What’s a good sprint w/kg?

Hey all, I was wondering what you guys would consider a good W/kg for a sprint? I just hit a new max power right before my last high school mtb state last weekend and smashed my old record. My old max was 1300 w (for months) then I got new pr’s for my 1-11sec powers including a 1 second of 1504w. Back to sprints, my 5 second was 1457w which equals about 23 w/kg. Is that good? I’m looking to start road racing and am wondering if I should work on my sprint as a strength. I just don’t really have anything to compare it to. Thanks all

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23 w/kg is considered world class…

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Then there must have been some sort of error with my power meter or something then, because I’m 17 and didn’t even do that great in my race 20 minutes later

1450 is a pretty darn high but believable power. But there is much much more than peak power to be good at sprinting. So, assuming your PM is correct, you probably have a strength in sprinting and /or short power now you just gotta get down the positioning and timing aspects. As well as being fit enough to get to the finish to sprint. So while high sprint power is good it doesn’t tell the whole story.

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Yeah, that’s definitely true. I’ve only been on a training plan for one year so I’ve still got a learn. Haha, it was fun to get a boost like that when I wasn’t expecting it though, and I think it gave me a bit more confidence

You have to ask yourself how often you will sprint for just 1 second in a race. :slight_smile:

But just try it and keep at it. You might get dropped ten times in your first ten races before you finish with the pack. That can be perfectly normal.

Getting to the finish with the front group with legs that still work is generally the problem. And the best sprinter will be be guy who managed to do the fewest hard efforts during the race.

Intervals.icu (shameless plug) has age group charts for comparison. 23w/kg is right at the top so you have a good sprint!

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Maybe.

Can you whip out 1500w after holding 300-350w for 1-2 minutes?

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Yk i don’t really know yet. Need to do more testing and get on the computer with dc rainmaker to see what everything looks like

Definitely not mine. This year Im barely above 55%, 11w/kg for 5sec and in the last 84 days that’s even worse (circa 16%, 7w/kg). I’ve never been much of a sprinter but :open_mouth:

I have a stages pm the occasionally has misleading 1-5s power spikes (is usually driven by recording some unrealistic cadence).

As others mentioned, 1s power isn’t very meaningful for actual race success. You want to have high 5s-2min power. You also want to be able to spike high power after that effort. For example, race winds up at the end for a long hard drag then a 10-15s all out sprint.

I’d say around 9-10w/kg 1min power and at least 18w/kg 5s power would have you classified as a competitive sprinter.