Originally Posted by
VT Biker
As someone newer to racing, my max sprint alone is about 31.5 mph. But I do wonder if someone can provide me with insight as to the typical gear ratios used for sprinting?
Also - are 1 minute intervals essentially the best training program for sprinting?
As others have said, 15s to 20s efforts are better for training a pure sprint. For a road race or crit sprint, 1-minute intervals will greatly help keep you in contention before the sprint starts, and will help you to have some legs left when the sprint starts.
For sprint training, I usually do drag-races with friends. Count out 200m (25 strokes in your 53/14). This is a good distance for sprinting. We roll up to the start line at a predetermined speed (usually 20mph), leave it in one gear (your choice) and try to get to the finish first. Recovery is extremely important, and it takes about 5 minutes to get the lactic acid out of your muscles. I'm usually good for 6 sprints, but I don't recover as long as I should (on my lunch break).
When your performance really starts to fall off (compared to training partners or max speed for the day), you should stop. The teardown is complete. If you want to ride more, it's a great time to do an aerobic base ride from there.