John Brady was a professional rider in the US for nine years between 1989 and 1995 and again in 2002, continuing to ride in the seasons between on the US circuit but with slightly smaller teams.
The Dubliner won some very big races, enjoying 15 victories on the top flight American scene, as well as taking wins in slightly smaller events.
In a new series on stickybottle, we’ll be canvassing the opinions of some of the country’s best riders past and present for ways to improve you, our loyal reader, as a cyclist.
In the first installment we’ve enlisted the services of the former 7-Eleven pro who has offered up some fascinating insights.
He makes some very, very interesting points and we’re sure you can benefit from at least some of them…
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1. A short season isn’t a licence to put the feet up
“The racing season in Ireland is a short one, starting in February and dribbling out by August.
“That leaves around seven months, maximum. Some people start later and finish earlier, so it’s closer to six sometimes.
“I noticed in Ireland that everyone goes into 'winter mode' very early.
“Sometimes, people keep training and I’m not suggesting for a minute that people go to the pub for five months but when they train it’s sometimes monotonous training, just riding around.
“My argument is; this is an ideal time to tackle your weak points and use the winter as a time to improve.
“Don’t let the short season fool you into thinking it’s winter.”
2. Coaches and their traps
“I know a lot of coaches and some of my friends are very good ones so this isn’t a slight at them.
“Coaches are great but people get caught up in these traps with coaches.
“Okay, they can help you for sure but the best coach is yourself; you learn from your own experience and only you truly know yourself.
“A coach can limit you in certain ways and the one that’ll discover you as a rider, is you.
“You need to know that before you move to the next step so my advice is to become your own coach.”
3. You’re nowhere close to your limit
“When I turned pro I had this idea of how good I can be. I recall the first few races I rode when I was riding pro.
"I had this idea in my head that I was at this level but I wanted to get to a higher level within a year or two.
“Instead of thinking I was training hard and maybe just not good enough, I didn’t accept it.
“I did weeks of racing consecutive tours. I went from stage race to stage race, rode a six-day, took a day off and then did another one.
“It was hard to do it, I was six hours a day on the bike, I was sore and stiff but at the end of it I was on another level.
“I was racing with (Greg) LeMond and I was going bat for bat with those guys.
“It just shot me up, all that training and racing, so much more than I had done in the previous two years.
“If you get the opportunity to really push yourself and you can handle the workload, the rate of improvement can be quick.
“So the take-home message is don’t think you’re close to where you can be. No one here in Ireland is racing that hard or training that hard that they’re at their ceiling.
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“Don’t pigeon-hole yourself and say ‘I can only do 100 miles today – you can do a lot more than you think.”
4. Pedal or push?
“I’m often asked should I push a big gear or not? Should I spin or not?
“I grew up in the school where you were told to pedal - and it’s a great thing to do because it takes that million strokes to perfect your pedal stroke.
“But you also need to learn how to push. The message here is; instead of doing one or the other, do both.
“Okay, sometimes it’s advantageous to pedal and other times it’s better to push a big gear.
“But without getting into the details of it, learn to do both. Races are constantly changing environments and you’re reacting to different things.
“You don’t just sit there at 90rpm in a race so don’t do it in training. You need to train to be adaptable.”
5. Climbing
“I made money sprinting and it’s what people hired me to do. I was never a climber but I’ve climbed with good guys for eight kilometres on pretty severe climbs.
“I wouldn’t do it every day but at my peak I could survive some hard climbs.
“Guys here have this idea about being climbers; a climber should be able to drop me – and they did when I was pro.
“Here, I can still hang on with most guys; and fairly decent guys.
“The reason I can get up the climbs is not because I’m a climber but I can make an effort for six minutes and that’s all you need.
“If you can do that that can get most – or part of the way - up most climbs in Ireland.
“My point is; I find guys around here saying they’re climbers, referring to places like the Naul in north Co Dublin as if it’s a climb, it’s not.
“Climbing in Ireland is more like doing a pursuit effort; you’ll get over it if you produce big power for a few minutes.
“Don’t go out into the mountains to train for races here because it’s not going to make you faster.
“Mark Cavendish would come over here and kill guys on climbs – even though he’s not a climber.
“He produces a big amount of power and that’s all you need.
"Look at Bryan McCrystal this year. He is by no means a small guy but he won the hilliest stage of Rás Mumhan?”
6 Eating and riding
“People have this idea they need to have a big dinner and dessert the night before a big ride. And then another sliver of dessert because they’re doing a big ride.
“There is no correlation between what you eat tonight and what you do tomorrow.
“The calories you put on are gonna be with you for a long time to come so what I’d say is, enjoy eating because it’s perfectly natural and nice to do.
“However, if you want to perform you need to divorce yourself from eating in that 'all you can eat' matter where you think you need to eat massive amounts.
“You’ll just tie yourself up in a constant battle against weight and we all know how important weight is when it comes to cycling.”
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