Duration matters in sprints. Peak power is meaningless as it is only one data point. Better to look at 10s average. 900 for ten seconds would be decent, won't win you a bunch gallop unless you catch people napping. If you can believe some good road racers I've talked to: 1300 for five sec for a small guy, 1500 for 8s for a 80kg dude, another said 30sec at over 1000w for lead up and sprint.

Depending on fatigue I can lay down 800 to 1100 for 10s and have had my doors blown off in more sprints I care to remember. Won a couple from very reduced fields though.

There's no way in hell I ever reach 1500. Holy crap.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

1092 for 10s is my best, I start to fall off very quickly between 15 and 20 seconds.

For me in crits, which always always ended in bunch sprints, good race results would yield 1min avg about 525w. 10sec would top out at 850w??

1128 for 5 seconds, and 1080 for 10 seconds are my bests in training.

Power curve for 2015 tells me 972W for 10s. Off a ~340W FTP. And, as a roadie, I'm almost a pure TTer. Not any sort of legit sprinter.

20' intervals don't wreck anything. You need those, whether tri or roadie.

You just need to do more short intervals. A lot of roadies don't explicitly do very short intervals. You just naturally do them on the course of competitive group rides. Town line sprints, etc.

Looking at my power curve for 2015

I see my 5s is 1048
My 10s is 1001

HOWEVER, I am heavy (115kg) this means that my w/kg is 9.11 / 8.70 ... which means i am likely far slower than the other responders. (I am working on dropping the weight... it is just a slow process)

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I do the same thing as them, just slower

I thought there was a reasonable theory that sprint training helps to increase muscle recruitment for aerobic activities. Being able to utilize additional muscle during lower intensity aerobic activity distributes the workload over more muscle fibers and could reduce overall fatigue. Not sure if there is science out there to back that up.

For all my long aerobic rides I toss in 2-4 15 max sprints. Took me a while to figure out that my sprints were not MAX enough, I was always holding back. Now, I focus on trying to tear my cranks off and do a small bit of yelling. :D

1207 for :10, on my tri bike, on the bullhorns, on a trainer. I've got a few peaks in the 14s.

Also, please check my classified listing for a lighlty used P3. Slight creak in the bottom bracket.

Bit over 1000w for 10sec, 15.5 w/kg (which can matter) and pretty aero (also matters even on a road bike) off an FTP around 280w. I do ok in sprints with that in races and local "worlds" type rides. I'm a Cat4, although perhaps considered a sandbagging Cat 4 due to not racing enough to upgrade (or racing TTs which don't count for upgrades).

For n=176 male and female cyclists, ranging from weekend warriors and master fatties to National and/or World Champions in various disciplines, I have an average of 990 +/- 229 W, with a minimum of 517 W and a maximum of 1475 W.

It would be awesome if one of the slowtwitch coaches could weigh in on this topic.
How beneficial is this type of training?
What kind of sets?
How often?
And when in the training cycle?

Best this season was 1075 for 5 seconds (the absolute peak was 1170). The 10 second average from the same attack was 913, I don't know offhand if that was the highest for that duration all season. It wasn't a field sprint, attacked on the back side of a crit course, got a gap and solo'd off to nab a preme.

FWIW I'm a mediocre cat 4 on the road and a newly upgraded 3 on the track (where I suspect I'd have mildly higher numbers if I had a powermeter on that bike).

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All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

Any chance to (roughly) normalize that to W/kg?

I'm in the same boat as many of y'all: within the last rolling year, I've a few high 800's for 10s at ~72 kg. So putting a band around 12.2-12.4 w/kg for 10s.

In other words, any sprint I engage in is a sprint I lose. :)

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

Power PRs @82kg:

Peak: 1807
5s: 1485
10s: 1389
30s: 1080
40s: 1005
60s: 808

ftp isn't that great (~320), so i'm pretty tuckered when coming to the line in a race.

I've got a few 1160+ w for 12 seconds. FTP is around 340ish in season. 74kgs. Cat 1.

cat 3, 67-70kg depend on time of year, 10 sec just over 1100. But at the end of a race, where it actually matters, around 1000.

2015 MMP says

10sec 1113w
5min 472w
20min 398w
60min 361w
5hrs 251w

I'm taking screenshots before sending the powertap in for repairs

Nobody asked about your other durations! This is supposed to be embarrassing for our preselected pathetic sample of "slowtwitchers"!!

My best 10s is somewhere in the high 800s...and I race against guys like Marcotte and Haedo. NRC Crits are like me bringing a nail file to nuclear arms race.

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Professional Athlete: http://jordancheyne.wordpress.com/ http://www.strava.com/athletes/145340

Coaching Services:http://www.peakformcoaching.com/

70kg. 1135 10 sec.

Never really considered myself a sprinter, but got a bit better by actually practicing sprints.

Cat 4, 303w FTP, 600w - 1 min. Starts working shorter durations this year with good results. Working in tabata intervals this offseason on the spin bike.

Around 1100w this year. I'm 80kg, 265w ftp on a road bike. If I remember right, I could hold 800 for 20 seconds and 600 for 30. Jonnyo had me do a 10, 20, 30, 20, 10 all out a few times this year, bloody hard workout. I let my strava premium expire, but I think I was sitting at 450w for 1min power.

I found it really hard to get spun up for that sort of effort. Bike race sprints for me are always closer to 1min power.

held little over 1300W in an uphill sprint finish for 10s. FTP towards end of season was 304W, weight was 78kg. Peak Power for that 10 s was 1478W.

Won that road race (stage 1) and went on to win the stage race TT and GC. 1 min max was 620W.

Big part of why I switched over to bike racing only this year, went from Cat 5 to Cat 3 in one season.

1406, really useful for long course tri
On the plus side - I don't have to burn many matches to accelerate out of turnarounds