Tips for a 1 Mile Sprint

dagger

It's the clubs last meet of the season tomorrow and we're finishing off with what would appear to be a very 'simple and easy' 1 Mile Sprint.

In reality i'm sure it's not going to be 'simple and easy' so if anybody has any tips on what to do (or what not to do) please let me know!

My current thinking is to just blast it for the full mile but if anybody has any experience please please please feel free to share..........

Darren

amaferanga

Sit on a clubmate's wheel and then jump them with 50m to go for the win

rozzer32

Don't start your sprint at the start of the mile, will mean your sprinting for 1.6Km. You'll burn out way too early. Sit on the wheel and wait for the final 200m, then just go full gas.

dagger

Thanks guys, I was gonna try sprinting the full mile but thought that might be wrong! :?

I'm new to all this so might be going off first so may not have any wheel to get onto (until someone passes me and I have to try and hold on to their wheel!). Any suggestions for what to do if I am first off? Wont we be setting off at timed intervals anyway? :?

rozzer32

Is this a sprint or a time trial? As in are you riding as a group with a finish point and first across the line wins? Or you start at intervals and the quickest over the mile wins?

dagger

On the club website it classes it as a 1 Mile Sprint so i'm not sure. I can only presume that it will be run like a time trial with intervals and rider v. clock as it's on a busy A road? Can't see them setting us off in a bunch on that?

rozzer32

If it's a time trial. Just pedal like f**k as hard and fast as you can for the mile. If it is indeed a group sprint then see above.

fnb1

measured effort over the the distance a bit like wathing the pursuit team at work, work either with heart rate or power if you have it, good warm up before to get the muscles warm and heart rate elevated to get your system firing ready for a maximal effort then assuming TT type format, start fast but not quite full bore sprint starting effort, build quickly but steadily to 90-95% heart rate and hold and fight the pain, try to raise to MHR for final 400m and fkeep fighting the pain until 10m beyond the line, should all be over in -/+ 2 mnutes give or take if you have the lungs and legs for it, then find safe place to collapse and try to recover

dagger

So........

It was run like a time trial, we set of in one minute intervals. Only 5 of us there and the other 4 are seasoned club riders with 3 of them riding aero bikes. Finished it in 2mins 25secs (last place) but only 2 seconds off one of the aero riders and then 4 seconds behind another. The road has only just been resurfaced and the guys were saying this made it alot tougher.

It felt brutal! I sprinted off way too quickly and then couldn't maintain the effort :oops: . Was doing 27mph at first then couldnt't do anything when my speed tailed off down to 23/24mph. Still, it was my first attempt so i've learnt some valuable lessons

Anyway, got invited to join the clubs chain gang next Wednesday so can't have completely embarrassed myself?!?

oldwelshman

it should be ridden like a pursuit. A controlled effort out of the saddle for about 200m to get up to speed, then not quite flat out for rest of ride up until last 300m when you go absolutely flat out. Sounds like you blew too early. The trouble with short rides is if you go in the red you cannot recover.

Pross

Warm up for a good 20 minutes or more on rollers or a turbo trainer, gradually building the effort up to full level. Try to get as close as possible to riding straight from the warm up so you don't cool back down again.

EDIT Sorry, hadn't realised I was too late!

oldwelshman

Pross wrote:

Warm up for a good 20 minutes or more on rollers or a turbo trainer, gradually building the effort up to full level. Try to get as close as possible to riding straight from the warm up so you don't cool back down again.

EDIT Sorry, hadn't realised I was too late!

Actually the pursuiters normall do a 30 minute warm up then rest for20 to 30 minutes before event