Dylan Johnson is one of the few cycling content creators whose YouTube channel has built an audience on the strength of training science specifically. The output is research-led, frequently contrarian, and consistently rooted in primary studies rather than coaching folklore. The audience overlap with Roadman Cycling is substantial — both channels speak to the serious amateur who wants the methodology, not just the marketing.
The conversation Anthony Walsh holds with Johnson on the podcast is the deeper version of the YouTube content. The two of them work through the season structure, the macrocycle, the mesocycle, the ABC race priority frame, and the oscillation training pattern Johnson has settled on for the 2025 Lifetime Grand Prix calendar. The episode is one of the cleanest piece of season-planning education in cycling content.
Listen to the full Dylan Johnson conversation →
This piece walks through the structure Johnson described, the principles behind each layer, and what translates for serious amateurs targeting bucket-list endurance events.
Start With The Calendar, Not The Training
The macrocycle question — how do you plan a season — has one structurally important answer that most amateurs skip. Place the non-negotiables first.
The framing comes from Dan Lorang, head coach at Bora-Hansgrohe, who Anthony has had on the podcast at length. Lorang's approach to season planning for World Tour athletes starts not with the race calendar but with life events. A rider getting married. A daughter being born. A family commitment that cannot be moved. These get on the calendar before any A-races, before any block planning, before any intensity scheduling.
The logic is that training fits around life, not the other way around. A season plan that ignores the wedding in May and the family holiday in August will collapse the moment those events arrive. The plan holds up better when the non-training commitments are placed first and the training is built around them.
For amateurs, this is the most important framing in season planning. Most amateur season plans fail not because the training is wrong but because the plan was written against an idealised calendar that does not exist. The work commitments, the family obligations, the recovery weeks built around real-life stress, all have to be on the calendar before the first interval is prescribed.
A-Races, B-Races, C-Races
Once the non-negotiables are placed, Johnson uses the standard ABC race priority structure. Two to three A-races per year. Multiple B-races as training stimuli with results that matter. C-races as harder-than-training rides that fit inside a build phase.
For Johnson's 2025 calendar, Unbound is the unambiguous A-race. The second is either Leadville or Big Sugar — the conversation flagged Big Sugar as the likely choice for a build that targets the back-end of the season. Three A-races would be possible. The decision against three reflects a self-honest assessment of recovery capacity across a long Lifetime Grand Prix season.
The structure matters because A-races are the only ones the build phase is designed to peak for. A taper is constructed around the A-race. Volume drops, intensity sharpens, the rider arrives fresh and fast. B-races and C-races sit inside the build — they are absorbed as training stimuli without disrupting the long-arc preparation for the A-race.
The amateur translation is direct. Pick two A-races. Map the year around them. Treat everything else as either training races or recovery rides. The discipline of saying no to a third A-race is the discipline that produces sharp form when the A-races arrive. For amateurs targeting events like the Marmotte, Etape du Tour, Italian gran fondos, or any of the British sportives, the same logic applies — pick the one or two that matter and build the year around them.
Block Periodisation By Volume
The most distinctive part of Johnson's structure is the periodisation choice. He has moved away from standard intensity-based block periodisation toward what he calls oscillation training — block periodisation built around volume rather than intensity.
The standard intensity-blocked version, well documented in the research, concentrates five or more high-intensity workouts into a single week, then drops to one high-intensity workout per week for the next three weeks of recovery. The total intensity matches a non-blocked four-week structure. The blocked structure produces a different adaptation curve — a sharper acute fatigue followed by a deeper recovery rebound.
The volume-blocked version Johnson uses for Unbound is the same logic applied to volume. A 30 to 35 hour high-volume week is followed by a 10 to 15 hour low-volume week. The two intensity sessions per week stay constant through both. The volume oscillates. The intensity is the underlying drumbeat.
The reasoning is event-specific. Unbound is a high-volume event — the elite men's race takes nine to twelve hours, with the leaders frequently above ten. The limiting factor is fatigue resistance across long durations, not peak power. The training adaptation that matters most is the ability to hold useful power into hour eight, nine, ten. Block periodisation by volume drives that adaptation more directly than block periodisation by intensity.
The recovery week is what makes the structure work. Johnson is explicit that the high-volume week — 30 to 35 hours, two intensity sessions, no easy days — is unsustainable across multiple weeks. The recovery week is what allows the body to absorb the stress. Without the recovery week, the high-volume week becomes a route to overtraining within four to six weeks.
For amateurs scaled-down versions, the structure could look like a 14 to 18 hour week alternating with a 6 to 8 hour week, with two intensity sessions per week held through both. The principle is the same. The numbers scale to the rider's capacity.
The Periodisation Order Question
Anthony raises the periodisation order question with Johnson directly — does standard periodisation outperform reverse periodisation, or are they equivalent? The reference is to the Stephen Seiler study comparing three orderings — standard, reverse, and randomised — across matched total intensity loads.
The Seiler finding was that the orderings produced equivalent adaptation when total intensity was matched. Johnson's response on the podcast is consistent with that. He uses standard periodisation because it matches the progression toward race specificity, not because the order itself is required for adaptation. The base, build, peak, taper sequence is a useful organising structure for thinking and for planning. The underlying physiology does not insist on it.
The implication for amateurs is that the order obsession in the cycling internet is overdone. The total intensity load matters. The recovery to absorb it matters. The order matters less. A rider who completes the right total amount of high-intensity work, recovers well, and progresses the stimulus across the build phase will produce the adaptation regardless of whether the high-intensity work was front-loaded, back-loaded, or distributed evenly.
For the deeper polarised training treatment that sits underneath this, see the Stephen Seiler 80/20 piece. For the wider intensity distribution conversation, see the polarised training guide.
The Sprint Training Insight
The most useful tactical insight in the conversation is the sprint training framing. Johnson identifies his sprint as a weakness — 1300 watts on fresh legs is competitive in absolute terms, but his end-of-Unbound sprint frequently drops below 1000 watts after ten hours of accumulated fatigue. The diagnostic question is not how to lift the peak number. The diagnostic question is how to preserve more of the peak number when it matters.
His training response is to do most of his sprint work in a fatigued rather than a fresh state. Sprints scheduled at the end of long workouts. Sprints layered on top of structured intensity days. The protocol generates lower absolute power numbers in training. The transferable adaptation to race-day sprinting is significantly higher.
The framing connects to the broader durability research — the same line of work referenced in the Andre Greipel and other pro sprint conversations. Race-relevant sprint power is not the peak watts a rider can produce on fresh legs. It is the watts a rider can produce after the race-specific accumulated fatigue. Training the right state matters as much as training the right number.
For amateurs, the implication is to pull sprint sessions out of the fresh-legs slot they typically occupy and place them deliberately at the end of long endurance rides or after the day's main intensity work. The fresh-legs version stays in early build phases for neuromuscular development. The fatigued version dominates the race-specific phase.
For deeper context on sprint and durability training, see the Andre Greipel sprint captain's code piece.
What Amateurs Can Borrow
Three things from the conversation translate directly to the serious amateur.
One. Place life on the calendar before training. Dan Lorang's framing is the single most useful season planning tool. The wedding, the work crunch, the family holiday all go on the calendar first. The training fits around them. This is the discipline that prevents the season from collapsing in May.
Two. Match the periodisation choice to the event demands. Block periodisation by volume suits high-volume bucket-list events. Block periodisation by intensity suits short, sharp races. Standard periodisation is the safe default for most riders most of the time. Reverse periodisation is the option for ultra-distance specialists. The decision should sit downstream of an honest assessment of what the A-race actually demands.
Three. Train the state the race requires. Sprint training in a fatigued state for events with late-race sprints. Long steady efforts in heat for hot summer events. Climbing work on the gradient profile of the target climb. The principle is specificity — the closer the training stimulus to the race demand, the higher the transferable adaptation.
For amateurs working through the structure of a season targeting a specific bucket-list event, the Roadman coaching system is built around the same logic — calendar first, ABC race structure second, periodisation choice matched to the event. For a faster answer on a specific season-planning question, ask the AI coach.
Listen To The Full Conversation
The full episode — including the deeper detail on Johnson's strength training repacement, his specific Unbound build sequence, and the broader Lifetime Grand Prix tactical conversation — is on the Roadman Cycling Podcast.
Big week, recovery week, repeat. Two intensity days held through both. The structure is sharper than the cycling internet usually credits and the principles travel cleanly down to the amateur calendar. The work, as ever, is in the planning before the training begins.
