The New Simon Burney Edition Is Coming – A Talk With Cover Boy Tim Johnson
by Steve Frothingham
August 22, 2007
Tim Johnson is one of the most successful US 'cross racers, but once he was a clueless (but wicked fast) young mountain biker, wondering what was up with this weird discipline. Luckily, Tim won a copy of Simon Burney's book at a race, and he quickly got up to speed on the finer points of the sport, as well as its extensive history.
Tim, who is sponsored by Cyclocrossworld.com and Cannondale for the 'cross season, called from Wisconsin to talk about the new edition. He and his Healthnet teammates are holding a training camp near Madison to prepare for the finale of the road season, including the national criterium championships Aug. 19 and the USPRO championships the first weekend in September.
Q: Do you remember when you first saw Simon's book?
TJ: I do actually. It was '96 or '97, and it was the one with Adri Van Der Poel on it, and then I got the one with Allison Dunlap on the cover after that, so I've had the whole run of them. My whole exposure to 'cross started on a mountain bike, so I needed as much help as anyone else. So I read that book, I went through it. I remember doing rides in '97 and '98, training with friends. We would do things in that book because we didn't know what to do otherwise.
Q: So did you follow the technique sections or the training?
TJ: Both. The thing about 'cross is, if you are coming from mountain bike or road, it can be very confusing. People come to it with preconceived notions. You could figure it out yourself over the course of two or three seasons, but it's a lot better to have it broken down and laid out for you in a book.
Q: Anything specific you remember learning from the book?
TJ: Yeah, maybe that I shouldn't use a mountain bike all the time! At the time, you couldn't find 'cross bikes. Now everyone is making them, but back then they were hard to find. So I put on Ritchey 1.5-inch tires. I won my first nationals on a mountain bike.
Q: Was anyone on a 'cross bike?
TJ: Yeah, there were 'cross bikes, mountain bikes, some tricycles. It was junior nationals, there was everything. It was also my first run-in with roadies, and I said, 'I'll never be a road racer, because they are such dorks.'
Q: Did you ever meet Simon?
TJ: I actually met Simon with the British 'cross team, I think on my first trip to World's in '96.
Q: So what's he like?
TJ: He's like a classic 'cross guy. I've never seen him ride a bike, but talking to him and talking to the guys on the British team, they are definitely all about 'cross being the one pure sport. They were the first outside of the flatlands to have it and they kind of had ownership of it for awhile. That's why the book translates so well to the US, because we were the third group of people to get into it, and the book takes what the British learned and then passes it on to us.
(Tim and I then talked a bit about the sport's history and the time in the 1980s and 1990s when Switzerland was the 'cross hotspot. And I had to confess ignorance of the Swiss era of cross dominance. )
TJ: You didn't know about that? Well, you will be forgiven, but to know the classic beginnings of the sport definitely helps in the long run. That's why this book is so useful to a lot of people. I mean, 'cross was there way before mountain biking was, and here we are still talking about an up and coming sport in 2007.
Q: How did you get hooked up with the new edition?
TJ: They contacted me because they had a picture of me that they wanted to use. We started talking and it ended up working out that I could be in the book, doing some of the technique shots. They really wanted to do an update that was going to be useful. I really wanted to be a part of it because I remember how many times I read that book, and how many copies of it I had.
Q: Anything else you want to get off your chest about Simon and the book?
TJ: Just that we're lucky to have somebody to write a book for the sport to help people understand some of what the sport is about, the history and also the training and technique. But that's not the only thing you need to become a 'cross racer. You need to go out there and just try it.
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