Beth Johnson

Name: Beth Johnson

Pronouns: she/her

Age: 58

Town: Springfield, MA

NCC Member Since: 2025

Beth: The History

Where are you from? 

I grew up in Kittery, Maine, when it was a much smaller and quieter place than it is today. As an adult, I’ve moved around a lot and lived in Alabama, upstate New York, western South Dakota, and the far southwest corner of Oklahoma (“it’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from here”). We moved back to New England in 1998.

How did you first get into cycling? When did you start joining the NCC’s intro rides, and what was that like for you? 

I’ve been riding since I was little, starting with my old banana-seat bike and graduating to a 10-speed in my tweens. I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was over 18, so I rode my Peugeot 10-speed everywhere. There wasn’t much to do when we lived in Oklahoma, so I rode a bunch there and did some road races, rides up to 75 miles, and even a criterium. After a break from cycling, I started up again in earnest last year. Since I’m not much of a road rider anymore, and not very fast, I started going to the Monday Intro D rides, led by Jonathan O’Keeffe. It was a good shakeout ride for me, chill enough to be social, and I could drag my husband along since he hadn’t been riding much.

Why did you join NCC? 

I’ve been really impressed with how friendly the NCC members are and how invested the club is in community outreach. I love the route library, even though it’s focused a little out of my area. And there’s a good variety of ride types.

What type of riding do you do? 

I had always been a roadie but off-road curious. My road bike was stolen just before the pandemic, and I replaced it with a gravel bike. Then I saw the Women’s beginner MTB clinic advertised last spring, given by Lisa Abrams and Amy Stephens. I registered and borrowed a bike, and was hooked. I spent most of the summer riding MTB and gravel, then did the Valley Cat Hustle cross clinics and started racing cross in the River Valley XC series. My sister has raced cyclocross for a number of years and I’ve spectated and wanted to join in. I had a blast!

What is your most meaningful cycling accomplishment?

I had both my hips replaced in 2024, after years of pain and disability that made mounting and dismounting a bike a bit of an ordeal (and riding more dangerous). It took about a year to get my strength built back up, which meant that I was ready in spring of ‘25 to get back to having fun on the bike. I started the season with Raid Rockingham and Bikes Fight Cancer, and the Women’s/Gender Expansive MTB clinic. I learned off-road riding skills that stood me in good stead when I started racing cross. I had no idea there were two cross races practically in my back yard. I ended up going to all the River Valley XC races, and though I finished last or almost last in each, because I simply showed up and finished, I ended up third in the series! And to close out the season, I was able to fulfill a wish and race at The Ice Weasels Cometh.

Beth’s Favorites

What’s your favorite place to ride? 

I love the trails in West Springfield: Bear Hole Reservoir and Robinson State Park. I wish my local towns would invest more in bike trail infrastructure to make it possible to ride safely around and out of Springfield to adjacent towns. I have to drive for most of my rides, which is ridiculous.

Favorite ride snack? 

Fruit snacks and peanut M&Ms

Favorite piece of cycling gear? 

My sparkly purple Cannondale Habit MTB. It’s not just how it looks (it’s gorgeous!) or how I’ve accessorized (leaned hard into the purple), but the freedom and progress that it represents.

What is your favorite NCC group ride or event? 

I’ve only been a member for less than a year, so I have to say my favorite thing was Hydra Cross. I had no idea there was a cross race jammed into that tiny park in Holyoke! It was awesome to race.

What’s your favorite book or TV show?

So many favorite books, but one of my recent favorites is the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. AppleTV picked it up and it’s as enjoyable (but different) in that medium.

Who is your favorite professional cyclist? 

I try not to have a favorite professional cyclist anymore, since I’ve been burned by the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. However, it’s Sepp Kuss. And Kasia Niewiadoma. Because I love climbing.

Beth Off the Bike

What do you do when not on your bike? 

Professionally, I work in IT at one of the local colleges, and before that I was a post-partum doula. 

What do you do for fun? 

I have a young Pembroke Welsh Corgi that I’m taking agility classes with. I’m a ceramic artist and gardener. And I teach an old and obscure Japanese weapon art (don’t bother to ask the name, you have never heard of it).

What is your favorite spot in the River Valley? 

Before my hips made it difficult, I used to trail run the M&M up Mount Holyoke. I loved looking out across the Valley from the summit.

What’s next for Beth? What does “winter training” mean to you? 

Winter training means continuing my weight training (essential for everyone!), riding the indoor trainer (no Zwift, alas), running around an agility course with my dog, and swinging a 7 1/2 foot long pole arm.

What cycling goals do you have for the upcoming year? 

I’ve already registered for Raid Rockingham, D2R2, The Mix Tape, and Ice Weasels, as well as Elevate and Everwild. I just registered interest in officially taking part in the race team, so . . . I’d like to increase my base capacity and get a solid fueling habit down for longer events. I used to be really good at climbing, and I’d like to try to get some of that back. I’m also interested in starting a regular chill MTB ride for women/gender expansive with a focus on skill building by repetition.

What’s on your cycling bucket list? 

I would love to cycle the Shimanami kaido at some point.

What are your hopes for the cycling community in the River Valley? 

I hope we continue to make gains on bike-enabling infrastructure in the Valley, especially to connect the more urban areas and spread the love and awareness. 

What would you recommend to club members who are new to group rides? 

Start with the Monday Intro ride. You’ll learn about group riding at a chill pace with a small time commitment and friendly people.

How can people connect with you? 

On Strava I’m the only Beth Johnson in the NCC club. I’m on the Women and Gender Expansive MTB email list. I hope to try some of the gravel rides this year, and maybe JAM Fundo and a XC race or two? I’m signed up for Elevate and Everwild MTB clinics. If you see me, I might not recognize you, so a reminder is helpful. I’m not much for small talk, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to connect.

Tonight we made a trip to Scotland for our Zwift team time trial, for three (and a half) laps of the Rolling Highlands course.

Carson, Melissa, Shawn, and I lined up at 6:20 PM. The excuses were already flowing before we even started -- Shawn was tired from Tuesday's race, Melissa is still battling a cold, etc. That didn't stop anyone from putting in strong performances though. The course is fun, living up to its name with constant little ups and downs, and precious little flat ground. We started out with Melissa out of the rotation due to her sickness, just hanging on to help with the draft for the rest of us. Carson, Shawn, and I traded 60-second pulls, starting out at 3.6 W/kg for the first lap.

Melissa was cracking jokes and bantering during the first lap, and seemed to be doing OK, so I turned up the heat on the second lap and bumped us up to 3.8 W/kg. That definitely increased the effort level a bit, but she was still going on about some kind of broccoli cookie recipe during the second lap, so we continued to ramp it up. By the third lap Shawn was telling some kind of story about a mule, my oxygen-deprived brain couldn't really follow the details.

The mule story must have taken a lot out of Shawn, as he was starting to drop back halfway through the final lap. Eventually he pulled the plug, and Carson helped pick up the slack with some long pulls as we approached the finish. Despite her sickness, Melissa hung through to the end and unleashed a nice sprint up the final climb, posting a couple of PRs along the way. We hit the finish line with a time of 46:12, good for 97th place in our division. Carson got into the excuse game during the post-ride cooldown, offering up a trio of somewhat-dubious excuses for his third-place finish in Tuesday's race, including a long day at work and something about a disrupted playlist.

Next Thursday we'll be back in Watopia for two laps of the Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop. If you've got some good excuses prepared for your performance, we'd love to hear them -- come and join us!

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday February 12 at 6:20 PM Eastern. The race is three laps of the Rolling Highlands course in Scotland, for about 20 miles total. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/UnN6RjJzVHVOaHZERlYzK25HNVhLb2hvUEJsdURRaGJsc2Yvc1dKVFFMRT0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL. (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/) Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here. (https://is.gd/nccdiscord)

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

Tonight's Zwift team time trial took us to Watopia for one lap of the Downtown Titans loop, which (unsurprisingly) starts downtown, and then climbs the Titan's Grove KOM, before returning to the downtown area for a final ascent of the Hilly KOM. The usual suspects of Carson, Melissa, Shawn, and myself took the starting line at 6:20 PM.

The hilly courses that we have been doing the past few weeks have played havoc with our usual rotation strategy, and tonight was no exception. After just one pull apiece, we were into the rollers of Titan's Grove, and then the main climb. Melissa and Shawn took the lead up the hill, and then I took over to pull through the descent. We resumed our normal rotation during the flatter middle section, and then powered up the short (two minute) Hilly KOM climb. Carson took a big pull through the flat section at the top, and I took over again on the descent. The rest of the course is flat, except for one sharp leading into the Esses, where Melissa dropped back a bit, leaving three of us to power through to the finish line, where Carson unleashed an impressive sprint in the final meters.

We came in with our top three within 0.9 seconds, with a finishing time of 36:52, putting us near the bottom of our division (91 out of 118), where we've been accustomed to landing since we were upgraded a few weeks ago. Next week we'll race the Rolling Highlands route in Scotland -- come and join us!

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday February 5 at 6:20 PM Eastern. The race is one lap of the Downtown Titans course in Watopia, for about 16 miles total. The course is mostly flat, apart from two moderate climbs up the Titan's Grove and Hilly KOMs. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/aXU0Z0REUzRRSWxZTUw3ZndVUDBKSlZlUE5ET1VtOW9TRVdxVXdrR2pGaz0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL. (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/) Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here. (https://is.gd/nccdiscord)

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

Tonight's TTT took us to Richmond for two laps of the 2015 UCI Worlds course, a strange combination of a flat first half and three punchy hills on the back half of each lap. Our core team of Carson, Melissa, Shawn, and I lined up at the start line. The plan we sketched out was basically to take equal sixty-second pulls at 3.6 w/kg on the flat portion, and then just kind of wing it on the hills, trying to keep the group together as best we could.

We more or less stuck to this plan through the first lap, staying together pretty well. On the second lap the hills started to take their toll, and Carson came through with some long pulls to give us a bit of relief. I let my attention wander for a minute at one point and came dangerously close to getting gapped off the back, needing to burn a couple matches to get back to the group. By the time we got to the final climb up to the finish line, Shawn was dangling a few seconds off the back, but Carson, Melissa, and I crossed the line together with a time of 50:34, putting us in our accustomed position near the bottom of the Frappe division at 85/107. This was actually a slightly better placement than last week, though, so I guess we're moving up in the world.

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday January 22 at 6:20 PM Eastern. The race is two laps of the UCI Worlds course in Richmond, for about 20 miles total. The course has three significant climbs per lap, so there is a lot of up-and-down. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/U2lPcWU2UmdDTWJUdUI2M1JDY1N5Zmo4Q1BBQ0s5TUUrUGRVM0RDb24rQT0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL. (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/) Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here. (https://is.gd/nccdiscord)

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

Tonight's Zwift team time trial took us to Watopia for three laps of the Hilly KOM route. Medical issues knocked out some of our core team this week, so we were left with a skeleton crew of Carson, Melissa, Shawn and me going up against some big strong teams in the Frappe division.

The course features three climbs (and descents) of the old-school classic KOM, making it hard to get a good team rhythm going. I was sort of improvising the pull schedule on the fly, to try to keep us together on the climbs, and protect the lightweights on the descents. My instructions got a little jumbled by the second lap when oxygen deprivation started to set in, but the team figured it out and made it work. Melissa and Shawn stepped up with some long pulls in the second and third laps, and Carson was always ready to do whatever was asked of him.

Our finishing time of 41:39 was solid, but now that we've been upgraded to a higher division, competing against teams composed of A and B riders, our position in the rankings is not quite as lofty as it had been in previous weeks (88th out of 108 teams as of this writing). Everyone seemed pretty knackered by the end, though, so I feel good about our effort -- nice work, folks! Come and join us next week to get in on the fun!

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday January 22 at 6:20 PM Eastern. The race is three laps of the Hilly Route course in Watopia, for about 17 miles total. This is three laps of the original Watopia "Hilly Route", with a short but significant climb each lap. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/ZmxTdldPaUdlU3VZNFNhUmNxSlBYaVhwZTRVR1hoQVdLREJ5WS93WnAvVT0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL. (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/) Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here. (https://is.gd/nccdiscord)

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

Tonight's Zwift team time trial took us to the Makuri Islands for two laps of the Suki's Playground route. This course is mostly flat, except for where it isn't -- two non-trivial climbs each lap, one of which has a steep extra kicker at the top of it.

We brought a large-ish team of six riders to the line tonight -- Carson, Dusty, Lauren, Melissa, Shawn, and me. It felt great to have the extra riders in the group, with plenty of time to recover between pulls. However, we weren't quite firing on all cylinders, as Dusty was hampered by back problems, and Shawn was fighting off a cold. The team worked well together, though, and we were able to hold a tight formation and keep the group together all the way through to the beginning of the final climb. We started off at 3.6 W/kg and pretty much stayed there the whole ride. Shawn started to fall off at one point, but then rallied to close down a four-second gap, and hung on the rest of the way to the finish.

We rolled into the finish with a very respectable time of 55:40. We would have finished around the top 20% of our usual category, but unfortunately our competitive landscape has been scrambled by the fact that Carson's big power numbers have finally earned him the "Category A" designation that he probably should have had all along. This forced an upgrade from our usual "Latte" category to the much-more-competitive "Frappe" division, where everyone is super-fast, and teams can have up to three Category A riders. Little fish in a big pond, as Melissa put it. We ended up near the bottom of this division, in 108th place out of 115 teams, but that's fine -- we still rode a strong race and had a blast. And now that we're in a higher category, we can recruit more A riders, so if you're a strong Zwift rider (or even if you're not), come and join us!