Originally Posted by
LGHT
Just read a post from a professional trainer. He dedicates 1 day to leg strength training.
Leg strength is only a limit for efforts well under a minute. After that your muscles run out of phosphocreatine.
Speed over anything taller than a highway overpass comes from your lactate system and aerobic fitness where the goal is maximizing the power (increase it with training) to weight ratio (decrease it with a calorie deficit) as suggested by gregf83.
Where your Clydestale status comes from middle-age-spread you can make much bigger gains by dropping weight.
I increased my power to weight ratio by 80% as in use the same cog but a 50 ring where I needed a 30. 28% increasing FTP from 180 to 220W, 49% dropping weight from 205 to 138.