PoorInRichfield Had been off the bike due to illness and scheduling issues. But I had been riding to work the last week and I remembered your post on the way home yesterday. I was on my main commuter, a 2015 Charge Plug (non-electric) 700x35 with drop bars, fenders and a back rack. I hit one of the sprint-friendly stretches and...

...well, it reminded me of when I was 43 and played softball for the first time in 13 years. I knocked the ball into short center field and started running, but my legs felt like lead. I was biking every day so I should have been faster...but no. By the end of the season I was quicker around the bases, and fast enough to field balls, but I never attained "quickness".

So here I am at 63, still biking almost every day and I started to sprint...with an imperceptible rise in my cadence. I got up off the saddle and, nothing.

But I am not giving up. I'm gonna get on one of my light-weight bikes and try sprinting. I've still got the strength (and gearing) to power up the local hills, and I've still got the stamina to ride 30 miles without thinking twice, but the sprinting/speed thing...It's gonna take some work.

Sprinting takes a different muscle groups than cycling uphills and long distance cycling. Keep at it and you'll bring back your Type 2A muscle fibers, but especially your 2X muscle fibers.



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^^^ The key to success! ^^^

Here in Wisconsin, outdoor riding is quickly drawing to a close, which means months of riding on Zwift. I think Zwift is a great platform to start sprinting again since there are actual sprint locations on most routes and the "ghost riders" can show you if you sprinted faster than the last time you did the same sprint. If one makes a solid effort to start sprinting again while indoors on the trainer, next Spring will be quite exciting when one goes back outside for the first time with a new-found sprinting capability!

Our group ride, which i do mwf, is at 19-22mph, depending on who’s pulling. The rides are between 50 and 56 miles, with a coffeeshop break. To keep the faster folks mollified, there are a couple of sprint zones ranging from .5 to 2.0 miles.

A couple of the fast guys do everything they can to not be the leadout guy in the sprint zones, so its often me pulling. Not Friday. The leadout guy was doing 27mph, which is fast enough for me, we got passed at the 1.5 mile mark and i still had beans so got up to 30 and passed the passers and stayed there to the lights.

That was my first real sprint in quite a while, and i admit it was fun. I ride for exercise and coffee, definitely not racing, but i can see the attraction.

I’d still rather pull, than pass towards the end, though.

I’ll be 72 in a few weeks, and i am so glad i found this hobby when i retired at 65.

I was on Zwift yesterday doing the first sprints of the season. Even though I'm slow and old, I still managed to place in the top 25%. That could mean that only 25% of the riders through there were actually sprinting and I came in last! I know the riders close by weren't sprinting.

On a Zwift ride, I was with a group of 4 that was working pretty well. But near the end of the ride, that cooperation evaporated in a flurry of attacks that left me off the back. On the last hill, I caught back on and countered, dropping 2. One rider tagged on and then took a coffee break (allowing them to follow without pedaling for a short while). I didn't think much of it, this was a friendly ride after all, and if we finished the ride together, ok. I continued to pull to put distance on the other two.

With about 1k to go, the rider on my tail finished his coffee break...and then proceeded to sprint away from me. Dammit, I thought that we had a gentleman's agreement. At first I thought, "Oh well, fair play to him. I got my workout. He played Zwift like a game." But then my competitive gene kicked in and I was like, "Not today, wheel sucker." I stood on the pedals, closed the gap. Ran out of gas. Sat down. Recovered. Noticed that the gap was still closing slowly. He was gassed too and hanging on for dear life. With the finish less than 200m away, I stood again and sprinted. It wasn't a pretty sprint and I was gassed, but I pipped him at the line and then collapsed on the bars.

frequently attributed to Churchill or Lincoln but in fact apocryphal. But also wise.

A 71 year old doing 30 in a sprint is awesome. I bow down.

Usually on Wednesdays.
A group of us do loops on Harbor Island.
Everyone knows to begin the sprint exactly at the palm tree, all the way to the end of the Island. It's about 30-45 seconds of sprinting/
I take the podium, every now and again, but usually when there's only three or four of us.

Not for a couple of years; but my goal for next year is to return to doing them.

While doing sprints the past few months, I started thinking about technique (not that it matters anymore) and whether or not it's faster to keep the bike straight or to rock it from side-to-side. In the video below, the rocking of the bike from side to side is called, "bike wag"... a term I've never heard before. I haven't figured-out if keeping the bike straight or if "bike wag" is faster for me, but the latter feels pretty cool when one has a side-to-side rhythm figured-out.

I was on Zwift today on their new Prospect Park route and placed 10th out of about 150 riders on the sprint. It helps that I ride Prospect Park IRL and know the road inside and out. The Zwift sprint isn't the same one I do in the park though that I mentioned in a post above.

I did some running sprints today. I hadn’t been doing enough consistent running during the summer to feel confident that would go well, but with the change of seasons, I’m running more. It went fine other than being very tiring. No pain or problems.

Edit: I went back and checked the data and Fitbit thinks my HR went just above 190 on several of the sprints. I guess I’m not surprised because it felt strenuous.

I don’t usually sprint on Sundays, but it’s really spectacular today and above 50F so I was thinking of also doing a ride on the Katy so I didn’t want to do a longer run.

Otto

30-minutes ago

Excellent video.

That 190 rate could be "cadence lock", where the heart rate monitor picks up your running cadence instead of your heart rate. Pretty common with wrist monitors and running.

190 steps per minute is a reasonable sprint cadence.

That’s possible, though it is also close to what I estimate my max HR to be.

I did 500m intervals last night and my HR was around 160 at the end of each. That seemed legit because I walked for most of a minute after each and my HR stayed around 160 for at least five seconds after I stopped running.

Otto

This past Saturday. On a marathon training run we encountered a stretch of road construction that blocked the sidewalk and lane next to it. Waited for a break in traffic, then sprinted the 75-100ish yards to the other end of the construction. The form was still there after many years.

Rouvy has recently introduced sprint segments. I experienced one today, at the end of the Montgenèvre ski resort climb.

It was quite the surprise. Suddenly this rider with a KOM sign hovering above him passed by, so I gave chase. I didn’t quite catch him, but I got close. It says I’m now #7 on the leaderboard.

Kind of fun, for a trainer ride.

Still considering this. I am suspecting that this happens with my FitBit sometimes on elliptical and when running. I don’t think Fitbit can deal with a chest band HR sensor, so I would need a different device. But honestly I’d be more likely to just quit wearing a tracking device.

Otto

Unless I'm on an all Z1 or Z2 ride, I always do a couple sprints, solo or against others. I like sprinting. But I'm, and always was, a terrible, slow sprinter! I only win a sprint when the others are still slower than me, and that doesn't happen very often.

...and so, in view of all the physiological reasons noted above, my daily commute includes two sprints each way, including one, 300 meter hill.

(Turning 70 this year, the sprints seem mandatory.)

Unless on a group ride, I inject one or two sprints. Usually they are short all out efforts on hill climbs rather than slowly grinding up them. Occasionally when doing a flat ride, I will inject a couple as well, just to get out of the saddle and break it up a bit.

Following some of the advice in this video, I apparently managed to break 1k watts while sprinting in Zwift this Winter. While going over 1k watts isn't a big deal for most, I don't think I've ever put out that much power since I got a smart trainer a few years ago. I'm also not so sure I'll be able to continue breaking the 1k watt barrier, but I'll take it!

Uh, if I could break the 800 barrier, I would consider that a major win. 1000 at age 71 is well beyond my ability now or even in my 30s. I wonder what percentage of people on this forum could break 1000? SierraRider definitely can you, but who else?