The competition was pretty much all there. Elevate, CLIF Bar, Best Buddies, Roadhouse, et al. McCabe, Bassetti, Eric Young. Some names weren't there, e.g. Gavin Hoover. But not that many. Holloway retired. Maybe McCabe and Marcotte were tired from Unbound Gravel.

But overall none of that should detract from straight team domination by Legion. They kept any breaks from getting away with super strong riding by the likes of Sam Boardman. And they just clearly have way faster closing speed than anyone else right now. (except in Zwift where they get outsprinted by middle-aged men).

They stepped right in to fill the void left by United Health Care dissolving. Maybe Rally Cycling could put together some competition if they tried. But that team has seemingly swung more to European racing with their ProTeam status, maybe in part because of the complete absence of UCI-calibre races from the U.S./Canada this year.

U.S. Pro Nationals could be interesting. But I don't think even a few scattered riders from Trek, Rally, EF, et al, are really going to be able to disrupt Legion a whole lot. In the crit. The road race could be a different story.

Yes, the competition was all there, but is it actually good? We don't have the kind of competition we had on the domestic pro scene like we did when there was still a Tour or California, Utah, Georgia, even Fitchburg Longsjo, Tour du Toona, US Pro Week in the mid-Atlantic or the Cascade Cycling Classic? These weren't one-off crits, but my point being, domestic pro racing is probably at its lowest point in at least the last 30 years. And this isn't intended to bash Legion, it's great to have a team people seem to be a little excited about for a number of reasons. I'm just saying whenever you see dominance there are two possibilities, true dominance or a bunch of tomato cans.

Well there's some guys who *were* good, but they're newly semi-retired. They're Travis McCabe and Eric Marcotte. McCabe road for a World Tour team last year (Israel Startup Nation). Eric Young is certainly very good. They've been regulars in the US pro crits the past decade or so.

How good are they right now? Not sure. But they're not "tomato cans." McCabe came darn close to beating Peter Sagan at the last (sniff sniff) Tour of California. And finished ahead of the likes of Michael Morkov and John Degenkolb. He's no slouch. I think the story is more Legion being good than anything else.

Mens Cat3 -

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

L39ion put on a freaking show. I for one loved it. I think downtown crits can be the way forward for US bike racing. I know everyone is high on gravel, and I think it has its place for sure. I think it's an example of us being able to have our cake and eat it too. Gravel and crits don't have to fight for dominance over one another. They are different enough and found in different locales that they can both succeed. I think the thing we have seen over the last 30+ years is that trying to emulate what Europe has with their cycling culture and history of long road races and multi day, cross country stage races just doesn't work here.

I think what separates L39ion from everyone else is that they embrace this and aren't trying to get to what everyone else sees as "the next step". Look back at the most successful US based (really based, not just title sponsor based) trade teams and they all tried to make it over to Europe to race and rarely (ever?) did they have success. I think L39gion has a legit chance to help raise the visibility of the downtown criterium and help turn them into the carnival/spectacle atmosphere that they can be.

---

USAT Level 1 Coach
Team Next Level
http://goteamnltri.com/

Two things. One, top quality shade thrown. Should receive a Zwift level-up for that alone.

Also, Boardman is kind of a blast-from-the-past name, at least for me. Pretty obvious that he was a cut above the rest of us Cat-3s.


Depending on your definition of rarely, you may or may not have a point. To suggest they never have a success is a bit of a stretch. Wonder what ever happened to this fella. Oh, that's right, resigned to the status of mere history footnote by someone whose knowledge of cycling doesn't stretch back far enough. Ditto for his team, I guess (which started organically as a USCF team)

Hope this is Bassett's year in the road race. '19 was a Heartbreaker.

For the crit, hard to see Legion not winning... but the finish in Knoxville is hard so a surprise could happen I guess.

---

My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

Ok, so rarely :) That team did organically grow from a domestic into an international team. Has there been another team that's done that though in the last 30 years? I guess the Slipstream program sort of did it. Not trying to prove my point, just honestly curious.

My point was more that I think L39gion doesn't have visions of moving up to the world tour. I've listened to lots of interview with Justin Williams, and he seems to genuinely want to create a uniquely American form of bike racing that works here, not adapting or trying to mimic the european model. I can get behind that because it just seems the European model doesn't work here with our infrastructure set up the way it is.

---

USAT Level 1 Coach
Team Next Level
http://goteamnltri.com/

I can't imagine that anger he felt. He likely had a sure win!

7-11 is the only example I could think of, albeit a fairly successful one. You are right, the only other one is Slipstream (and perhaps UHC), but Slipstream never had that much success, and UHC even less so.

As for American crit racing, I think it could work, but it will never get "true exposure". None of the criterium events (either in the Pro Road Tour calendar or the USA Crit calendar) takes place in a truly marquee city, and there's a reason for that: it is way too inconvenient and costs too much. The only locales of note are Arlington, VA and SLC. Years ago, there were downtown crits in DC proper and in Boston, but those aren't on the calendar, at least this year (the DC crit hadn't been organized for about a decade). Tulsa is such a city of low importance that two years ago, someone literally paid people $10k to relocate there.

The locals might get excited, but how does that get monetized? And it's doubtful that there would be significant out-of-town visitors coming in solely to spectate the races. At best, it's a traveling freak show circus (oh look, crashes) that earns the promoters and the teams some money. At worst, we may be looking at the last embers.

I'm semi local (OKC), so i decided to race the 1/2 race even though i wasn't really in crit shape (have been focused on gravel). Friday and Saturday races are really easy to tailgun, so no problems there. I got dropped hard and early on Sunday. I was way out of position and didn't have what it took to move up to where things would have been easier. Plus the heat was absolutely killer for me. No crashes for me all weekend, so no complaints.


L39gion was very impressive looking in the pro race. It looked like they were nose breathing while the rest of the field was gasping for air. On Saturday they essentially rode tempo on the front for 70 minutes and then still finished 1,2,3,4. Crazy. The field was legit (big teams, big names, people who know how to get results) but L39gion made them look like amateurs. Unreal.

It seems like this past weekend in Tulsa there was 'decent' competition but no team seems as deep as Legion. National champs should be interesting when you assume all these teams bring the best squad possible. The weekend before was Armed Forces Classic here in Arlington, VA--Legion didn't exactly send a 'full' squad and they didn't control/win the races--Project Echelon brought a pretty deep team and did very well. In Tulsa, Legion brought the train. As Frankie was saying on the livestream yesterday--they can just control the race because they can all ride on the front at 28mph like it's an easy ride but for anyone to get around them to try and go up the road they need to surge faster than 28 just to try to get up to the front and then have to work around them and still have the power/snap left to get a gap-that's a long effort just trying to gain separation. That seems like a big ask. So that leaves just sitting on the back of the Legion train and try for a sprint finish BUT what are your chances vs them in a sprint??

It's amusing that Legion is being counter-culture by trying to make old school crit racing cool again. Right when the rest of U.S. cycling is trying to be cool by doing 12-hour gravel races.

I hope it works out. We can have both urban crit banging and the rural gravel stuff.

I agree with echappist that a because of cost issues we may never again see the heyday of the downtown crit (I miss the Dana Point Grand Prix!) But I don't mind at all using the downtowns of smaller towns or the office parks in the more densely populated areas. Though I've never seen the same "vibe" in an office park that you get at a downtown crit.

Yeah, this is an interesting point. I don't see something like the NYC crit that happened back in the early 2000's, but I wonder if smallish big cities (is that a thing?) can use them to draw regional attention to themselves. Would an increased amount of marketing draw people to Tulsa for a long weekend vs. Oklahoma city, or Kansas City, or Dallas? I don't know. I just feel that certain cities, if marketed properly, could probably use a high level bike race to really showcase their growing downtown area. I just see a 45 minute-1 hour long televised bike race, and we saw this with Challenge Daytona where a small closed loop could be shown very well through TV as a great way to get eyeballs on your town. Especially when they go through the same area 30 times in a race. If there was value in that for a city, or companies centered around a certain city, then the money could flow into the sport and maybe, maybe, you could have the growth of some of these crit teams into something bigger than they are now.

---

USAT Level 1 Coach
Team Next Level
http://goteamnltri.com/

The Boise Twighlight Criterium is one of the marque events for the city, and is on the Annual Calendar of things to look forward to. Race Start/Finish line is at the base of the steps for the State Capitol. We now have the Chrono Kristin Armstrong (ITT) the night prior.

Brings people to the city, is a boom for the downtown economy, and has helped foster the sport. We currently have two World Tour pros from our smallish town that were homegrown from local junior club.

As a fan, was a blast to see Jennifer Valente and Justin Williams win it in 2019. Williams sat in on the back while Legion controlled until last couple of laps when he surgically moved his way up into position.

7-11, tailwind (postal), slipstream and bmc all started as domestically focused teams before going abroad after a year or three and becoming wt. RadioShack is really the only US wt team that jumped straight to Europe.

Great vibe they have going. Hard to recreate crazy sometimes

https://cyclingtips.com/...-from-cry-baby-hill/

Yeah, that's true. And I think that Slipstream (and 7-11 if we go back 35 years) are the only ones who sort of kept their identity in the move. The guys who made a name for the domestic team were important to the European move of the team. I always thought that Postal was just a continuation of the 7-11 / Motorola program, but it looks like a separate entitiy. Guess there were just a lot of american guys who made the switch from Motorola to Postal in 96 or whenever.

---

USAT Level 1 Coach
Team Next Level
http://goteamnltri.com/

Too bad Rally Cycling was pretty much forced overseas by the almost complete disappearance of quality road races from the U.S. Good luck to them trying to find a niche over there.

I'm sure you heard about the game of chicken Hampsten played that day, not wanting to pull a wheelsucker into the lead.
I forget the details, but the other guy would sit on until Andy decided he was also going to work or neither was going to gain time.

I have a signed poster here in my office.

Was also an Alcala fan.