L39ion.la vs the world

Legion of Los Angeles has been wrecking shop on the crit scene this year! I’m just curious how they compare to the elite amateur teams around the world. Would they be able to control the front in Belgium? Would they hang with the boys from Madison Genesis? Maybe even world tour riders?

Given crit racing is really an American specialty, i don’t know if it is a simple apples to apples comparison.
While they do some crits in Belgium they are much different than the big American USA Crit series races in terms of the courses and how they play out.

That said, on an individual level Justin Williams was at the top of the game with international events like red hook so it’s not like there is going to be a massive gap one way or the other.

You also need to look at why legion is cleaning house. KHS “lost” their top sprinter Cory Williams to race with his brother at Legion. UHC who used to be the other big powerhouse merged and became Rally/UHC who holds a pro-conti license and has chosen to focus more on stage racing and world tour wild card invites than crit racing where UHC really specialized. There just isn’t the same parity and competition that there has been in past years between teams.

They’d do well in European crits but I don’t think they’d dominate. Creating that leadout train would be tough in Europe, just too many big motors (including former and future UCI pros) over there. I’d still put money on Justin though.

That’s going off Jaspers video’s, who races in SoCal and the Netherlands. He’s top ten in SoCal, top 25ish in the Netherlands.

Having watched a fair few SoCal and Legion videos, I’d say that they would be at the sharp end for sure.

It would be interesting to see Justin race a winter series here in the UK though. A few of the pro domestic and pro conti teams will use the 4/6 week series as a training block and those E12 fields are small and fast. If the Legion team were to contest, I think they’d perform :+1:

I didnt realize Cory was with KHS. I think that Elevate/KHS is from my area in DFW, when they show up as a team they are pretty strong.

Like I said, American crits and European crits are different. Just like the road races are different. The wider roads in America make a lot “easier” to get the big trains going. Narrower European roads and tighter courses doesn’t allow that to happen and positioning is rewarded more.
That said, the legion guys can bike handle just fine. It’s just different tactics.

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