I was thinking more rum than tums, but to chacun a son gout.

I'm a sprinter-type rider and finally broke down and got a smart trainer with a power meter last year - long after my road and track racing days. For reference, I did my best on the track and enjoyed match sprints - the shorter the better. Last night I had all four sprint/KOM jerseys on the Douce France course but I'm near the bottom of the list anytime I do Alpe du Zwift or Ven-Top. What I've learned is there are so many trade-offs with physiology in cycling. When I was in college, I bulked-up quickly working out at the gym and adding muscle mass was always easier than, say, running where a low BMI is a huge benefit.

What I can tell is you that my 20 minute power today is around 320 but that varies depending on the day. What's interesting is that my one-hour power is significantly lower than that because of my physiology - maybe only 285 but I rarely try to go full gas for that long and age is a factor. Normally people's FTPs are 95% of their FTP but mine is more like 85%. My current on-trainer peak power is in excess of 1,700 Watts and my 15-second power is in the mid 1,300s. The trainer's power meter is rated to 1,500 Watts so my peak is beyond the trainer's rated capacity and I probably have more power on a real bike in a real world environment, especially a track bike. No idea what it was 10-15 years ago but I've left a trail of broken wheels and chains in my wake as recently as Saturday when I ripped a spoke out of the rim of my beloved 303 on a group ride sprint. Speaking only of myself, my peak power is about six times my FTP so the climbs are slow but winning a sprint comes down to how much I'm willing to suffer trying to keep up with high FTP riders getting to the line. I imagine a pro-tour GC rider has a peak power to FTP ratio more like 3 as opposed to 6. That means they can put out more power over the long run which is what makes them a fantastic endurance rider. I doubt I could even hang with the slowest sprinter in the TdF as I've never been able to train up that kind of long distance capability and I'm way too heavy these days but I can completely deplete myself in a 30 second effort where an endurance rider might take 30 minutes or more to do the same. Not sure how helpful any of this was but it comes down to muscle strength vs. endurance, I suppose.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...bb3321aabc.jpg

Mark Cavendish, the most successful sprinter in the TdF, generates nowhere near as many watts as many good amateurs or his Pro peers...being a great road bike sprinter is not about absolute power.
I'm primarily a sprinter too and locally I'm among the fastest in my region even at 51 yrs - including some Continental Pro's who live here - with only a little over 1200watts and 65kg. Obviously I can't race anymore at anything remotely close to what the top guys can in terms of high level competition and wouldn't be anywhere near to being at the finish to even try and compete but at training, Club and domestic amateur racing level I'm ok.

Power to weight, endurance, cadence, race-craft - all these combine to produce the top sprinters and as others have stated, World Tour Pro's can climb too, relatively speaking. Andre Greipel and other sprinters feature very highly on many steep local climbs from the Volta ao Algarve.

Cav himself states: "I'm doing 1400, 1500 watts, they're doing 1800, 1900 watts, which is a good 20% more. But I can pedal that much quicker. I can pedal with an extra 10% cadence. And that's the difference".
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/33...difference.%22

I have also heard him mention that he has worked on his position so it as aerodynamic as possible.

Pedaling that much quicker doesn't make a difference. It just means he's in an easier gear. Maybe he meant a higher cadence allows him to accelerate or jump quicker? That doesn't make a lot of sense the way it's written.

He's also said this in an older interview:

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/m...-interview-152

Yes, Cav isn't known to be the sharpest brain about the Peloton so he can be somewhat confusing when voicing his thoughts at times :D I'd agree that in cadence he probably refers mainly to his initial jump but it depends largely upon the course I think too, sometimes I'm quicker with a higher cadence in a slightly lower gear, others grinding a larger gear. Hard to say actually which is faster in all situations. Ultimately, the point he made that the fastest sprinter isn't necessarily the strongest is something I would agree with given that for road racing specifically, there are many factors that come into play.

That said, for other cycling disciplines such as track sprinters, BMX etc I'd imagine that they will generally rely more upon outright power in some events though albeit other factors will also play their part but maybe to a lesser degree. Dunno.

At the start of any Tour de France, there are 4, maybe 5 guys who have a realistic shot of winning the whole thing, and they all ride for the teams with the absolute biggest budgets and most resources. There are maybe an additional 4 or 5 guys who have a realistic shot of making the final podium. Some of these 8-10 guys are probably on the same team (eg, Dumoulin and Roglic this year, Froome/Thomas/Bernal in the past).

So of the 20 teams that start to the Tour, about 12-15 or so know for a fact at the start that they cannot win the overall, so have to come up with some other way to get on tv and please their sponsors. For low-budget teams (like B&B Hotels this year) that can be as simple as putting a guy in the break for the day. They know he won't win, but his sponsor's name is on the tv for 3 hours in the middle of the afternoon throughout France.

For medium budget teams, it makes sense to hire a sprinter who can win those flat stages (there's always 5 or 6 flat stages at each TdF, and if your sprinter can get over a couple of hills like a Peter Sagan, that can be 7 or 8 total), and build your team around supporting that guy. Those sprinters are usually bigger guys who make their name and their living the rest of the year winning tough races with lots of pushing and shoving and crosswinds and steep cobbled climbs in Belgium and Holland and northern France.

But even with the sprinters, there's only 4 or 5 of them to win the handful of stages, and when one sprinter like a Cavendish or Kittel has a hot year and wins 3 or 4 of them, there's not much left for anyone else. And that's why a team like Sunweb worked out that their sprinter, Cees Bol, wasn't at the races this year, so they would need to create other opportunities on the transition stages for their other riders like Hirschi and Kragh Anderson.

One thing to note, if you've never rode a track bike, especially the track bike this guy is using on the cadence test, then you cant even imagine how much of an advantage he had. At least for the cadence test. After initial speed up, his power input can be significantly lower than that of a road bike. It almost becomes more of a skill than an equation of power. To test my theory, go and try and bomb a hill on a track bike.

Bike races are chess matches at high speed. Different body types are the bishops, knights, rooks etc. The job of each rider or team is to place himself or teammate in a place where he can use his ability to arrive at the finish line first. No prized are given for most watts, least watts, best average ... There are lots of ways to win. Riders who may not have the highest power level in the peloton but are very crafty about getting themselves on the wheel that will take them one explosive pass from the line, using a more powerful sprinter as a locomotive. There are riders who are not sprinters at all but very good at slipping away a long ways from the finish and riding in time trail mode for perhaps hours. Now, in a 130 mile flat race, it's tough being a pure climber. FOr mose, they are racing for the magic letters "st" (same time").

Ben - for whom "st" was a victory more than once!