Hi Everyone
I am a Clydesdale (+100kg) and 6’3 tall. I am diesel engine with a good C Grade FTP and ideally suited to the flat races where FTP watts are great. Unfortunately my sprinting sucks as I max out at 7.5W/kg for 15 seconds (800W). So I generally hope it’s a smaller group at the finish and I take a flyer from 1km out to win.
My question is how much of a factor does my weight have on my sprinting? Does my larger mass mean that I am slower to get up to speed even if I am putting out more raw power?
ie in an upcoming race I can see that I have the 5th best raw 15sec power but 13th in W/kg. Everything else being equal would I come in 5th or 13th?
typically the lower your peak power, the earlier you want to sprint and try to hold on to whatever power you have. at 55kg i have a peak power of 1180w so my sprints are usually 30s+, i can achieve some strong segment times/races wins if i do this because nobody likes to sprint for 30s and if you get a 1s gap on everyone else (if you go early enough, you will) then the race is already over. if i was 75kg+ and had a peak power of 1700w i would go later, but we work with what god gave us
the easy way to remember this principle is that zwift sprints are based on momentum, not power… and it takes a little bit of time to build up momentum in zwift
Yes I am thinking I need to go really early. I can usually hold out a group of 10. If I go about 1 to 1.5km out and get a gap. I guess I just need to practice a little bit more my finishes and train for sprints.
