Sponsored Rider Shannon takes gold for 2012 Jayco Bay Masters Support Race Series

 Recently Shannon Johnson competed in the individual support event of the Bay Crits. Although officially not a team event he had to overcome a number of teams that simply entered in this event rather then the teams support event, which did require a substantial fee from each team. For this reason Shannon was left competing on his own, honouring the event for what it really was, an individual event. 

Shannon tells his story about his preparation for this event, a group of races that had him race almost 5 races in one week, recording sprint efforts as high as 1887 watts. 


This winning thing seems to be easy right? Wrong so very wrong!

A few months back when I was starting to realize some of the potential I had as a sprinter I contemplated entering the Jayco Bay Crit series. I had a great road season, which was my first in this sport but I wanted to see what my sprint could do in criteriums.   

The first hurdle was getting time off work, for most who race in this country is not an easy task. Thankfully I was able to juggle some rosters and I set about putting together a program that I thought would work for me. 

Then through some cocky brain wave I thought “what the hell? I’ll give nationals a crack too” Honestly I only wanted to survive and still be there to hear the bell, how quickly goal posts can move!

As my distance count started to dwindle all my rides had a specific purpose, to make me win. That was the simple part. I’m not going to list all my secrets but if you have ever felt light headed and needed to lay down after heavy exercise, then you know what my schedule would have looked like. 

Many times after these all I wanted to do was go home and sleep, but that dirty “R” and “W” word gave me no rest, Reality and Work. That meant working sometimes 12 hour days leading up to the Christmas period, getting a few hours sleep and hitting the road for training and racing very tired. 

In the final weeks leading up to the Bay Crit and Nationals I went to races as a work hard and winning a second priority, it was a difficult pill for me to swallow but needed to get the form I required for the critical month of January. 

Sometimes that meant having nothing left in the tank for when it counted but my aim was to make sure I was at my strongest during the peak period. 


New Years Day - Geelong on Hot Dog course 
No hang over for me, just a gut full of nerves.  I knew I had left no stone unturned but had my opposition? 

For the Bay crits Paul from Bike N Bean had fitted my Kosdown teammates Stephen Lane’s SRAM Quarq power meter to my S-Works Venge.  I wanted to get a really good look at my racing loads is compared to training. Well I can safely say I don’t think the term the best training is racing is spot on. 

Before the kick off I didn’t get a great warm up and suffered for the first 20-25min, my heart rate hugging the red zone followed by the legs feeling like saddlebags. For a moment I thought I had not prepared properly as a critical move formed up the front, with me and a lot of other riders watching it gain ground with every passing minute. But I thought it was time to see if I really had the form and bridged to the break away group, sucked it up and slowly regained my composure and oddly started to feel good.  Very quickly everything was back together again. 

You can imagine 70 odd riders on a 350m loop in 30+ degree heat all wanting to win, plenty of crashes and there were some moments where our helmets should have been boxing head gear, some of the young kids watching from the side lines would have learnt some choice new words...

It was trying to keep my ground amongst this mass of riders that actually consumed most of my time and before I knew it the 5 lap sign came out. Straight away the teams started driving the pace. But the faster they drove it, the better I felt and with that my confidence started to build. Game on! 
Going into the final lap I was positioned around 6th wheel, into the exit turn around 4th wheel and by the time we swung into final turn, 2nd wheel, perfect. 

Then a rider acting like a new recruit from the Taliban comes flying up the inside, a suicide mission but I had to react in case he pulled it off. I had to pick it up, run wide, losing my momentum and making it worse after he popped about 20 meters out of the turn he faded right as I was coming up. I had to check up for a second time. Not my usual full gas approach to the finish line but a lesson learnt. Second by a tenth or two, which in hindsight wasn’t bad as I found out I wasn’t ready for yellow.

 

1887 watts reached in a sprint. Photo by Leanne Cole

 

Day Two Geelong Gardens, Bloody Hot! 45min 

After putting in so much preparation I thought I had every base covered.  Wrong! I forgot one thing, Somewhere to stay! After stage one I had to drive back home then back down again in the morning, doesn’t sound like much but in 40+ degree heat it was not ideal. Adding to that the organisers started to line us up by our race numbers not placings, which meant I started from the rear. It took me four or five laps of a little under 3min for each lap to make my way to the front, by this stage four riders were already away and with no protection from heat or strong winds I just had to survive and collect as many points as possible. To give you some idea of the conditions of 81 starters, 60 pulled out! My two bidons felt like shot glasses, they did
nothing. After the race I was white from salt, my face arms and my entire kit, covered with evidence of the conditions. kit. It was one very tough day in the saddle, 7th was all I had in me for that day. 

 

Day Three Port Arlington 

After a massive and I mean massive dinner and best part of 4 litres of soft drink, electrolyte and water I woke up feeling great, not good but great. Sleeping only 30 minutes away from the event made a massive difference. I rode a few laps of the course then headed out for some more easy flat road training.

When I got back to the van everyone was riding the other way around the course. Huh? I quickly found out that the race direction had been changed, so I headed down to the boys from Monza for SRAM service and swapped the Zipp 808 for a 404 rear with a climbing cassette, now there was a 10%+ pincher every lap and I wanted to save every watt I could.
This time the top 10 GC riders were called up, much better. From the gun attacks started, riders clearly trying to form a break. 

I was just sitting in leaving the “teams to chase” the threats to GC. Soon a strong 4 rider break away formed off the front and it looked serious. I was seriously contemplating bridging across but all of a sudden, they lost their way and came back to us. 

Bonus, more energy saved. The race was shortened to meet TV times which perhaps explains why there were so many attacks. We got the 3 to go and the peloton started thinning out single file, then on the last lap I surged. Clearly marked I was given no rope, but it was enough to make them nervous and burn energy, I went again then slowed it up enough to allow a rider through and hopefully have someone to sit on before the last kick. Some rider tried to swing past on the inside of the final turn so the last seconds of the race seemed to be occupied with attempts to stay upright and force riders away from cutting into my line. The choice for them was easy, go down or sit on my wheel. Suddenly the leading rider kicked and I knew I had to go, unleashing everything I had. Like most sprinters I get tunnel vision and only want to win so it was all or nothing.  

I really don’t remember the last moments of the race, I just drove it until the front wheel was over the line. As soon as it was over things kind of started going black, I rolled around turn one and found a familiar face, asked for water then crawled to the grass and began power heaving! My HR strap felt like a 10 ton weight on my chest and I felt like I was ready to pass out. Looking back now my max watts and HR probably explain why, my max HR was well over 200bpm and my Garmin registered 1887watts.

The pace was high enough to pop 44 riders out of the race leaving only 20. The podium presentation was done, van loaded and I was heading home that’s when I really realized what had just happened, in 12 months I have travelled from racing C grade at club events to now maybe winning the Jayco Bay Crit individual support series. I did have a lump in my throat, my new twitter account was going nuts and my phone wouldn’t stop. 

 

Day 4 Final Race Williamstown

Wearing the yellow jersey, Shannon
waiting with Bike n Bean on the sidelines

I was super nervous; I think I had 10 toilet stops while warming up. I had people I didn’t know coming up wishing me well a fair few friends and my close friends from Team Kosdown and Bike N Bean which was great. I had also received some great advice from some very experienced cyclist that calmed me down. I did feel a lot of pride wearing the Yellow jersey coming into the final day, but that soon passed once the race started.

To put it nicely the “teams” were tag teaming me like their life depended on it. Instead of breaking I figured that I had worked my ass off to be in this position and I deserve it, so I just counter attacked and started getting some help from other riders that were tired of the “teams” dictating the race. Then as the pace was starting to pick up I was 4th wheel going into the tricky turn, when the 2nd rider in line went down taking 3rd with him, I had nowhere to go but jam the brakes on. I can safely say that all my years as a motorcycle racer saved my bacon right there. I pulled it up and rolled to a stop on the front wheel with the back wheel a few inches in the air. Problem was I had nowhere to go, bikes and bodies were in the way, and I panicked until race official said its OK sit wait take a lap out, as it turns out 3 of the top 5 GC were there with me. The SRAM boys were right there with spare wheels and ready to help, thankfully I didn’t need it. Greatly appreciated!

But the rough riding only got worse. I can’t remember how many times I was ridden into the gutter or rails from that point on. Without elaborating much I made sure some of them understood that racing 300km/hr is far more unnerving then some bike rider trying to force you off your line. Heading into the final lap I was swamped by GC rider’s team mates, boxing me in. I had to put out around half a dozen efforts over 1000watts with a max of just under 1400watts. It was enough to charge forward with meters to go but not quite enough to win. I think the difference was a tyre width. But it was enough to collect the points needed for GC, and enough to win the series. Again, post race was occupied with attempts to regain my composure and re-oxygenate.   

While it was only 180min of racing it was weeks in the planning and bloody hard work that went into standing on that top of the podium wearing the yellow.