[webbo]

I remember reading Lance Armstrong's book a while back, and (IIRC) when he was in training mode, he'd sleep for close to 14 hours a day.  His schedule was something like:

Eat breakfast
Ride for 5-8 hours
Eat
Nap for 2-3 hours
eat
Ride for 2-3 hours
eat
Sleep for 10+ hours


With changes based on how long of a training day it was.  Granted this was also fueled by drugs, so I'm not sure where they fit into the schedule.

For most people, I'd argue (and have before) that for optimal recovery, 8hrs is almost the
minimum, with 9 being better.

You missed out the times for having a bag of blood injected.

[webbo]

I think my diet's not bad: red meat, 5 fruit and veg, egg whites, protein shake, milk (skimmed only), creatine, glutamine, tribulus per day. I'm wondering how much sleep I need to see some decent gains.

On that diet I'm surprised you get any sleep, I would have thought you'd spend most of the time on the bog trying to squeeze one out.

[moose]

Guardian article on a sleep expert to the sporting elite (sundry PL teams, Team Sky etc).  The TL:DR version elite athletes typically do best with 5x 90 sleep cycles but the order / arrangement is not important.  More important than quantity though is a relaxed bedtime environment: dark, good temperature, no backlit computer screens intruding etc:

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jul/23/nick-littlehales-the-man-who-taught-cristiano-ronaldo-how-to-sleep

[TheTwig]

Sleep as much as possible, though I would say make sure you have a solid meal before sleeping. I always sleep better on a full stomach, or at least a protein shake. Things like ZMA (it's helped me alot) might help too.

When I was doing competition swimming I would train in the morning, sleep, work, train in the evening, sleep, rinse and repeat