of GO during that workout. I ride with a big pedestal fan and all the conservatory windows open and it still looks like a sauna in there by the time I finish.

@nofear wrote:

Hi Ady,

Get rid of those old bits of wood in the corner as you'll never use them! 😆

I used to use a Tackx sweat guard thingy

I did use two bits if the wood actually. Proving my 'you never know when it will come in handy' theory. One to hold the PC on it's little suspended shelf, and another piece to screw to the floor to stop my turbo from moving forward when doing high cadence intervals!

I use a combo of the sweat guard and old towels. The fan is useful to done extent, especially for blowing sweat all over the place!

Still need to find an old frameset to use as a winter turbo bike.

@nofear wrote:

I believe that the latest Powerbeam Pro also offers VR and it's about £1k like the Fortius but I researched all the options when I got this one and the Cyclops machine is a more useful training tool in terms of accuracy of data and practicality in use but maybe the VR version isn't as good as Tackx as Cyclops are new to the VR

Looking at the Cyclops, they do seem a far better spec in terms of power measurement. Don't know how good newer Tacx units are.

@AdyJapp wrote:

@JimDuffy wrote:

. Ady, which model you have.

I have a really old Tacx Fortius. A great piece of kit. I'm still running the original software on an old Shuttle PC in the shed.Works really well though, despite the odd problem from the motorbrake on occasion.
[attachment=0:195kpys9]turbo.jpg[/attachment:195kpys9]

Think your lounge could do with a touch of decorating and a tidy up Ady 😆

@JimDuffy wrote:

Think your lounge could do with a touch of decorating and a tidy up Ady 😆

That's my shed, and it's tidier than my lounge... 😉