Kathy Johnson
Road Cat 4, Cross Cat 3, gravel & mountain for fun
When Kathy Johnson was a kid in Florida (in the 60’s & 70’s) her bike took her everywhere. To school/softball/volleyball, fishing in a nearby pond, to the Gulf of Mexico. She begged for a 10-speed and earned half the money for a Sears Free Spirit – what a great name! It was gold and she loved it, until she taco’d the front end in college. It’s replacement was a royal blue Bianchi touring bike, which started a love affair with old Euro-brand bikes.
She had zero exposure to bike racing until the faintest of TV coverage of Greg LeMond’s success in the Tour de France. It didn’t even occur to her that he had to have started somewhere. It wasn’t until sh started training for sprint triathlons in Clermont, FL, that one of her talented friends invited her on group rides. She had a road bike with clip-on aerobars so she could ride safely in a group. There still were no pure bike races at that time, but the seed was planted in the 1990’s and was nurtured by watching le Tour and other races ever year since. Kathy claims she was so bad at running thateventually she just focused on cycling, but it was not until 2005 that she entered her first bike race in Colorado.
In 2011 Pete Webber taught Kathy the Six P’s of Prepardness: “Proper preparedness prevents piss-poor performance” and she learned what it really means to practice those “Six P’s”. She had been slogging along, mid-pack or worse, at every road race in Colorado, but ever so gradually improving in time-trials, and every race practicing & refining those Six P’s. Then it was ‘Cross camp with Alison Powers and others, and a final road time-trial which was also a State Championship and UCI Masters World’s qualifier. She had zero expectations; other than to keep improving and practicing the right things. For the first time, it all came together in Colorado and Kathy made her first podium, a bronze medal. This meant she had just qualified for World Championships in Belgium one month away!
In 2016, Kathy relocated to Kansas and began looking for a local team to join. She joined Women’s Free State just in time for Cross Season that year, in fact her first official “skittle stint” was to step in on incredibly short notice and completely run the first of the team’s three “Joules Cross Practice” sessions in September. Kathy showed up with her PVC Pipe barriers and gave a masterful class on mounting and dismounting!
Pitfalls and Pleasures
I love this the muddy, grainy photo from the 2016 Jingle Cross in Iowa. I’m on the right, my teammate Amy Borkowski on the left. My bike and I became one with the earth 5 times in that race. My other teammate, Julie Higgins, picked me and my bike up off the soggy ground when I couldn’t hold myself up after crossing the finish line mid-pack. A few minutes later, there I am, upright, laughing, happy to be alive and in the moment. The mud washes off and the body recovers.
-Kathy Johnson
This is YOUR journey and no one else’s…
…enjoy it.
You just have to toe the line and learn stuff in every race. No matter what your potential is you’ll benefit from a structured training plan, but at least do some research, watch some races and ask lots of questions. You’ll never, ever know what magic might happen if you don’t first cross the start line. The adventures that ensued because I was brave enough to try have all exceeded anything I could have imagined.
The wind in my face. Just having the freedom to do it and watching other’s improve makes we want to keep reaching. My racing has been on-and-off several times due to life’s challenges and I’m just grateful to race again. My best friend Jodie in Wisconsin (yes, I’ve lived there too) has proven to me that age does not matter. You don’t know how far you can go until you give it your very best, and I’m always wanting to ride faster!
The other thing that inspires me to train is to have the confidence to explore various terrain all over the world. I’ve ridden the storied cobbled climbs of the Tour of Flanders, Girona to the Mediterranean Sea in Spain, and around many parts of France including the famous 21 switchbacks of Alpe d’Huez. The most fabulous thing about being an amateur bike racer is that we can play on the very same routes that the elite professionals do.
My goal always is to be a good ambassador for this sport. My training goals are to be a better all-around bike racer, and to advance in cyclocross. ‘Cross is the one bike discipline where I can put my other athletic skills to some use and enjoy my natural tendencies to go-hard-for-a-short-period-and-be-done. My goal is to have my knees keep up with me!
You just have to toe the line and learn stuff in every race. No matter what your potential is you’ll benefit from a structured training plan, but at least do some research, watch some races and ask lots of questions. You’ll never, ever know what magic might happen if you don’t first cross the start line. The adventures that ensued because I was brave enough to try have all exceeded anything I could have imagined.
I almost didn’t go to Worlds….Credit to my husband Chuck when I objected to the travel costs. He said, “This could be a once in a life time experience; we’re going”.
So we did. Especially, I think, for a humble Cat4, it was like being launched into a dream where you get to be a pro for a day (almost). The set-up, the excitement, cyclists from all over the world, townspeople cheering you, the same kind of raised time-trial start ramp that I had watched the pros use in the Tour de France. My own motorbike lead-out!
The race itself, in pouring rain, was like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. My motorbike botched a turn ahead of me and I nearly crashed. The water on this twisting course built up, I overshot a curve, and nearly came to a stop again. “Just find your rhythm, and keep going”, I kept telling myself. It was Belgium, I finished on cobblestones, first by three seconds. Amazing.
I said earlier it’s not about the results. The memory would be just as permanently etched into my mind if I hadn’t won a rainbow jersey; I certainly wasn’t expecting to. Others much more qualified than I chose not to go, and I was proud to represent the U.S.
Photo Gallery
