Developing your sprint technique (SkillZ and DrillZ – January 18)
Ian Murray of Team ODZ leads the Castelli Ride Series SkillZ and DrillZ training ride each Wednesday at 6:30PM EST.
Each ride focuses on developing key skills for competitive riders, and each week Ian posts a written summary for the benefit of anyone who couldn’t make the ride. Here is the summary for January 18th, 2016.
Well, Murphy struck in glorious fashion tonight! This evening was plagued with technical issues with my Internet access and new headphones; however, we fought through it and did some good work on developing the technique to execute a sprint.
As was the case two weeks ago, I am back on the road. Earlier in the morning, I tested out using the treadmill in the hotel gym, my Stryd power meter (meant for running) with Zwift set to cycling on my iPad, and with Discord open on the cell phone. It worked awesomely… until a ton of sweat found its way into the microphone on my headphones. We’ll call that set number three in the last six months and the first victim of 2017. New headphones were purchased over lunch, but I didn’t have time to do much testing before the event. It worked on the way to the hotel gym and subsequently failed as soon as I got on the treadmill. Fortunately, the Discord users could hear me, even though I could not hear them. Anyway, I found out that typing on the iPad while running on a treadmill is only slightly less difficult than doing it on the rollers at home. On to SDR!
Today we focused on proper gearing for a sprint, both sitting and standing. One of the weaknesses that is fairly common among cyclists who do not practice sprinting against an opponent is improper gear selection. When we are going near full gas, it is easy to simply lift the pace and sprint. Doing it in a race, though, is often not that simple. Timing a sprint is very important, and in Zwift, there is often a brief lapse in pace before the sprint. That is because we have not figured out how to effectively execute a lead-out train like we would attempt during an IRL race. Thus, Zwift sprints tend to be from a small group, emulating IRL break away sprint finishes.
In the case of Zwift sprinting, it is critically important to ensure that you are in the best gear to start and finish the sprint with as little shifting as possible. Chains skip, fall off, and break more often when you need clean action. That is not due to Mr. Murphy. It is due to high stress placed on the chain and the rider subsequently putting the chain in a position of weakness. That’s why chains drop more often when climbing or sprinting than when just riding at a chill pace. It is not because of bad karma or because the cycling gods have it out for you. You simply rolled the dice and paid for a mistake.
As usual, we started with our 1.5 W/kg pace while riders were moving within the bunch to practice that skill. After about ten minutes, we moved on to the sprint class. To start the DrillZ, I had all of the riders shift to a gear that offered resistance while pedaling at about 80 RPMs. I picked that RPM target, as it is not so low that it is a grind to ramp up the speed, nor is it so high that power won’t spike on the “jump” that starts the sprint. The drill was simply to start at that 80 RPMs and accelerate up to 105-115 RPMs over 10 seconds. The point was just to feel how the graduated ramp up feels, not to be an example of how one should execute a sprint. We repeated the drill a number of times, attempting to ramp up the RPMs (and as a side product, the power) quicker and quicker each time, holding the maximum power at that high RPM level for five to ten seconds.
After a few iterations, we adjusted the starting RPMs, both upwards of 90 and down to the low 60s. This was simply to show inefficiencies that are inherent with starting the sprint from those RPM ranges. To be clear, all of these range assertions are based on the understanding that the rider is already working to some extent and not just soft pedaling. Starting from the 90s is effective to quickly get to very high RPMs, which is very helpful to respond to attacks, but the rider will likely need to shift one or two times to avoid spinning out and limiting power output. Starting from a much lower cadence provides a rider a greater power range in the same gear. However, most riders will find it difficult to accelerate quickly from such a low cadence, and the time it will take to achieve optimal cadence for power output may allow too great of a gap to open for the rider to cover. Think of this like shifting your vehicle from second gear to fifth gear. When you do that, you normally experience a lag and a slower building of speed, making it harder to merge into traffic. It is the same when pedaling at a low cadence, especially if it is being done at an already higher-than-normal power output.
After executing a number of these drills, we switched from a seated starting position to a standing starting position. Most of the time, we start our sprint from a standing position, and the gearing is often different. Normally, I find that shifting one or two clicks harder is a great starting point for a standing sprint. Also, I can start from a slightly lower cadence, normally around 75 RPMs, and still get a great run with maybe one additional shift. As I discussed earlier, the fewer shifts that you need to perform while the chain is under load, the less chance you have of dropping or breaking your chain. Like in the seated sprinting drills, we practiced our ramp ups, progressing from a slower, methodical build to ramping as quickly as possible and sustaining that max power.
Now, one thing is painfully clear to most cyclists who have tried to sprint from more than a few hundred meters: executing a standing sprint becomes counterproductive if you cannot keep the pedals turning fast and the power flowing from the legs. More often than not, the lactic acid starts burning in the legs, causing the rider to expend energy to stay out of the saddle rather than utilizing that energy to go forward at a high rate of speed. Thus, we finished up our ride by practicing the longer sprint of about 30 seconds. Starting from a standing position, riders accelerated to max power, held it for 5 seconds, dropped to a seated position, and held the effort for the remainder. We repeated the effort 5 times on 60 seconds of rest, bringing us to the end of our session.
Remember, executing a strong sprint is as much about technique as it is about raw power. Sure, someone like Kittel or Cavendish can absolutely crush 99 percent of us even with a poorly executed sprint from a technique perspective. However, you may be able to take the county line sprint or the Castelli Saturday Showdown win from your riding buddy despite him or her being a bit stronger. I can’t guarantee you a win every time, but it definitely gives you a bit of an advantage if you take the time to practice these techniques from time to time.
That’s it for now. Next week we will go over counterattacking techniques and timing. We will also be back to live streaming on Zwift Live on Facebook next week, so tune in live or catch the video later if you are not able to participate. Until then, Ride On!
Right from the gun, the lead peloton in the A category went fast and furious. Over the first laps on the classique course, the group narrowed down to 11 riders: Cartwright (KissRT), Garcia (Team X), Brock (PTz), Boniface (Team ODZ), Larsen, Ruane, Culebre, White, Onaindia (ADZ), Ostreng (HIL) and Hedgehog (KissRT). This group of heavy-hitters and well-known sprinters went on to cover the race course within 42 minutes.
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Accuracy
Another big group this week, as we jumped back into the subject of working efficiently as a group. Today’s focus was how to efficiently chase down a small break, expending as little energy as possible.
After the warm-up, we immediately got down to business. Like I said at the beginning, today was about controlled chasing of a small break. By small, I mean I sent one rider up the road. The ever faithful Chris V. went up the road on a moderate-hard attack for 90 seconds then dropped back to a steady 2.0 for the chase. I put a ceiling of 3.0 on the group, and we began working together to bring Chris back. Those who were able to do so took turns working the front of the group to maintain the pace, and those who couldn’t stayed in the draft. Keeping the pace steady meant a much smoother ride with fewer significant changes of pace. This allowed many of the riders with lower FTPs to be able to stay with the group, even at efforts greater than the riders could normally sustain on their own.
After a few more iterations, I moved to the front to play the surging game. In the surging game, all riders had to stay behind me and try to stay on my wheel. Meanwhile, I set about moving the pace from 2.0-3.0 w/kg in a completely random manner. Any rider who passed me had to stop pedaling, go to the back, and work their way back up to my wheel. Most riders found that period of time fluctuating back and forth to be much more difficult than the harder, steady efforts that we had been doing. This drill was simply to show everyone that keeping things steady is a much more efficient way to operate.
We closed off the ride with a couple short sprints, just so everyone could say that they got a decent workout. As we went through our cool down, we conducted a brief wrap-up of the evening’s lesson. First, hard but steady is way easier than constant surging over your limits in the long run. By maintaining a steady tempo, riders have more opportunity to share the workload. If the riders at the front are constantly jacking up the pace, there is little incentive for others to contribute to the chase. If only 3 riders are willing to do the work, it doesn’t matter if the chase pack is 3 or 50. It will still only have the strength of the 3 riders putting in the work. On the contrary, a steady pace will likely invite contributions from other riders, even it is not tactically smart to do so. The desire of most riders to stay near the front will inherently create space for the mistake of overshooting the leader now and again, meaning that there will be some contribution to pace setting.
