Brendan Johnston: A 15 year pro-racing quest with a gravel resolution

As a teenager Brendan Johnston had a fairly common dream, turning his sporting passion into a profession, but what wasn't as common was that he also had the talent and commitment to make a life as a pro-cyclist a realistic proposition. Though, just as the 17-year-old the multi-discipline rider hit the stage when he could chase the international opportunities in earnest, a cancer diagnosis led to a quick and unavoidable deviation.

“I had to mature real quick as a person and also as an athlete,” the 31 year old Johnston told Cyclingnews when looking back to that period of his life. “Having your health is taken for granted and I didn't really consider so much that as an athlete you need full health and no one really, I guess, appreciates that until it goes away.”

Before he was diagnosed with testicular cancer Johnston’s complete focus as a teenager had been on making it as a cyclist, with the rider getting set to represent Australia in junior category at the cross-country mountain bike race at a home World Championships in 2009. He determinedly went on to race in Canberra, just a couple of weeks after surgery, before then settling into an extended period of fighting the disease.

It was unsurprisingly a perspective altering experience for the young rider who had been so used to relying on his impressive power and endurance to take him to the front of the field. That stark reminder that something as important as optimum health can't always be taken for granted meant the focussed Johnston added another career option. It was one which, as he put it, meant that he could “be somewhat set up at least and didn’t have to be a high-performing human to do it”.

That didn't mean the end of the journey toward becoming a professional cyclist, just a longer more winding path to make it to the same destination.

“I'm pretty grateful for the decisions I made at that point,” said Johnston who has spent the last 12 years working full-time as an electrician. “I kind of did the best I could with what I had and now I've found myself in a position where I can, after how ever many years – 15 or 17 – finally call myself a pro.”

That realisation of Johnston's teenage dream of riding his bike full-time overseas has come thanks to the evolution of a discipline barely on the radar back when he started out – gravel.

No longer a side hustle

Johnston may have deviated from his initial cycling plan of going all out to pursue an international cycling career, either on the road or in mountain biking, but he never stopped being a ferociously competitive rider on the Australian scene even while juggling so many other demanding facets of life.

Always versatile as a rider, there didn't seem to be much the athlete couldn't do, except perhaps shed his hard stuck nickname of Trekky even though he has moved on from his early association with the brand and been firmly welded on with Giant for a number of years.

The rider has managed to carve out a strong record of results, all accrued while working full time and also, in recent years, building a family. Those results include five mountain bike national titles, a first place in the National Road Series in 2020 and a win at the prestigious long-running Melbourne to Warrnambool. He also swept up the Australian Gravel National Championships in 2022, along with victory at the first running of the 246km Dirty Warrny.

Those 2022 wins gave Johnston a clear indicator of his gravel potential and the acceptance of his application to become one of the 35 men riding the Life Time Grand Prix series became the turning point that made his long-held aspiration of riding professionally become a reality. 

"Now I'm able to give it [cycling] my full attention, which is kind of a relief,” said Johnston. “I've always had somewhat of a level of ability but you're constantly putting in on the side, to work or whatever. I feel like I owed it my full attention after it being a bit of a side hustle for so long.”

The benefit of that full-time focus on cycling seems clear, with an Instagram profile constantly filled with stories of long days out training to build endurance to take on the long-distance gravel races characteristic of the US scene. The positive impact of the full-time focus on bikes has also been revealed in more than just Johnston's training, with an unequivocally successful short test-run trip to the US in April before the long haul of five to six months that starts with the all-important 322km long Unbound on June 3.

Stacking up overseas

For Johnston, the opportunity that the Life Time Grand Prix series presented seemed ideal, and it was more than just the profile, platform and generous prize money the series provided but also what seemed like an almost too good to be true combination of races. The series takes in seven rounds, having started with the Sea Otter Classic Fuego XL mountain bike race in April, moving onto gravel with Unbound and Crusher in the Tushar then back to mountain biking with Leadville Trail 100 and Chequamegon before finishing off with the gravel Rad Dirt Fest and Big Sugar Gravel.

"If I were to create my own series, it would probably be all these races put together," said Johnston. "I'm not saying there aren't other people like that as well but what I am saying is that it intersects perfectly with where I sit because I've probably got a bit more road experience than some of the other mountain bikers, so the endurance is not so much a problem, and I've also got the skill set from mountain biking." 

"I just feel like I am right in the middle of all these riders and it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out.”

The skill-set may never have been in doubt, but what wasn't initially so certain was just how Johnston would stack up in the unexplored terrain of the US gravel community.

"Even until I got there this year I wasn't sure where I'd slot into their scene," said Johnston in a lengthy phone interview from his Canberra home base. "I feel like ok I'm winning things here, I can win most things here – on the road I can have good results here, on the mountain bike I can have good results here – but can I go there and be competitive? That was something that was pretty unknown for me."

But not any more.

In April at the Belgian Waffle Ride California and the Seo Otter Fuego XL Johnston's testing of the waters turned the unknown into a known. He came fourth in the 128.7 mile (207km) long Belgian Waffle Ride California and then seventh at the 100km Fuego XL, despite having to fight his way back up the field after missing the early split of seven riders.

It was an opening gambit that, despite grappling with a 'bit of a back injury, left Johnston encouraged that he can fight for a result among the top of the table in the Life Time Grand Prix Series, particularly at Unbound.

"Something like Unbound is really going to be in my wheelhouse and hopefully I can navigate my way through that race to a really strong result, especially in the Life Time Grand Prix field," said Johnston.

In fact if Johnston had to pick just one race in the series that suited him most, he said that Unbound would be it, with last year's winner – Dutch rider Ivar Slik – demonstrating that an outsider can make their mark in Kansas.   

"I think over that period of time it's a big unknown ... anyone can kind of come in and be competitive in the final if you've done the work so I'm definitely eyeing off the win, that's for sure."