Roadman, today I want to talk with former US at least road champion…
Roadman, today I want to talk with former US at least road champion Johnny Brown. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our long chances? That is the question on this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. well man welcome back to another roadman cycling podcast i'm super excited about today's interview i chapped with former professional u.s. road champion mister johnny brown johnny is one of those dudes i love i said to so many times the podcast but i just love this this arc of a story i love somebody who does well but what i love way more than that is somebody who does well and then goes through a really rough. hooking period and then comes back and blows it out of park again. It just gives them such appreciation and I love to see that and Johnny is a character who is well on his way to accomplishing that. The youngest ever US at least Rhodes champion back in 2018. He turned down world tour contracts in 2019, decided to stay at Pro Conti for one more year, had the season from hell. But now he's got himself together, new coach, he's feeling great in himself again and he's ready to kick on. He's with Evo Pro cycling this year and he's eyeing on the prize. He's looking to step back to the world tour next year after blowing it out to park this season. Wish him the best and I can't wait to catch up on him for his podcast. But before I do, I just want to remind you about Patreon because Patreon is how we're able to get these cool guests. Patreon is how we're able to knock it out of the park. Day after day, week after week on the roadman podcast. No sign of slowing down. It's built and it's built and it's getting momentum and it'll be slowly, slowly, then suddenly. But it's all thanks to you guys in the background. So please dig deep to support the roadman podcast. Deep by deep, I mean the price will point to bear once a month just to say thanks. So you can do that over on patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. Okay, I've yabbered on enough. Welcome to the roadman podcast, Mr. Johnny Brown. Thank you for having me. Well, Johnny, we're hoping we don't have any Wi-Fi connectivity issues here. Belgium wouldn't be noted for it. It's a fast Wi-Fi. That is true. Always always it's for the Wi-Fi here. We've spent the last 10 minutes, folks going back and forth, just testing internet, broadband speeds, and it turns out, Johnny's is just a, it's just the central of the old skill dial up when you used to have to wait for a porn to buffer with the pretty pretty pretty much Johnny you're not old enough to remember that heritage of watching porn on a buffron like these are actually my my whole childhood we had we had dial up we lived in the country so never had high speed internet the whole time growing up. It's a game changer for many reasons. Johnny, we're going to start and I kind of like to randomly dip in and out rather than sequentially just going through. Okay, so you grew up in ex town. So I just want to dip in and out of highlights of your career, low lights your career and then give listeners, you're a continental level at the moment. And I think I think there's a big disconnect with people listening to the podcast of their view or interpretation of a romantic notion of what pro cycling is like, and the reality of what it's like a continental level. It's a bit of a disconnect there, but I want to rewind with a good news day. It's 2018. You're going to break a four and you're about to become national champion. Talk us through that day. What's that like? What age were you 21? Yeah, it was 21, the youngest ever US national champion. And I wanted it in my home state too, so that was like the cherry on top, in the city I was living. So it was like, yeah, the whole thing was a shock, kind of. Like that whole season I was building up quite a bit and I had been getting some good results already. the week before I, it was all, it was like clear that the form is good. And then a national is like, my goal going in was a top 10. And then everything. You were right, you were like my Hagen Berman's that year, weren't you? Yeah, so it was my third year with Hagen's Berman. Yeah, and it, the stars kind of aligned that day and I was feeling good and kind of took you by the balls and went for it. I think you know what, when so many of us get hooked on cycling, whatever that moment is for all of us, there's always this, there's a romanticism about cycling that we fall in love with and that's why it's different to triathlon or any of the track and field sports. There's this real history embedded in it.
There's something super romantic about this idea of 21 year old…
And there's something super romantic about this idea of 21 year old hometown kid riding, you know, on the way up riding forward, Hagen's, Berman's, where they come to your pro-conti.year. We were pro-conti.year. You know, you're riding against the world, or guys, it's like the moisted world, or versus the hometown kid, like it's such a cool story. And I remember watching them, I re-watched the last 10k in sort of preparation for this podcast. And even though I knew the results, I nearly found myself screaming at YouTube, Come on fucking Johnny dig in dig in me Yeah, I know even I know the outcome and I watched the replay a few times and it's it's kind of the same thing I'm like, oh dude. Come on go for it. Yeah, you still got you still got it. You got to go Yeah, what's the director saying to you? Okay, goosebumps if I if I rewatch it You know the last column Well, no, well, he probably was, but my radio had fallen out with like three laps to go. So I, it was all off instinct. Um, and yeah, I, they could have been saying whatever. I don't know, but I, I was in my own world. And how, how much belief do you have in the last 10 kilometers that this is going to happen or are you still kind of thinking, Oh my God, at least I'm going to get a podium or at least I'm going to get a top five. That was actually, so when I attacked, I was kind of like, you know, the worst thing that's going to happen is I get fourth. I didn't believe I was going to win until I took the last corner to the finish line. It was like 300 meters. You can actually, if you re-watch the replay, I go as hard as I can up that final little like 100 meter kick because in my mind, I was kind of like, I could cramp up this. I could cramp up this. I could like anything could happen and they could catch me. So I really didn't didn't believe or realize that I was going to win until the final 30 seconds. And you're right in the end those corners in the west as well. Yeah, yeah. Because really the guys behind me were very good writers, strong writers, that have proven themselves many of times. So me going against three other guys that are season riders was the I didn't believe I was going to hold them off. It was a crazy crazy David vs. Goliath's result. Talk to me about the aftermath of that race like that noise the next morning does it feel real or is there a little bit of a pinch me I'm dreaming moment. Yeah it that first night I went home because my I was living in that city so I didn't say at the team hotel with the team I went home and I didn't sleep the whole night. I think I fell asleep at like four because it was kind of like what just happened like this is unreal. So, talk me to you, that noise in your house, you must think on 21, I'm after winning the US pro nationals, your mind must be gone to Flanders, rubae, world tour, grantor selections. You must be running wild and gone, where does this finish? I'm 21 years old and youngest ever US national champion. Can you stop yourself dreaming or is the head just automatically run in that direction? Yeah, I even prior to winning, I had good belief in myself. I some good results that that whole year leading up results that I feel like it kind of washed under the rug sometimes. So even before nationals I already had belief I can make it to the world tour. So then once I won nationals there's kind of like a I definitely know I can. So the next kind of the whole rest of the season was a bit of a on a dream like it's going to happen no problem now. Okay so me looking at this and not knowing you like we only were introduced a few weeks go through mutual friends and not knowing yet but being a cyclin fan you know I raced out in the US in 2014 with Estellis and so I always kind of keep an eye on US nationals and I love the US scene So when I see you winning that at the age of 21, and I see your brother is Nate Brown in the World Tour riding with Carmen, I just automatically assume we're going to see you in the World Tour the following year, or at slowest the year after. But this is, I think, where so many listeners and myself and play with the fall into that trap at times of seeing so-called as this straightforward sport of you get a good result and you land a good team, but it's a lot more political and there's a lot more goes into getting those breaks than just, I don't want to say just one result, because you'd obviously built up to that. It wasn't like it was a fluke result. You were one of the favourites going into the race. You were definitely someone that was going to nail a top 10.
To have a breakout result like that, we just assumed that the world…
But to have a breakout result like that, we just assumed that the world to our contract follows. But it didn't. The following year was a, the following year you stayed with Hagen's, but the year after, you stepped back down to Conti level. How does that happen? How did the contract negotiations go around all this? Well, I had another year in my contract with Hagen's Berman. And if something happens like that, and I get an offer, they would release no problem. And I did get offers to go to the world tour, but I turned them down actually because I was like, oh, my schedule with Hoggins-Bermi next year. We had a lot of really good races and I was like I I showed myself in 2018, right? I'm gonna show myself even more in 2019. Yeah And it was almost one of those things I had I don't want to say too much belief in myself, but I was like I can keep gaining my traction that I already have in 2018 and I had this belief that it would still be there, these offers at the following year. I had a terrible year and things didn't line up again at the end of 2019. Yeah, it was 2019 was definitely a rough year for me. What do you have a terrible year? What happened in 2019? A lot of mixture of things. I had a pretty junk winter. The weather was bad and I didn't go anywhere warm, which was kind of a mistake to begin with. And then just, I put a lot of pressure on myself. Like when I look back now, first race I went to, we went to true of Columbia and I just got spat out. And then that put a lot of second thoughts into my head and then the whole year it's just kind of like a crumble effect because then the next race when it goes planned and then it was like the one thing after another, like I'm not getting the results I was hoping for so then you start putting more pressure on yourself and then getting trying to go back to the teams that are already offered something but then be like well we know you are really good but you got to show us something again this year. How much is there? How much is there a little bit of a sibling rivalry? Was it Torek Alumbia that year? Did your brother win the time trust age? No no no it started with the team time trial. But he was trying to help me as you can too, actually, trying to get me on a team and he moved teams. Yeah, it was that year as well. So it was a lot of mixture of things. He was moving. Yeah, and I didn't prepare as I showed up for the season and it just it just didn't go well. Look back to your regress in 2018 not taking those world tour offers. Yeah, I think that was kind of a lot of it too in 2019 being like you kind of messed up. I should have just gone for it. It was there and I should have taken it type thing. But look also we've seen with guys who had those offers like I'm tinking back to Well, Tom Browski, Ian Boswell, and they stay in an extra year and they little braces like the sort of California got a lot of notoriety and got the big move to fall in the year. So that was my whole thought after I won because there's also the opposite of a rider that was riding for Huggins-Bermain prior that went to the world tour. Did it do so well? Then he got, didn't get renewed with anybody. And that was kind of my fear too, that I'm going to be doing the same races that I'd be doing with Hogins Berman, but instead of actually being able to fight for a result with Hogins Berman, I'm just going to be a worker with a world tour team. So then I was nervous. Like I might be doing, I'm going to be doing the same races, but then maybe once I make it, I'm going to be not appreciated and then be struggling to find a contract after my first world to a contract ends. So that was I believe to myself that I could get those results again in 2019 to be like, well, I'm still here. I'm ready. But like, definitely because it didn't happen. But there's definitely ways to go into the world. Or it's almost like to think of it as framing. Did you ever like go to a public speaking event? And they just go coming on to the stage is, you know, Joe blogs. And you're like, okay, that's a bit fucking underwhelming. But then if an announcer comes on before and they give the whole resume, a Joe Bloggs, he's spoken at stages around the world. He is a world's number one entertainer. I give you Joe Bloggs, the energy's there. And there's this pre-frame that you're like, whoa, holy shit. I feel like that's sometimes what happens in the world tour. You take a writer like Pitcock, who there's this big pre-frame of Pitcock going into Inios.
All of a sudden, he's two races into his world tour career and he's a…
All of a sudden, he's two races into his world tour career and he's a protected writer versus you take Eddie Dunbar going in from your own team. He's a super strong guy. He's 1-2-2-3 Tour of Flanders, but he does not that same frame in around him. He's not getting the same opportunities. Well, actually, it's funny you say that because I say that about Dunbar all the time because he is unbelievable, right? But nobody really, I mean, people know about him. at the same time for the rider that he is and the things that he can do. Yeah, he's not getting really the opportunities he should versus like somebody that already has the so much hype going in that right away. They already have it. So talk to me then if your shit year as Skyline, that was 2019. And now you've moved to the Irish Continental team, EVO Pro with my old director, Morgan Fox, shout out Morgan. Do you see this as like a second chance? I talked to a friend earlier on where he was using that as a different analogy about there's people in life and you see them in their mid 40s and they're just stuck. They're in a shit living situation. They're in a shit or they don't like their job, they don't like their relationship, they don't like their life. But it's like a video game. They've made a tactical error. They've gone the wrong direction. and instead it just gone, okay, I've gone the wrong direction, I need to step back and go in no direction. They're just trying to keep slam through that same direction. It seems like you've had the foresight to say, you know what, I made a tactical error, I'm going to step back a level to Evo Pro, and I'm going to rebuild, and I'm going to attack this from another direction because I'm still a young guy. Or is that me reading it too much into it? No, I mean, not at all. Like, that's the thing. Like, I'm still 23 years old right now, right? I'm not this old, like old man in my times over. I'm like, I'm still young. Um, and I definitely still believe in myself. And I know I can do it. Um, I started working with a new trainer to after the 2019 season. since then, like, okay, I didn't get to race at all in 2020, but numbers and everything are better than they've ever been. So I know I can do it. Now I just have to... Hit us with some numbers. If you feel comfortable sharing numbers, hit us with a few numbers. I know people love comparing themselves because we're going to have like the Calfour or Roid or listen to what's going on. I'm 100 kilos and I'm doing 220 watts of threshold. So what's the sort of numbers they need to be in the sporting US national champ? The thing is I don't have these crazy numbers. Is this the problem? I'm not this freak that's pumping out these crazy ones. But yeah, I don't even know. My 20 minute isn't anything crazy, but I definitely have a more of a punch. Like my five minute and 10 minute are pretty high. I couldn't. Do you see it? Do you see much of under Paul's numbers in the weekend? I actually I saw an article that I glanced over, but I'm sure it's something very ridiculous. So listen to this, like this is going to blow your mind. He rolled the last 60 kilometers. Yeah. A 439 watts. For. Yeah. I'm not even going to say mine now. Like what the actual fuck there's good track pursuit riders who are doing 440 watts in a pursuit. He done it for the last 60 kilometers. And that's after like all those hours in the lakes too. insane. But you know what, his numbers weren't as big as I anticipated for the finishing climb. Like, is 20 second parroas? No, it's tough. He's looking for, don't get me wrong. He's got a fucking drop me. But his 20 second parroas was only a thousand watts. Like... Yeah, that could be crazy. It was like, yeah, because it was saying something like, that final attack you did a thousand watts. But how many hours was it? two five. Yeah, I guess it was over five I think five and a half six. And I think you've hit that point there because that's when a lot of amateurs and I know I used to do this when I was writing full time. I used to train a lot with Mike Barry who was writing for Sky at the time. And I had like I think I was doing like four 15 for 20 minutes. I was like 70 kilograms. And I was doing the maths and going Oh my god, I'm almost world tour like this is phenomenal. And what the thing is like I was still that fresh tapered like warm. He was thrown down their numbers like six hours into a stage like and he's three weeks into a stage race and he's still. I know that's that's the crazy thing sometimes that blows my mind. I'm like they're doing that three weeks into a grand tour at the end of a day.
I'm like, oh, I've done eight days to age races
I'm like, oh, I've done eight days to age races. And on the ninth day, if you asked me to do an FTP test, I'd say I wouldn't have hit triple figures. It was that week. I know, I know, I know, I know. Talk to me about, because the reality of being a pro at continental level, because I see this kind of dichotomy. And even so, we're training partners of mine who are kind of ambitious to move up at the moment, but I've never sampled life, or maybe wouldn't have a lot of friends have ridden a Conti or above and they kind of see it as like, oh my god, you've made it, you're a Conti level that's everything's brilliant, it's five star hotels and some dude feeding your grapes on silk sheets every morning. It's not quite that is it? That's not cycling at all. Even in the world tours, it's not. Yeah, I mean, yeah, cycling in general, it's a lot of bad hotels no matter what team you are in. The crazy thing now is the difference it's like, say, even I just raced yesterday. a Conti team, but then at the same time, we're racing against Quickstep, Lotto. I think that's kind of the thing people don't understand sometimes even about the Conti level though, is we might be two tiers behind them, but we're doing the same race. I feel like content doesn't even do it justice because there's content teams that have unbelievable schedules and others content teams to just like stay in England and race crappy like you know national calendar races open down England. You know I don't want to be dismissive of English calendar races but you know what I mean they're not going out and racing quick step every weekend. Yeah well so that's the thing. There's over 100 registered content teams in the world, but really there's probably 10 that are like true pro teams still, you know? The rest are it's just kind of like they pay for the license. They say they're content, but you're not really a pro team. That's the, I think, yeah, the hard thing sometimes. It's like just because you pay for the content license doesn't mean you're actually like a proper pro team. I even see we're Reuters, and I don't name any specific writers because they need to be unfair to them. But you see guys and they're OK at a domestic level. And then they're like, oh, I'm signing for a Conti team in England. And you're like, you're just signing for another domestic team. Like, go to France and write for an amateur team or go to Belgium and write for an amateur team and do your apprenticeship. And since you wrote for Estellis in the US, it's the same thing, really, in the US. I signed for this Conti team. I'm pro now. Well, in reality, you could write for an amateur team and it's going to be better off than this Conti team that you're on. Just because you have the name doesn't mean anything. So I came from an amateur team in France the year before I signed for Estellis. Like when I signed for Estellis, I wasn't making good cash, but I was making a bit of cash to pay some bills and stuff. I was making like 50-year-old week just expenses for a division national team in in France. 100%, it was a step down going to America from France, like a step down in every quality of race and the organization, quality of teammates, everything. What year were you on a Stella? Was France 2013 so Stella 2014? Oh, nice. What did you do? Dairylands that year? Didn't do dairylands. I brought my collarbone just before. I was gonna say because I was a junior but I was doing the pro race since that year. Yeah, because they we raised each other. You know what? We probably did race each other at some point that year. Like you do in the National Critarium column there stuff as well. I did. What else did I do that year? Speedweek I think. Yeah, I thought it was race in speedweek. Yeah, I'm sure I was I'd I'd have to look, I can't remember if that year if I just did the Cat 2 races, or if I actually did some of the pro races for Speed Week. But you know what, I can see it is fun. When you're like, you know, because I went over, Mike on a background was non-typical. I went through undergrad university, finished my masters, and then went into law school and finished law school. And I was just starting to get some good results in like 2.2s in Ireland and stuff. So I got a French team, and then I got a stylist a year after. And I was just kind of like, well, I'm just gonna roll with it. never gone world to our start this too late. But I'm just like, I'm gonna knock a few years of free travel out of this, see the world. So America was perfect for me because I got to see all these cool places, you know, criteriums down at Delray Beach on like a Friday night and stuff. And it's like, what the fuck is this?
Is amazing. Yeah, it's, um, crits in the US are fun
This is amazing. Yeah, it's, um, crits in the US are fun. They are so cool. are so hard. Yeah, yeah. That's what people don't realize. Sometimes a lot of your opinions like to really hate on American criticizing, but I'm like, man, those things are so hard. You don't understand. If you don't start in the top 20 in that, like, it's I had races where I started like position like I'd be in P 30 or P 35 and I'd literally spend 60 minutes like battling to move up to like P29. And I might get back to P29. Yeah, I know. I never got into the top 10. If I started out, so I'd like the top 20 or 30, it's just it's too hard. I know. Well, because it's a single file the whole time. It's like, Oh, I know. And it's like, it's like destruction derby as well with someone who crashes like with when the bell goes, the laws of gravity are suspended over there. And people think they can rail corners at like twice the speeds that's actually possible to go around them. I just docked up everywhere. I know. So Johnny, paint me a vision. What's your career look like in an ideal world now? What's your trajectory like? How long you with Evo? What races are you going to win this year? And where do you step into from here? Oh, that's a tough question. Yeah, hopefully, I mean this year I have big ambitions. I mean, I definitely want to get some good results to kind of reprove myself again. So I don't have any like specific races and I'm like, these are the ones I want to do well at. I think I kind of have to go into every race ready to throw down. Ideally, I get to step back up to Pro-Con D or above for 2022. That's like the main goal. So yeah, this year is definitely full swing in trying to get back up to at least Pro-Con D or higher. How have you managed to stay positive during race cancellations like we were talking off air, you have 12 or 13 cancellations in April alone? Yeah, you know, it's, I, um, so my race yesterday was my first race I've done in 18 months. So my last race I did was the end of 2019 season. Um, so I, at this point through 2020, I didn't race at all. I was able to keep myself pretty motivated through the whole year anyways. So even like the day we flew over to Ireland, we had gotten a message from Morgan saying our first market challenge was canceled, our first five races. But I know it's going to come. I mean, we had a bunch of races canceled, but I'm going to get my opportunity still this year. could be 50 race days, it could be five, but I'm gonna be ready for every race that I've started. So, Shield of the Praise, that seems like to stand out race in the first quarter season for you guys? Yeah. I'm not much of a sprinter, but, or even crosswinds, really. So, those races will be tougher for me to show myself, but hopefully we get some with more in our dens or something. I don't know if David or Roster super well this year. How do you got guys that can ride the crosswinds stick out of sprint at the end? Yeah, we have this Belgian guy, Michael VanStain, who was pro-conty for years. He's 31 this year and he's solid. He is really good in the final. So he's definitely our staying down guy for the fast finishes. Awesome. It's definitely looking forward to saying that Johnny will definitely have to get you on the podcast again later in the year to sort of track your progress. Yeah, I love it. So you better show down a few big results. It's going to be an hour. And if you come back and. Yeah. So Johnny, you roll up your results there for us. And you're like, well, I DNF tear a DNF tear. Yeah. So you're coming back on regardless of the results, so you need to pull up the fucking slaves. I'm ready. Johnny, thanks for taking the time, buddy. Yeah, thank you. Cheers. Hey, everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guess walk out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's the master's beginner, advanced, there's meal plans, shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you through at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmancycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmancycling.com slash 14 day.