Yeah I run at max cycles too, it works nice for some games (we accept max in Hocus Pocus, another DOS game).
I think the game gets max speed around 10000 cycles, so that could be a reasonable number to follow. Max cycles can get insanely higher than that with a good pc, but some DOS games don't speed up after a certain threshold (I think I got the same speed here with 50000 cycles, but I haven't timed transitions yet).
In any case both max and set cycles are pc dependent, max cycles will go slower with a slow pc, and fixed high cycles will cause lag and sound glitches in slow pc's.
Also I think it's important to set a DosBox version (I've seen various inconsistencies with some special builds). DosBox 0.74 It's the most stable version in my experience with DOS games.
I've figured that the previous WR run was doing ~15000 cycles, which I feel would be a good value, as 10000 just feels... gross.