Spriting from 95w to 295w 10 secs

Hi all, I am new to zwift and cycling. I am doing the FTP builder 6 weeks. There is a training where it requires 10 seconds sprint of 295 watts from 95 watts of power. That means you need you need to have high cadence while shifting gears. How do you sprint switch gears very fast without almost cross chaining and without the sound of breaking your gears during the shift.

Creaking sound bothers me with shifting. Is it normal? I am using a ultegra 6800 mechanical groupset.

What trainer are you using?

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I am using a minoura b60r and a power meter. I use resistance level of 4 because the course is uphill. I am trying to mimic the gradient

Is it the “strength” workout, where the baseline (for you right now) is 95 watts steady-state, punctuated by a series of 10-second efforts (at 295w)? Or are you talking about ramping up over the course of 10 seconds from 95w to 295w? I think it’s the former. Yes, the cross-chaining and sound of breaking your gears is terrible. What I would try is the following:

  • find a rear cassette gear roughly in the middle of the cassette (i.e. that will be ok in front-small-ring low rpms for the 95w segments and also ok for big-front-ring high rpms for the 295w effort)
  • be small ring low cadence (like 70s) for the 95w segments; a couple seconds before the 295w effort, move to the big ring; time this so that you are completely shifted into the big ring just before the 295w effort begins; at this point, hammer away at high rpms (100+) to hit 295w for the 10sec.
  • as each 295w segment comes to a close, reduce torque in your legs and shift back down to the small ring / low cadence
  • this way, you’re only really shifting once, but you’re effecting the wattage change through a big cadence change

Yes, it was the FTP builder strenght. Thank you. I will try your suggestion.