The first one is Sprint power from TR’s analytics and the second is from a race last weekend. I’m 6’2" and 274 lbs. (124kg) so giant for a cyclist. I came from ball-sports and was a sprinter in track so lots of fast twitch background. My current FTP is around 350 (2.8 w/kg) but I feel like there is a lot of room for growth there. There is also plenty of weight to lose without losing meaningful power.
One misconception I had from watching races, especially higher cat races is there’s this nice clean paceline that usually follows the ideal racing line through corners. In a 4/5 race, I found I was entering corners often with three riders shoulder to shoulder. This usually resulted in a less than ideal line and the resulting spike needed to get back on wheels.
I’d echo Matt2380’s comments about positioning to avoid those 1000+ watt spikes. The race file above is the second of a back-to-back Saturday race where I was more intentional about positioning prior to select corners. Essentially it was easier to put in a dig to get a favorable line into the corner rather than being forced to react to others after the corner. In the end, the overall watts were similar but I was 20 wheels farther ahead, with others snapping to meet me whereas I had a nice smooth acceleration.
Also, for context, this race had some hills. Not a ton but when you’re 100 lbs. heavier than even the decent sized racers it all adds up. I’m looking forward to our flat crit series which gets started next week.
Great explanation, and it made me chuckle with that bump over the PD curve at 1M30s, smacks of a an interval or indoor session, unless that is a very precise outdoor athlete.
Yup, that was a fresh all out 90s from an outside interval session. I do a lot of informal testing for a specific duration to fill in the model, rather than doing regular FTP tests, and my best efforts are usually negative split hammocks, where I start hard, settle in, and then blast off at the very end so it produces these really flat slopes.
It’s usually pretty easy to see the target durations on the PD curve over short time periods.
I’ve never raced but I’d like like folks to comment on my performance. My peak 5 second power this year was 1,457 watts with a max cadence of 148. This was about 10 minutes into a 30 minute commute where I had an average power of 149 watts, NP of 230 watts, and a 220 watt FTP; I weigh 100kg. I only have 1 data point for a 5-second sprint at the end of my commute, it was on an uphill climb 28 minutes in at 959 watts.
Virtually all of my rides are commute-based and last 20-30 minutes, I started cycling riding last May. Please let me know if sprinting is something I should pursue or if this is a pathetic excuse for sprinting and I should focus on something else.
Largely true. You still need to have a kick, but anything over 850w and you’re normally fine.
There are few RR or Crits below the P1 field where I have seen a full blown heads up sprint where raw power alone mattered. Either crit courses are too technical into the finish, or RR are too depleted for it to really come down to a heads up sprint. 99% of the time it has to do with positioning into final corners and following the right wheel, so that when you DO decide to sprint it doesn’t matter the raw watts, it’s a foregone conclusion.
Now that’s not to say that 5s power isn’t helpful. It helps with racecraft and position. Being able to close gaps before they form, being able to shut the door into turns, and being able to handle the surges with ease that leave others gassed.
First, “sprinting” is one very miniscule piece of racing, and an even smaller piece of cycling overall. So focus on riding and improving in general, if you enjoy sprinting you can train it.
Second, for comparison purposes this is a recent crit; first 6min. Very surgey with lots of frequent microburst sprints to close gaps and preserve or gain position
Usually you only have to pick a tactic once you get to the higher levels of the sport. There is no need to label yourself one thing or another at first. Just get out there and have fun to start and you’ll naturally gravitate towards what works for you and what motivates you.
Since you are a WK04 user, the metrics I would suggest starting with are TTE and FRC.
Prior to the Sprint
Your first objective would be to deliver youself to the sprint with the least energy expended as possible. This would come via two means:
Fatigue Resistance training
Efficient racing
A great measure of fatigue resistance is Time to Exhaustion (TTE) - basically how long you can hold your FTP. When I hit new FTP levels (following taking the Hunter Allen 20min test), my TTE usually drops to the mid 30s. By following Tim Cusick’s fatigue resistance training, I grow that to over 60 mins (currently at 1:04). Tim Cusick has a great WK04 webinar on building fatigue resistance (google it; I’d copy the link here but it takes up a lot of space). It describes in detail how to progressively increase your Time in Zone (TiZ) for each of the Coggan levels up to FTP resulting in a higher TTE. It works!!!
Efficient racing is probably exactly as you know it to be. A good metric is Intensity Factor (I.F.) - how low can you get this in a race prior to the sprint. It comes via having a high FTP, high TTE and great race tactics (picking great wheels, drafting, etc.)
The Sprint
A good metric above FTP - what you can deliver in your sprint - is Functional Reserve Capacity (FRC). It is measured in Kilojoules (i.e. how many Watts above FTP for how long). Of course, you can use WK04’s PDC overlay function to do power profiling (comparing power at any time interval before and after a training block). But those peaks are typically accomplished when fresh and don’t reflect what you can deliver late in a race (or late in any event). And for training FRC, I’d suggest using WK04’s Optimized Intervals (again, Tim Cusick, along with Dr. Coggan), provides a great WK04 webinar on it.
Final suggestion
I’m about 2/3 way through a cover-to-cover read of Allen/Coggan/McGregor’s 3rd edition of Training and Racing with a Power Meter (assume you know that Dr. Coggan is the world expert on power metrics). As compared to the 2nd edition (2010), there’s a lot of great new info and updated info of the old. TTE and FRC are covered in detail.
My peak numbers are always from KOM attempts or sprint practice, when fresh. At the end of a crit im always down on my best, but so is everyone else. I generally try to fit in a full on sprint at the end of any hard outdoor ride I do, just to train getting those numbers up whilst fatigued.
At 70kg or so, my peak is only about 1250w fresh, but 20s avg of 1000w couple of weeks ago on a short KOM
Usually peak more like 1000w, 10-15sec around 750-800w in a crit sprint, not fresh enough!
My 5sec peak power is at 1475W and my FTP is currently about 330W @ 88kg, but this FTP is actually up on where I raced most of the last crit season.
I used to consider myself a sprinter as I could win races from sprints as I went up through the grades.
However, I stopped thinking of myself as a sprinter when 1) I started coming up against national level riders upon getting to A-Grade and 2) I’d be riding threshold for the whole race before getting to the sprint (as opposed to cruising around in the lower grades and coming into the sprint fresh).
Agree with all of the above that the fatigue from the rest of the race really take their toll on your sprint performance - for me, this is particularly relevent in the closing minutes of a race. For reference to the amount of fatigue gained in the lead up to the sprint, power for the closing laps of a B-Grade race I did earlier this year are below. (Note that my FTP at the time of this race was about 310W)
Whole race (1h): 294W (94% FTP)
Final 5mins: 358W (115% FTP)
Final 4mins: 376W (121% FTP)
Final 3mins: 412W (133% FTP)
Final 2mins: 433W (140% FTP)
Final minute: 545W (176% FTP)
Sprint 5sec Power: 1115W
Sprint Peak Power: 1310W
I do think that the adrenaline of racing can help you keep the power down for a few seconds longer by delaying the point of ‘giving-up’, but you don’t hit the same numbers as if you were fresh.
My lifetime best – in my mid-thirties – was 930w. So no, I am not a sprinter. At the end of a race? Maybe 700 – but I don’t contest sprints anymore. I’ve been the last guy in the small group sprint since the Reagan administration, so I consider it a good day if I’ve been able to make/create the breakaway and snag a 3rd-5th.
This year’s peak power bests (157 lbs)…nice from 4min on up, pretty bad from 1 min on down – and yes, I do train those short efforts. I just don’t respond much to them.
I did a hard crit type ride last week with a sprint at the end and my powers were as follows after an hour of hard riding, to put in context my FTP is 290 and my NP was 272 over 56 minutes.
5- 1047
10- 975
20- 794
During another hard ride, but only 25 minutes into the route, I set the following numbers on an effort
5-1186
10-1113
20- 1015
Definitely cant put the power down after a hard hour like I can when I’m a bit more fresh
