Power Profile - Last 60s of RR by Cat

RapDaddyo

I'm curious. For those of you who (1) ride with a PM and (2) regularly win RRs in sprint finishes, what is a typical power profile of the last 60 seconds of a race you won? I plan to work on sprint finishes over the winter and I want to define some goals. My typical sprint interval sessions are done with a rollup (e.g., 20s/400w, 20s/500w, 20sMP), to mimic a typical leadout scenario. I also do these at the end of a hard ride to simulate the fatigue typical of a hard RR with multiple surges. At the moment, I can only maintain ~750w after a 400w/500w rollup, but hope to increase that number with some sprint specific training. If you post a response, please tell us your Cat, your weight and where you race (as the competitiveness is very different in different locales). I am especially interested in those of you who race in the highly competitive areas such as the CRCA races in NYC and the SoCal area. Thanks in advance for replying.

HammerHead

When you say "maintain" how long are you talking? If it's a few seconds, thats a lot different than say 30 seconds. The only time I've used my PT in a race it was a Cat5 crit. I got fifth and I think my peak wattage was around 900. I can regularly hit 1350 peak in training, so that shows how tired I was.

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I'm only truly happy when I'm anaerobic.

RapDaddyo

By "maintain," I mean avg power for the last 20 secs after 400w for 20 secs and 500w for 20 secs. I can hit ~900w-1000w in a standalone max power drill, but I consider that pretty meaningless as a measure of my sprint power. I can't recall a true sprint finish of less than ~20 secs and most of them ramp up for ~30-40 secs before the last, decisive burst. That's why I'm interested in the power profile (timeline) of the last 60 secs. A one-time 5 sec burst is not very meaningful, IMO, because that scenario almost never happens.

Woofer

Anyone who could *regularly* win a RR as you describe is going to be a 2 in pretty short order. If you are going to ask for numbers, when are you going to share? You left mass out of your last post.

RapDaddyo

No problem. I'm fat at the moment ~175 lbs. I'll be down to ~165 next spring when it matters. I don't consider my sprint very impressive at the moment. I can only average 600w-750w for the last 20 secs after a 40 sec rollup, maybe 900w for a shorter burst (e.g., 5 sec). That was good enough this past weekend, but won't be good enough next spring when it matters.

rouleur

last year i won a hard road race as a cat 3. there were 15 riders left at the front of the race, and it had an uphill finish. my best sprint with a powermeter has been 1266watts peak. i have a good jump and can usually keep my speed high for about 10 seconds... i'm a 2 now.

RapDaddyo

That's a good peak power. Can you do that even after a leadout/rollup for, say, 30-40 seconds? For example, a rollup to 500w-600w before the final push? Also, is your peak power the result of specific sprint training or have you always had a high peak power? IOW, are you a born sprinter or a self-made sprinter?

rouleur

yes - that sprint (1266 peak w) was lead out for about 1:00 on a hard training ride, 45 min into the work out. btw i doubt that you would need 500-600 watts when being lead out. the 1:57 leading up to the sprint had an average speed of 28mph, and average wattage was 242w. i was staying sheltered, and jumped earlier than i normally would as it felt like the lead out was starting to slow - i went a bit early in order to avoid getting swarmed. sprint looks to have been 13 seconds at 879 ft - 267meters.

rouleur

well, i'm not a sprinter. like i said i'm usually the guy doing lead outs or dropping our sprinter off in a position he might be able to use. i have a good kick but if you look at the coggan profiles, you can see that's not all that much power for a 72-72.5kg rider. i train alot with one of the guys around here who has won a huge number of sprints this year. in 2 years of training with him i've only beat him twice in a sprint... and those were on training rides, not in races. he usually comes around me with 50 meters to go. if i really focussed on making myself a sprinter i could probably get a decent number of top 5's but i don't see myself getting better than that.

even as a 3 i doubt i could have ever beat aubrey gordon... nor could i ever go head to head with those dominican and trinidad based sprinters you guys have in NYC!

as for specific sprint training - i would work on three things: your threshold, your ability to to sustain "super threshold" and vo2max level efforts, as well as your peak power/torque. 10 or 20 minute efforts, some 3 minute efforts... and for the peak neuromuscular power, sprint uphill!

in every crit i race as a 2 my HR never seems to stray far from what it is at threshold power, atleast for the first 15 or 20 and last 7-10 laps. wattage is all over the place and i, like every other rider ever, have a hard time sustaining big jumps out of turns. i'd much rather do a steady 230 watts with 30% fluctation than 230 watts with peaks above 800.

rouleur

one more reply... from a late season crit with a hill, and two technical corners (both downhill, imagine that).

you can see that the average power for a pro/1/2 crit is not very high. 230-240 watts? i ride tempo at 240-290! the problem is the massive power spikes that happen when you don't end up anywhere near the front of the race all day, like me on this day.

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RapDaddyo

I agree with you about the power required in a true lead out. And, every sprint evolves differently, although the truly decisive part seems often to be the last 5-10 seconds. But, for training purposes, I like to train for what seems to be the most demanding sprint scenario -- when someone (never the winner) jumps early (e.g., 1 min from the finish) and I have to accelerate hard to stay in the game (e.g., 400w-600w), then wait to time the final jump. I'd rather practice that final jump when I hurt like hell rather than when I am fully recovered.

Woofer

I weigh 150-155 pounds and can do 16+ w/kg fairly regularly in end of race sprints and can't do squat in cat 4 races in norcal cause I am not smart/strong enough to be near the front. If you're in Las Vegas I assume you are racing Nor Cal and Nevada so you have to be fit enough to stay near the front at the end of the race to be in position to sprint, which means more than 3.5w/kg FTP like me or about 5.something w/kg per five minutes.

RapDaddyo

I agree with the #s to be competitive, and it's SoNV and SoCal (Reno is NorCal). I don't know if I can get to the 16+ w/kg, even short duration, after a hard race. I'm certainly not there now. I'll have to see what 6 more months of training does for me.

rouleur

I agree, 400-600w then jumping is a realistic scenario - on the other hand it is not neccesarily a tactically advantageous one and if you did that in a race (chased a last lap attack) I do not believe you would be winning. You would essentially be the lead-out guy, but hey, someone has to chase, right?

That workout is really good. 400-600w for 45 seconds then sprint.. That really hurts! On the other hand I know that I would find it hard to do repeated efforts like that and still be able to meet my power goals for the workout. The 400-600 W for a minute is targetting your anaerobic power, which is a good workout, and the sprint is targetting your neuromuscular power... I'm not a coach, but I would generally make an attempt to target those systems in different workouts as I believe you'd be able to get more work in.

In regards to actual power numbers, I know several cat 4 sprinters that can generate much high peak power than I. On the other hand I can attack them and ride away on training rides and they don't have the fitness to do anything about it... They have more muscle mass, they race crits that are no longer than 20 miles. I've raced some crits this year that were 3 times that length, plus several 100 mile RR's. And another guy on my team, won 4 races back to back as a cat 3. He upgraded at the same time I did, and he didn't win anything this year... he didn't get into the top 10. he didn't finish more than 50% of his races. So what if you can do 1350+watts in a sprint - if you're not fit you're not going to be around to contest it, what is the point?