I hear/read how others hate riding rollers or on a trainer. I don't mind it, I look forward to my evening rides on my spin bike. Of course I don't put in a lot of miles on it, I just suppliment my outside workouts. I typically ride 1 hour on the spin bike per session, I have went as much as 1:30 to 2 hours but that's a rarity. I bet those that hate the trainer so much are those that can't get out at all during the winter. I've been eying some of the new fangled trainer workouts that hook a computer up to the trainer that will allow you to simulate courses. Hopefully when it becomes more mainstream in a few years I can afford such a system. I was thinking of building my own and I might if I ever get a camera mount for my helmet.
In the meantime I've come up with my own poor-man's version. I've started using Ascent to download my rides from my Garmin Forerunner to my desktop. Ascent is really great, I've been real happy with it so far and have imported in my rides for 2008. My favorite feature is the ability to playback a ride in realtime. The animation playback will show the route on the map as well as the elevation. In the elevation playback you can also show all your stats, heart rate, cadence, speed and gradient. I set my laptop up right infront of the spin bike and started to play one of my previous road rides. I did a simulation of riding on 360 going to 2222 and back. On the hills I set the resistance accordingly and tried my best to make it feel like the real ride. I had a blast and will be doing this for a lot more workouts.
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