Introducing William Rimkratt-Milkowski

Track cycling is probably the most intense cycling discipline out there. It’s filled with powerful, adrenaline-chasing riders who live for the thrill of racing in its purest form. 23-year old William Rimkratt-Milkowski is a 4-time Danish champion in the sprint discipline who is chasing so much more.

You have to learn to push yourself on such a short distance. It’s a mental challenge to completely empty yourself and leave everything out there on the track. Sometimes you’ll puke your guts out after just 2 of these intervals. Then you know that you’re only halfway there and on the last sprint your body starts to numb up

William competes in the individual sprint, a lonesome race against the clock with extreme amounts of watts. The sprint starts with a 200m flying start time trial to seed the riders for the knockout stages of three-lap races. The knockout stages pit two riders against each other. While the race is for 3 laps, only the final 200 meters are timed – the first rider to cross the line wins.

Chasing records

After winning his fourth national championship, William has set his sights on record chasing. During the Scandinavian championships this year, he set a time of 10.38 seconds – only three-hundredths of a second from beating the Danish record by Niels Fredborg from 1973 in Mexico City.

“I’ll beat it this year. That’s definitely a goal for me this season as a sprinter. It’s a record that has stood for so long, but I know that I’ll beat it soon.”

Weight training and explosions

In track sprinting, you don’t need the same mileage as roadies. Much of the training consists of heavy weightlifting and a few short but intense intervals.

“A day on the track might only consist of a warmup, 4-6 sprints and then a cool-down. You’ll have to have a long recovery between every sprint. That’s the life of a sprinter. You’ll just sit there and prepare for the next all-out sprint. People usually don’t really get that, especially not the road racers.”

As a track sprinter, William is applying a lot of torque to our Zpider during his hard sessions. How many watts can you produce for 10 seconds? Try and go above 1000w and you might get an idea of how hard this sport is.

GP of Moscow

William’s next event on the track is the Gran Prix of Moscow in June, where he wants to beat the aforementioned record during the flying lap qualification round.

“It’s the ultimate record in Danish track cycling. I already have the fastest time on a Danish velodrome, but I really want to beat this record. I have to beat it”

We are very proud to have him on board with us at TeamZWATT and we will be following his pursuits on the track throughout the year.