Some useful notes from Australian Sprint Cycling Coach

Cheers dino - what are "down hill sprints"?

I put in the standing starts cos I found myself not being able to get up to speed fast enough on lap 1 sometimes - not enough to catch up with sneaky b*ggers that try to nab a 3 lap race by putting the hammer down in the first 100m ...

RPM, no worries. a big whatever. what i said was that the embankment was a surprisingly safe place to have fast sprint races and I asked where else the same could be said. I think you brought a diva's supply of baggage to that debate so maybe we should just leave it there ;o)

in my experience most of the time people get left behind at the start of a race its not down to starting speed, its due to not being switched on and bunch placement, just make sure you line up first on the fence and stay alert and that should solve it.

Down hill sprints just as the others have said, use gravity to take you into over speed, so you can experience high rpms and actual speeds with out killing yourself just accelerating up to them.