I have a fairly decent bike and would like to be able to chase when the people I ride with attacks. How do I explode and stay on their wheel? I ride cheap set of wheels (Xero xr1) on my CAAD9. Can that impede me from quick acceleration because of the low spoke count? I weigh 142.1lbs in a compact crankset.

Thanks,
Katherine

The answer is simple: You need to train more.

That doesn't mean you can't enjoy the perks of owning a nice wheelset, but buying new wheels isn't going to automatically boost your speed and acceleration capabilities. A 1300 gram wheelset is definitely going to get up to speed faster than a 2000 gram wheelset, however. Spoke count isn't going to matter for you at 142 lbs.

^^
And learn to suffer

Specifically, you need interval training. Riding at a constant pace won't prepare you for racing.

Go get Carmichael's book and start doing the workouts.

Unfortunately for you (and many others), your fast twitch muscles and corresponding 5s, 10s and 20s power outputs are the least trainable energy systems, physiologically speaking.
In layman terms: You're either born a sprinter or not.

You can and likely do have room to improve your form, however.

In addition, another way to address your problem is to raise your threshold and power outputs at longer intervals, such that you can respond to said attacks with more force and more frequently.

whats up with the gay pic?

lol

When talking about acceleration, spoke count isn't as important as mass at the outside of the tire. Or, in other words, weight closer to the center of the wheel (spokes) isn't as harmful as weight near the outside edges (near the rims). So technically speaking, if you have two wheels with different spoke counts, but all other things equal including total weight, the one with more spokes will give you ever so slightly more acceleration. This is because the one with more spokes will necessarily have less weight at the edge.

This is going to make a tiny, itsy bitsy difference in the real world. Without doing the math explicitly, I would expect the difference in accelerations of our hypothetical wheels to be on the order of 0.1%-0.5% at most. Real world wheels with fewer spokes will usually be a bit lighter than those with more, so let's call it an upper limit of 1%.

As everybody else pointed out, proper training (plus gear/cadence selection and reaction time to start accelerating) will make a much, MUCH bigger difference than choosing a wheel based on spoke counts.

Get out of the saddle and sprint to hunt them down

Get rid of the extra "l" out of accelleration

+1

Acceleration doesn't change much with training, not for the first few seconds.

pedal faster, harder, longer.

Whats up with everyone asking about the pic? In every thread?

+ 1000

If you can't suffer you will always suck.

If you aren't willing to go so hard that your vision is impared you are done.

if you are willing to do that then keep going until your sphincter lets go.

If that is okay with you then genetics will determine if you really have a shot at sucking or not.

Some people just don't have any jump

I agree with this, the bike and wheels have nothing to do with his problem, some people just dont have it. Some people just ride 53x14 for years and suddenly after the year #4 they start wondering why instead of getting faster they got slower and slower.

Too many things to mention, but the op should start describing candence he use, gears he use, etc etc because there is no way to know what are u doing wrong.

The saddest part for some riders is that they simply suck and not even training they will improve that much. I have seen and raced with people like that too, just givin' my opinion ok?

EPO or HTFU

Really? This is the first I've heard of that. Is a 1000w 5sec guy not ever going to hit 1500w with years of training?

I've gone from 1040 to 1170w over the last 7 months, and I do only training to raise FTP, no group riding, and no racing where sprints would matter so essentially I never sprint. It seemed to be rising along with all the other numbers, but now I'm a bit discouraged as to what the future holds for my sprinting.

Agree that light rims won't make a noticeable difference.

Besides having the power to make the jump, you need to have good threshold power. If you don't, you are burning matches just to stay in the group. Do that too often and you won't have anything left for the sprint. One way to keep from burning matches is to be smart about positioning in the pack. Don't be in the wind, don't leave a big gap to the next rider, be on the lee side when there is a cross wind.

Also, if your reactions are slow when the sprint happens then you have a larger gap to cross. Learn to anticipate when the pack is going to jam and get on it immeditately. If you react quick and hit it hard you can stay on the wheels without much more effort.

I will try to articulate it better than "pedal harder"

1. To train your legs, do max effort intervals from a near stop. You need to learn what it feels like to be using all available muscles at their max...every time, push yourself harder.

2. Higher cadence. It's easier to accelerate when you're already spinning. You can always hop down a gear if it's too easy. Be able to explode and spin up to 120rpm smoothly.

3. Equipment - fewer grams means less inertia which means faster acceleration at the same effort level. 454g = 1lb. Soul S2.0 are 1300g for $500.

going fast hurts. the pros make it look like it doesn't hurt most of the time. try playing poker.

More force or less weight.

You need more pop, girl!

If someone could increase their peak power by 50% in 7 years, we'd all be Cavendish, and he wouldn't be world champion. His sprint is allegedly in the 1800w range (1600w when he wasn't winning everything, and it went up a bit from there).

I got a powermeter after learning of a Cat 5, skinny guy, hit 1500w. I figured, heck, I should be able to blow that number out of the water. I've never broken 1600w, and my first efforts (mid-1400s) only went up to the mid 1500s, and I think it's more me being able to "test" better rather than me being faster.

Genetic ability caps us. That's why doping is so appealing - you can demolish that genetic cap.

You increased your power by less than 10%. That's realistic. It's possible to do that again.

I have a decent sprint. At 1200-1300w (typical for me) I'm not very fast compared to the others. But my FTP is low, a touch over 200w. Do I think I can train like mad and hit 400w FTP? That would represent a 100% increase. No way. How about a 50% gain? That's 300w.

No, the real world is 10-20%, maybe testing better will get another 10 or 20% (meaning not giving up, knowing how to pace oneself, etc).

So say you max out at 1250 watts next year. What's that mean?

It means you sprint as well as Floyd Landis in 2006. It means you have a better sprint than the guy that got 3rd at Elite (i.e. pro/am) Nationals. It means you'd beat me at most of the sprints I've done in races (and the only thing I can do is sprint). I won a field sprint leading it out from pretty far out and never breaking 1000w.

Don't get too caught up in numbers. But at the same time, if you're not totally killing it in sprints now, don't think that you'll be killing it next year.

do w/kg matter in a flat sprint? I've always assumed that absolute watts would matter more in a sprint that begins from, say, 28mph.

One thing I got going for me is the ability to accelerate, but I assume that's because I'm light. I just assumed that I get beat in sprint because the other guys have more absolute watts, but then again I've never seen their power profile.

So answer the OP's question, there are many things you can do to accelerate faster. Staying low (see Cavendish) and working on your sprinting form well help you get moving fast.

carpediemracing, thanks for the detailed reply. I guess I now know to not be surprised if I see my 5-10sec wattage plateau over the next few years. I'm only a year into cycling so hopefully I've still got some easy gains coming my way. I'm certainly hoping for a 300w+ FTP at some point. You seem to do pretty well for your power (at least from what I can tell), so it's obvious numbers aren't everything.

I'd guess w/kg matter during the brief acceleration phase of the sprint. After the acceleration it's probably w/CdA and how long you can stand the pain.