How fast is Cav?

[The_Mikester]

Thanks to Youtube and Universal Sports I have been able to get some fix of bike racing. One thing I love are the helicopter shots of sprint finishes. It blows me away how fast Cav is. And four TdF wins this year on top of his other palmares. Any idea how fast he was going, for instance at Milan-San Remo?

 

[ingsve]

Thanks to Youtube and Universal Sports I have been able to get some fix of bike racing. One thing I love are the helicopter shots of sprint finishes. It blows me away how fast Cav is. And four TdF wins this year on top of his other palmares. Any idea how fast he was going, for instance at Milan-San Remo?

I think that depends alot on what the road at the finish looks like. For example if there's a turn in the last 500m or if it's completely straight so that a leadout train can build very high speed. Also it depends on if it's slightly uphill, flat or slightly downhill.

On average the sprints vary between perhaps 60 km/h up to around 75-80 km/h in good situations.

The important thing isn't how fast an individual is however since that varies from sprint to sprint. What matters is how much faster someone is to his competitors.

I don't know exactly about Milano - San Remo but I would guess that that wasn't the fastest sprint of the year by any means. Cavendish had to suddenly jump onto Hausslers wheel and then he got past him so he had to do alot of the work himself and had he been able to get a higher starting speed from a lead out his maximum speed in the sprint would have been higher.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Thanks to Youtube and Universal Sports I have been able to get some fix of bike racing. One thing I love are the helicopter shots of sprint finishes. It blows me away how fast Cav is. And four TdF wins this year on top of his other palmares. Any idea how fast he was going, for instance at Milan-San Remo?

As fast as you want him to be!

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

He is easy the best sprinter around, but a lot of his sucecess has got to come down to the dominance in the final kms by columbia.

 

[Frans Rutten]

Thanks to Youtube and Universal Sports I have been able to get some fix of bike racing. One thing I love are the helicopter shots of sprint finishes. It blows me away how fast Cav is. And four TdF wins this year on top of his other palmares. Any idea how fast he was going, for instance at Milan-San Remo?

Thanks to Youtube and Universal Sports I have been able to get some fix of bike racing. One thing I love are the helicopter shots of sprint finishes. It blows me away how fast Cav is. And four TdF wins this year on top of his other palmares. Any idea how fast he was going, for instance at Milan-San Remo?

I can't answer your question specifically about Milan-San Remo.
In general there's a lot of mystery around finishing top speeds in road racing.

From Cipollini and in particularly of Petacchi is said that they occasionally reached a top speed of 74km/h. I've never heard any reliable figure of Cavendish, although he is IMO not by definition a speedster, but rather an extreme good tactician and accelerator.

He won in 2003 the 200m qualification during the British Juniors in 11,387s and beat a.o. the now famous Jason Kenny (11.985).

But on the SRM website (from the manufacturers of the famous Powermeter) there's a lot of stuff. It's in German.

Navigate: Select (left) Event Blog. Select on the bottom Seite (page) 8 and you will find the powerfile of the last km of André Greipel (also one of world's best sprinters), while winning the 4th Stage of the Deutschland Tour in 2008.

He was involved in a 3-way sprint with Mc Ewen and Robert Förster.
On page 9 you will find the powerfile of the same race of Robert Förster.
Average last km: 60.6km/h/659W and accelerating in 24s from 39,5km/h to top speed of 71km/h.

60km/h is, unless slightly uphill, and no considerable adverse wind, easy in a peloton sprint. Rember top track cyclists can from a stand still reach 60km/h in rather 10s. If there's a tailwind involved not to speak of slighly downhill, the top speeds wil soar.

 

[Pharazon]

when Cav gets his proper lead out he can pull out of a slipstream and accelerate like no one else i've ever seen (bear in mind i've not been following cycling for that long)...

he doesn't have the ability to sustain that speed like some sprinters though, although he does have a wicked second kick if he needs it..

i read somewhere that he can hit 80km/h given the right conditions

 

[ingsve]

when Cav gets his proper lead out he can pull out of a slipstream and accelerate like no one else i've ever seen (bear in mind i've not been following cycling for that long)...

he doesn't have the ability to sustain that speed like some sprinters though, although he does have a wicked second kick if he needs it..

i read somewhere that he can hit 80km/h given the right conditions

The old king of the lead out was Mario Cippollini who was the one who perfected the lead out tactic with the infamous red saeco train. The thing that's diffrent with Cav is that he's more explosive than really doesn't need a leadout. The point of a leadout is to build speed that the sprinter can then maintain. Other sprinters have the kick to get into that high speed themselves without a leadout. McEwen is a prime example of this.

Cavendish is somewhere in the middle since he is very explosive but he is also a very strong sprinter who can also benefit well from a leadout. The biggest advantage to his leadout though is that he gets in perfect positions and don't have to fight as much to get the best wheels.