Just thought I'd share with you all something that worked for me really well over the weekend at my first race. Admittedly, it may not work for everyone, but it strikes me as a fairly universal thing.

When you wanna shift during a sprint, have your right foot at the bottom of a revolution. Seems to shift more crisply.

Also, vive la thumb button. It rocks at shifting during those last few crazy yards.

oh yeah, there's a definate art to shifting these things that means u can upshift, even more than one cog, smoothly even under power on a steep incline.... u really get to know these things, and how to make em work best, and thus defecting becomes unthinkable. Now i know why god gave me opposable thumbs.