Woah. Think you may be reading into that a little much.
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(post deleted by author)
I might be wrong but i read the “they” as “legion” rather than anything racist 
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Same. They are gratuitously aggressive and enjoy hyping it up. They would be better off playing football where that kind of aggression is part of the culture.
Oh o.k. I see, the they in this case is Legion, yes maybe I was mistaken.
I do not follow crit as much as as some other people here. But where can I see he videos of legion being borderline illegally aggressive during a race?
I would assume headbutting someone during a race is not legal, or is it?
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IIRC there haven’t really been any in the past couple years, but Cory has posted compilations of footage from 4-5 years back that was pretty agressive. Most of the really egregious stuff you see from his channel is from 2016-2017 I believe, before L39ion was even a team.
Most recently, Rahsaan Bahati has posted some videos highlighting dangerous/aggressive riding (by others) in masters fields.
https://youtu.be/dOlldHrUTkk (end of this video)
https://youtu.be/klxyk2Co5MU (about midway through this video)
IMO, this has been an issue across all fields and has been well before the past couple seasons when L39ion existed. If you haven’t listed to the Criterium Nation podcast link I posted previously, it’s a good one. Adam Myerson recounts how bad it was in the 90s-00s and how (he thinks) it can be fixed.
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“The publicity behind Legion has plenty of people energized for bike racing in Southern California and no one else has near the following they do in the sport.”
eh idk about this part. I know people that don’t want to race if legion is there because they’re basically a pro team with a ton of riders in each race and it’s too hard to compete against them since they will bully you out of their train.
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At the local grassroots level - which is what I was talking about - Legion shows up with the Williams brothers in LA, Orange, Fresno counties. They don’t roll the full squad to most of the local races, Redlands probably being the one exception. No one doesn’t show up because they’re coming, and they draw interest for the pro races that no one else does. No one cares if RideBikesBros or ButcherBox or LABC or whomever else has riders in the field. When they see the Williams brothers, they stay to watch the pro race.
I’m not speaking anecdotally. I race here and live here. I see it week after week. I saw Justin’s crash and I saw the response from rival riders who went back to help tend to him and help him. Seems outsider perception, in this case, isn’t matching the reality on the ground where these guys got their start.
The only two Legion riders in the field at Manhattan Beach were Justin and Cory. Cory won. Justin finished 7th pro/18th OA after a leadout. No bullying, they just outsprinted everyone. Justin’s going to be able to race Masters’ fields pretty soon. 
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IMOHO I believe mistakes are human and acceptable. However is actions both leading up to this incident and his statement lead me to believe he learned little from his actions. This changes my opinion of him and his team. Hopefully at some point sooner than later he and his team learn from what happened as I believe they can still make a positive change in Cycling, especially here in the USA.
His statement after the incident was:
"In my fifteen years of racing professionally, this past weekend marked a low point for me.
I’m very sorry for my unacceptable behavior that is not representative of me, my team, or my partners.
For a brief moment I lost sight of the bigger picture, and I let my emotions get the best of me. This will not happen again."
I admit that it sounds sort of like a canned, PR massaged statement, but what leads you to believe he hasn’t learned anything?
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I think they’ve (L39ion/Williams) learned a lot and really doubt any physical contact like this, post race, will again happen. They are all professionals and you gotta think they had a huge team meeting after to go over what happened and how to prevent it in the future. If this were just down to an individual it’d be different but they have others to think about (team, sponsors) and most likely they developed a procedure to handle or just avoid conflict post race (finish line procedure - retreating to a closed off paddock/bus, placing a team manager in between, what ever, at the domestic level its impossible sometimes but there can be some ways to mitigate this).
I think though in-race is a different story and will continue with their winning “tactics”. Until a power team is able to decode their ways of controlling the race either by a hack or numbers they’ll continue to dominate and frustrate the peloton.
Again this was my own opinion and feeling towards his response. Everything that he and the team typically post is pretty raw and not so polished. This felt to me more like oh shit I have a bunch of huge sponsors I better make an apology of some sorts. Also the fact that they canceled their own race just made me feel like it was forced and not genuine. Also the fact that they haven’t released any of their own footage of the race seems suspect as most of the team always has GoPros running especially at bigger races like SLC etc.
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I’m just repeating what I was told, and this was WRT bigger races not local random crits.
Then as I said, we are talking about different things, and your anecdotes are irrelevant to the point I was making in the post you quoted.
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Hey, everyone.
As you all know, we’re willing and eager to host constructive dialogues about all things cycling related on the TrainerRoad forum, including conversations on the climate of US Crit racing. The direction of this topic, however, seems to keep diverging from a productive discussion, so we’re going to close this thread.
I want to clarify some of the common themes of Community Guidelines violations in this thread, in contrast to discussions that we are willing to host.
Name calling the athletes involved with statements like “they’re a joke” or “both are idiots” is a violation of 1. Being Excellent, and 2. Challenge the idea, don’t attack the person. This applies to those not active in the forum thread as well when any sentiments of a personal attack can be harmful to the forum climate and to the direction of the dialogue.
Posts that discuss danger being somewhat inherent to crit racing, normal contact to expect in a race, or expressing that “post race brawls are not what cycling is about” are all examples of very productive ways to talk about this topic.
Discussing racist microagressions that may be at play when athletes are considered “aggressive” or having “attitude” are also valid points for discussion, and can be approached from a place of learning and wanting to create shared understanding.
Constructive debate on this topic looks like this reply: “Fair points, I don’t like the way their sweeper races’.” This is a great response that can offer a perspective without a personal attack.
Alternatively, engaging in back-and-forth debate with one other athlete about any issue removed from the context of the topic of US Crit climate is an example of a violation of 3. Constructively Contribute. Exchanges that arent founded in principles of constructive debate do not move the conversation forward, and ultimately harm others’ participation in healthy, constructive debate.
On future threads moving forward, please keep those examples and principles in mind, and as always, feel free to message me if you need clarification or feedback on what upholding our Community Guidelines looks like while participating on the forum.
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