genejockey 

BITD, every damn farm had at least one German Shepherd mix. Always off-leash.

rsbob 

Was able to outsprint one dog and fortunately was in the right gear at the time. But two years ago, I heard mad barking closing in and decided to take off. Looked back and there was no dog!? Then looked ahead and the dog was pacing me just a little ahead to my right. It ran with me for a quarter mile after I blew up. He took off down a dirt road never to be seen again, but no doubt enjoyed the run.

I used to run with my black lab mix and on the days I couldn’t take her running, I would take her out on leash as I rode. One day I decided to see how fast she could go and she topped out at 26 MPH and she was probably 10.

There is one dog near me behind a long chain link fence that likes to chase and bark. Having nothing better to do, I road to one end of the fence, turned around and rode back to the other about 15 times as that dog ran full speed. It finally gave up and laid down panting. I had a good laugh

carpediemracing 

My Eddie story is the opposite. I was riding with a college teammate and a good friend. As a team we'd done a semester of bike handling drills, 2x a week, about 10-12 weeks, including front wheel touching. We were hammering along some road, going 25 mph or so, and a dog started running toward the road from really far away, like 50 yards. To me it was a complete non-threat, like we'd be gone before the dog got to the road.

My teammate though, I had no idea he was scared of dogs. So he slammed his brakes on 100%. I hit his rear axle (left side) so hard I rubbed the finish off the axle, and lifted the rear wheel off the ground. Neither of us went down but now we had to get going to get away from the dog (who was no threat, but to my teammate the dog was a threat). We took off, the adrenaline from the close call pumping me up. We had a good laugh about it once we calmed down.

A turn into a slight downhill then a slight uphill. 35.5 mph avg, 38.7 max. https://www.strava.com/segments/22638741
40.7 max, kind wind. https://www.strava.com/activities/10...ysis/1694/1721

Strava power is wrong as they are estimated. I am significantly weaker for sustained efforts.

In the old days, no proof, 42-46 mph with a pack, dedicated leadout, slight uphill going into a slight downhill, tailwind. SUNY Purchase Tues Night Sprints. There were multiple people that were going that fast, and speeds on computers matched.

And for kicks, drafting trucks. 49 mph (yellow truck) and 49.5 mph (white truck), both started on slight downhill but immediately went into a slight uphill for the actual drafting bit. Start at 2:30 for the yellow truck.

For sprints, the biggest thing I found that helps with out of saddle sprints is to have enough weight on the front end, and that means, for me, the bars need to be low enough. I tried to adapt to a slightly higher bar position and had some of the scariest sprints in 30 years. When I went back to the lower drop position, I was fine again.

Also, first practice sprint technique at slow speeds, big gears, low rpm, low effort. Pretend you're sprinting in slow motion, like NFL rerun things. Sloooooow mooootion. You learn the movements first, then do them faster and faster (gearing drops as you start to get the movement, then gear goes back up as you start actually sprinting). Rocking the bike is critical when out of the saddle - you can't really sprint effectively out of the saddle without rocking the bike. When out of the saddle, your head should go in a relatively straight line (you can see that in the yellow truck draft above pretty clearly because you can see my shadow, but in the white truck you can't tell as easily). Your bottom bracket tracks a straight line. Your tires will wiggle left right a bit, so will your saddle.

Remember that torque (aka force) x rpm = watts. So if you feel limited with your torque then you should increase rpm. It might not feel harder but you might get more power. All my best power numbers came from efforts where I was disappointed because I didn't think I went hard enough, but due to the higher rpm, I hit higher numbers. Not crazy cadence, just an extra 5 or 10 or 15 rpm.

For mechanicals... a well installed, not-worn chain and drivetrain will not skip. If you're getting skipping on a new chain, either the chain was installed wrong or something else on the drivetrain is worn. If your chain rollers (in the middle of the chain) look anything but nice and squared off, you should think about replacing the chain. I've reliably hit 1500-1700w in sprints on road chains, shifting while I sprint 100%, with no issues. Road pros hit much higher power with no issues.

And that's my last tip - to sprint well, us mortals that start sprinting at non sprint speeds can use gearing to repeat our initial jump, vastly increasing our average power over the course of the sprint. So if my initial jump when I'm at the end of a ride/race is 1200w, I can do 1200w jump, accelerate maybe 4 revs, then shift with another peak that's a bit lower due to fatigue, like 1100w, then go 4-6 revs, then shift again with a fatigued peak of maybe 1000w. With a properly installed chain, with a good drivetrain, you can do this every single sprint. And every single time you're accelerating hard out of a corner or whatever. One gear at a time, if you shift 2 gears at once that can cause you to bog down.

BlazingPedals

The fastest I've ever been clocked on flat ground was 39 mph. There was no wind, but it was a hot humid day, which helped.