New to Road Cycling: Friend says using rollers makes you "stale"?

Feanor

Greetings all!

After quite a few years of mainly recreational mountain biking, I've found a draw toward road cycling. I'm at that stage in my life (40) where engaging in physical endeavors requires overcoming an invisible "threshold" of desire Since the mountain biking trails I used to ride are now further from home (moved within the same area) I've found that loading up the mountain bike and driving to this area has exceeded this threshold *laughing*

One of the advantages of road biking is that I zip out of my garage and ride! But there are other important reasons as well and philosophically and mentally I seem to feel more of a connection to road biking (I also fence and practice archery, maybe that has something to do with it! )

Anyway, to the point...

I love my daily rides, but often on days where the wife needs me to be around for one thing or another, I ride a set of rollers. I have them set up in the garage in front of a TV I have mounted on the wall, and finding something interesting to watch just go to it... Typically, I'll go thru a 2 hour movie or 2 one hour sitcoms and break the relatively easy pace during the commericials with a tall gear burst at high cadence... then when the show comes back on, I return to an easy cadence working on spinning technique...

During a recent party, one of the friends of a friend mentioned that it was bad to ride rollers often... because rollers made you "Stale" because of circumstances at the party I wasn't able to talk with him at length again by what he meant by that, and doing searches on "Rollers Stale" doesn't bring up anything so I am assuming he was using his own word to describe something possibly more perhaps more accepted.

I ride now only for the pure enjoyment of it, and have no illusions about competing in anything or racing... I was curious if anyone here knows of what "Becoming 'stale' on rollers means"? and if it is something of concern perhaps only to very serious competitors?

Oh, one thing... I've found that I can last on the rollers MUCH longer whilst watching the OLN coverage of the Tour de France *laughing* The imagination is a wonderful thing!

Have a good one all!

Feanor

J-MAT

Feanor:

Getting "stale" is when an athlete has plateaued at a certain measureable level and is having trouble making progress beyond that. For a power lifter, it means lifting more weight. For a rider it means getting faster/more power.

Since you are not worried about competeting, you have nothing to worry about. Eventually, you may want to become more competetive or get faster.

High-intensity workouts are best done on a mag/wind/fluid trainer, since rollers don't have the necessary resistance. Until then, enjoy your rollers!!!



Have fun!!!

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2LAP

People also use stale to describe a psychological state of boredom and low motivation.

Doing the same training all the time (particularly when indoors) can help make you stale. Including variability will help avoid the 'stale' that J-Mat talks about and the psychological 'stale'.

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Feanor

Many thanks J-Mat and 2Lap!

Your explanations actually make alot of sense and clear up that bit of confusion for me... Being new to road biking, my initial goals are to ramp up mainly in the areas of basic fitness i.e. aerobic training, endurance, stamina...

But this doesn't preclude the possibility of maybe sometime down the road looking at things from a far more serious or competitive slant...

There is no doubt at all that, while on the road, things are far more exhilirating and intense, and though the rollers do afford a good platform for working on spinning, It is not the same kind of motivation by any stretch of the imagination...

Thanks again!

Feanor