Coachinginterview

CRITERIUM SECRETS: GET AHEAD OF 99% OF YOUR COMPETITION | CORY WILLIAMS

with Cory Williams

33:50·7 September 2023

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CORY WILLIAMS

Cory Williams is the co-founder of L39ION of Los Angeles — the team he built with his brother Justin to change who races and watches American cycling. Multi-time US national criterium champion and one of the most followed pro cyclists on social media, he has used his platform to widen the sport's audience, mentor underrepresented riders, and rebuild the credibility of US criterium racing. For Roadman listeners, his perspective on the business of racing, sponsorship, and community-building inside US cycling is uniquely informed.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Crit wins come from positioning, patience and emotional control — not raw watts. Top-20 to win usually = staying composed when the race goes chaotic, picking the right moment to move.
Power meters are now universal, so the real separator is bike handling skill, race tactics, and understanding where to spend matches. Williams dropped his normalised power by ~30W mid-race by riding smarter, not harder.
Win in lower categories before moving up. Tailwind sprint, solo breakaway, over-the-top win — building the tactical toolkit matters more than getting upgraded too early and surviving at the back.
Williams' early "training" was 170W average rides. Joined his first pro team, learned what real intensity looked like — coach-led structure was the inflection point. Most amateurs train below the intensity they think they're at.
Legion of LA built with multi-year sponsorship structures rather than annual brand churn. Lets fans build loyalty across seasons — opposite to the European team rebrand cycle.

Cory Williams breaks down what separates winning criterium racers from the rest of the field—and it's not what you think. Beyond raw power numbers, he explores the mental game, bike handling skill, and race tactics that actually matter, plus how he's built Legion into a movement that's reshaping who feels welcome in cycling.

Key Takeaways

Power meters are now universal, so the real separator is bike handling skill, race tactics, and understanding how to control your effort—not just how hard you can push. Cory dropped his normalized power by 30 watts mid-race by riding smarter, not harder.
Spend time winning in lower categories before moving up. Learning to win a tailwind sprint, a solo breakaway, or over a hill climb builds the tactical toolkit you won't get holding on for dear life at the elite level.
Coach-led training with structured off-seasons compounds gains over years. Cory went from doing 170-watt 'training' rides to proper intensity work with coach Adam Mills, and that foundation building is what leveled him up.
Representation matters beyond winning races. Seeing young riders who look like you at the start line changes everything—it's the moment Cory realized his impact went far deeper than any result.
Build permanent structures, not sponsorship merry-go-rounds. Legion's multi-year partnerships and stable brand identity let fans build loyalty across generations, unlike European teams that rebrand every season.

Expert Quotes

"There's a difference between like getting top 20 and winning and the last thing I wanted to do as a kid was get in the way of the big guys."

"I think that because there are power meters on everyone's bike and they can't just go out and ride 300 watts all day, the separation is now who has the most skill on the bike and who actually pays attention to learning how to do a bike race."

"I hope I inspired all the people in cycling to be themselves like I know I'm a bit flashy with my gold chains and my diamond studded uglies but I just I hope I inspire people to be themselves and not fall into the line of this robotic cyclist."

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

Each tagged with the strength of evidence behind it.

EXPERT
Cory Williams, professional criterium racer and co-founder of Legion of Los Angeles, argues that universal adoption of power meters has shifted the competitive separator in crit racing from raw power to bike handling, race tactics and emotional composure under pressure.
Source: Cory Williams, interviewed on the Roadman Cycling podcast
ANECDOTE
Williams reports reducing his normalised power output during NCC crits by approximately 100W (from near 400W normalised to roughly 300W) after working with coach Justin Williams to improve bike handling and tactical positioning — same race speed, far lower physiological cost.
Source: Cory Williams, Roadman Cycling podcast
ANECDOTE
Williams's early "training" rides averaged ~170W until he joined his first pro team and discovered the actual intensity gap — illustrating that most amateur cyclists train at meaningfully lower intensity than they believe they are.
Source: Cory Williams, Roadman Cycling podcast
EXPERT
Legion of Los Angeles operates with multi- year sponsorship partnerships and a stable brand identity — Williams contrasts this with European WorldTour teams' annual rebranding cycle as a structural advantage for building enduring fan loyalty.
Source: Cory Williams, Roadman Cycling podcast

KEY QUOTES

“I used to think I was training right and like it was a funny moment where I got on my first uh pro team and I went to a training camp and we were riding so fast and I was like I've been doing something wrong like I've been riding way too slow I was doing like 170 watt averages on on rides and I thought that was training and it wasn't.”
Cory Williams — Professional criterium racer and co-founder of Legion cycling team

“Before working with your brother he was having the average these crazy numbers like almost 400 normalized in NCC crits just to get around the race and then he was talking to your brother and he's like no I put now way less than that and I'm way heavier than you it's just you don't know how to handle your bike and you don't know the ebb and Floyd is racism and he managed to drop his normalized power down by almost 100 Watts.”
Anthony Walsh — Roadman Cycling podcast host

“I think that because there are power meters on everyone's bike and they can't just go out and ride like let's say 300 watts all day I think the separation is now yeah who has uh the most skill on the bike and who actually pays attention to learning how to do a bike race like yeah they might be able to ride at 300 watts but they don't know how to control their bike or they don't know race tactics there's a lot that actually goes into it it's not all about power.”
Cory Williams — Professional criterium racer and co-founder of Legion cycling team

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT2 SECTIONS

Welcome and guest intro

Now there's an outward expression there's a entire generation of people that look the same as you that are now motivated to get on a bike for the first time that's wild and that's why it's so important man like there's a difference between like getting top 20 and winning and the last thing I wanted to do as a kid was get in the way of can you take me back or can you remember the low points that shape who you are today if you attack and you're you go on the sidewalk to kick you out of the race so like he was telling me I don't think that it matters like I'm I'm Not Gonna Change My Mind was it always a dream or can you remember that moment where you wanted to become more than a Pastime have you done Manhattan Beach before I haven't done it now yeah I've been going to that race since I was like four years old so like I've been around cycling my entire life foreign hey everybody and welcome back to the channel if you're new here my name is Anthony I'm a former lawyer turn cyclist turn podcast host who's based in Ireland my goal with this channel is to introduce you to the people and the ideas to help you optimize your health your happiness and your longevity today we have a guest that you're not going to want to miss a guy who's a sensation not just in the world of crew racing but also in the realm of content creation folks we've got Corey Williams with us you've probably seen Corey's electrifying race footage in YouTube where he takes you into the very core of the Palestine giving you an adrenaline rush from the comfort of your home but today we're going to step further repealing back the layers to understand the man to understand Corey the Persona behind the nation's number one Beast we're diving into his life Journey what it takes for a kid of color to excel in a white dominated sport to build one of the most recognizable brands in cycling Legion and the challenges of juggling all this with fatherhood this is the romance cycling podcast so support it please check out the sponsors in the description below and now my dear friends it's Corey Williams Corey Williams welcome to the romance cycle podcast dude thank you for having me back man it is a pleasure how has having a child changed your training that's crazy uh she she decides to cry on Friday nights right before so basically on Saturday I usually wake up at 5am to go out and do like five and a half hours and Friday night is rough so basically she'll cry and then my plans are either done or you know I'm a Zombie the next day so it's been pretty challenging sometimes for sure like we're in this era now where everybody's measuring everything do you measure your sleep and what impact has the child had on your sleep I don't measure my sleep I do sometimes use a loop but I I'm more use that for an excuse to to get myself to try and get some recovery but most of the times I don't listen to it anyway yeah that that's I feel the challenge where especially as a parent if you're looking at it you would just never train because it just says nothing to try and yeah I remember uh when she first came I was getting ready for the script series called Tulsa tough and I was training really hard in getting no sleep so I will be like operating on like 20 recovery every day going out doing like three hours and then like having to stay up with the baby it feels wild and basically when I got to the race I had one good day and I didn't recovered throughout the series people always say that becoming a parent causes them to kind of pause and reflect did you have time to reflect that in the last year like how did you go from being just another kid on a bike to become a symbol of change in a sport that has historically been very slow to evolve like was there a single aha moment when you knew this mission was bigger than you winning bike races yeah I mean I think there was there was a moment in 2021 where you know the crowd is is changing and now you can see more color in the events that we go to like there's people of all all backgrounds and there was these uh these two little girls that were African-American and she came up to me and she was like I came here to see you race and she was probably like seven years old and I was like that's that was the moment for me where I was like holy this is like this actually means something you know I've been racing bikes since I was nine years old and of course you want to think that you're making an impact but like to actually see it is is really crazy yeah because we're so inward focused as athletes and we think that you know you win an a Tulsa tour for you win in the final crit and Redlands we think that matters but really it doesn't matter exactly yeah but you and your brother have managed to transcend that inward looking view that every cyclist has and now there's an outward expression there's a entire generation of people that look the same as you that are now motivated to get on a bike for the first time that's wild and that's why it's so important man like you know there's times where you have to to realize that there's kids looking at you and like yeah let's say the race didn't go the way you want it or you crash or or something happens like for me I always remember like hey okay yeah you're mad right now but there's tons of people looking at you like that came here to see you and you have to like turn it off like you know I crashed and people still wanted photos like I had to like put that aside and you know go take photos and it's just part of the job but has not been a challenge I remember footage went kind of semi-viral last year I think it was your brother and possibly you were in it as well of like an altercation after the Finish Line like yeah how hard is it to put the brakes on an emotionally charged Moment Like That it was funny because I had it under control like basically uh this guy came under me and the first turn there was three more turns to go and it kind of didn't make sense and he hooked my elbow and basically my front will turn it came off the ground it turned and it shot me towards the corner and he thought that I took him into the curb and basically what happened was when I came around he was coming backwards looking for me and I just was explaining to him like Hey like you clipped my elbow I didn't try and put you into the curb the only reason I didn't crash was because your body was there like you literally took my front wheel off the ground and later there was a video in that exact corner thank God because he was trying to say that I just took him into the curb and I was explaining that to him and then Justin came over and Justin was mad obviously I'm his younger brother and then so and he was behind me and that dude literally almost like he could have potentially killed me there was a freeway like on the right side so like it becomes like this thing where yeah there's a fine line between like understanding that there's people watching you and like being a human being and reacting right so basically yeah things got heated and I was still like I was in the middle of it trying to stop it I didn't throw any punches or anything I was just trying to stop the fight but that's also me being in the moment and all of that and understanding that yeah we have a lot to lose and we need to try and control ourselves and yeah I tried to break it up so because that is quite a fine line because the nature of Criterium racing it's testosterone fueled it's you know everybody wants to be at the front anyone has ever done a criterium anyone would experience I'll say to them oh you need to be at the front well yet you guys are at the front you know yeah every everybody's fighting for those small few positions but yet you guys occupied them and I I don't want to say you're occupied under the tread of violence but there is an intimidation Factor as to why you guys occupied them so yeah you need to it's skill it's intimidation it's you know it's physical fitness it's a multiple of elements but you need to tread that line carefully between intimidation and leaning on somebody and you know like you're saying there when it spills over into moderna and you're like oh we actually have a lot to lose more than other guys yeah yeah I mean it's become hard right because you can't really enforce anything anymore because there's cameras everywhere and as soon as you defend the line or something they're going to put you on the internet and call you a bully but I remember being younger and trying to like I was actually just watching I would never ride up on the big teams because one I wasn't capable of winning and I'm not the type of person that's going to get in the way if I'm not capable of avoiding the race like yeah there's there's a difference between like getting top 20 and winning and the last thing I wanted to do as a kid was get in the way of the big guys and I see what they do to people when I come up on them they literally take them to the curb you're not in healthcare taking me to the curb I remember as well exactly right so like they didn't have the social media and they could do whatever they want so yeah there was a fear for those guys right like they you had to respect them or maybe you're going to be on the ground and like we can't do that so it's been hard to like try and control a race without being able to like put someone to the curb if they're not respecting you so like we just have to find another way we have to ride faster and that's the only thing you can really do take me back to the beginning did you grow up in a house that was immersed in cycling or what was your introduction to the sport yeah so my dad uh dude I've been going so this is have you done Manhattan Beach before it's it was like one of the big numbers but I haven't done it now yeah yeah so basically I've been going to that race since I was like four years old so like I've been around cycling my entire life was it always a dream or can you remember that moment where you wanted to become more than a pastime I wasn't always a dream I remember uh just wanting to be involved in something that my dad was doing like yeah I have fun doing bike races but I played football for for a long time as well and that was kind of something I wanted to do but you know I didn't grow tall enough so like I uh I had to make a choice in high school uh cycling or football and I chose cycling I felt like I was a little bit better at it the crazy success you've had on the bike and it's been Amplified on you know your amazing YouTube Instagram and sharing across social and the brand you guys have built with Legion and that Narrative of overnight success or that phrase overnight success is thrown around a lot but that's rarely the case can you take me back or can you remember the low points that shape who you are today yeah I mean I had a pretty successful junior junior career and then I remember that first year going into elites and like hanging on for my life and all these bike races in it and like you said I've documented it on YouTube and you can go back and there's a lot of those videos or times where I'm like 40th Place 50th place you're getting dropped so like it took from like 2012 to 2015.

Finding a real coach

I've struggled a lot in those years and it took a while to like get my feet under me get the confidence to try and go for uh wins what was the big thing that opened your game was this you know straight out season on season compound and growth smarter training or was there a mental head game element to this as well there was a it was a funny but I used to think I was training right and like it was a funny moment where I got on my first uh pro team and I went to a training camp and we were riding so fast and I was like I've been doing something wrong like I've been riding way too slow I was doing like 170 watt averages on on rides and I thought that was training and it wasn't so basically like the the team required me to have a coach uh my coaches uh this guy named Adam Mills and I'm still with him today and yeah he's we've just done off season after off season and I think just that building of those off seasons is just leveled me up a lot but it's not the crazy thing you're the last generation it was the same for me when I was getting started I went out for ice cream my girlfriend the other night we're going up past the local Hill and she's getting into cycle now and she was saying to me oh like so many people train here at night and I was like that's all I do and I was like five nights a week after University I used to go to this hill with my buddy just the two of us and we didn't know anything about training so we used to just race each other for like three four hours every night in the dark up and down this hill like it's a 15 minute climb we just smash each other like all those and that was the only training we knew how to do because there wasn't this proliferation of information that we see now with you know podcasts and gcn and amazing Vlogs yeah everyone now like the best Riders down had a power meter the worst writers now have a parameter mm-hmm now that's uh I mean laziness will get you but yeah you have all the tools I wonder now that was that head game becoming more important you know that moment in a race when your body's telling you to stop but something else Clicks in it's like a sense of identity that we don't lose or if we don't lose wheels or whatever that is is that now going to become the separator yeah I think so I think that well okay so I think two things I think that because there are power meters on everyone's bike and they can't just go out and ride like let's say 300 watts all day I think the separation is now yeah who has uh the most skill on the bike and who actually pays attention to learning how to do a bike race like yeah they might be able to ride at 300 watts but they don't know how to control their bike or they don't know race tactics there's a lot that actually goes into it it's not all about power I actually recently heard a story from a body uh Christian vanderveld and he was saying your brother was working on an open common rider Ashland Barry and before working with your brother he was having the average these crazy numbers like almost 400 normalized in NCC crits just to get around the race and then he was talking to your brother and he's like like no I put now way less than that and I'm way heavier than you it's just you don't know how to handle your bike and you don't know the ebb and Floyd is racism and he managed to drop his normalized power down by almost 100 Watts yeah it's so the thing is yeah like I said the power meter thing is even I get the get the like the bug of just like thinking like higher Powers better and sometimes I look at my average and I'm like oh I need to actually pay attention to what I'm doing because like the race that I did on Friday I was averaging 300 watts and like I don't that's not what I want to average so I got that actually down to 270 by the end of the race that's amazing I say this to people all the time to clients in races especially time trials power doesn't win races speed wins right exactly exactly Corey many athletes face barriers in sports but you've had the other challenge through your whole career of breaking ground and navigating to traditional barriers that any cyclist has to navigate but also breaking racial barriers do you mind talking about that experience yeah I mean it's something that we still face today I I literally had an experience at the same rate so I was telling you about on Saturday there was this guy he like cut the course basically and I was going up to one of the officials and I was like hey this guy looks back at me and turns and starts walking like really fast and I like yell like hey and he comes back he's like oh I can't I can't hear you you don't need to yell at me and I was like dude you literally just looked at me and now you're walking away and basically there's a I had my camera and I showed the guy cutting the course and one of the officials was like oh yeah he wasn't on the other side of the barriers and I'm like he jumped on the sidewalk and in Europe if you attack and you're you go on the sidewalk to kick you out of the race so like he was telling me like oh well I don't think that it matters like I'm I'm not going to change my mind so like I went to the other officials and I was explaining them like if that was me I would be out of the race so fast and a couple of them like got together and then they finally changed the decision but one of them were was like set on that it was fine that the guy cut the course and that's like it didn't make sense to me how do you separate actually a better way to frame this question is uh through an example A friend of mine is visually impaired and I remember being in a shop with him one day and he came across the counter and he put his cup of coffee on the you know the debit card machine so he brought it down on the uneven surface and it tipped over and it's built everywhere and then I was like you know embarrassed because it was coffee everywhere he was kind of embarrassed to shop clerk was embarrassed and then it all got mopped up anyway and he paid for the coffee and then afterwards when you know it was a less tense moment I was like you know is that like is that embarrassing is that like uh difficult for you to deal with all the time and he's like no he's like I have a I have a system for when I'm putting something on a flat surface I clear it with my right hand first and I put it down my left hand so it doesn't happen he's like I didn't do that I broke my system so I get I get to attribute that mistake to me being careless rather than being visually impaired when you're looking at situations like that how do you how do you deal with that same like allocation of like the Box you put it into is this someone being a jackass because people are jackasses or is it someone being a jackass because they're a racist how do you compartmentalize that you know I like to to try and give people the benefit of the doubt so I would like to say being a jackass and and maybe that's something that I do to to protect my my emotions and my feelings uh but yeah I like I like to say that people are jackasses rather than being racist and hopefully hopefully that's the case you've been a super outspoken advocate for diversity in sport do you think it's made a difference yeah 100 I I uh just the amount of people that show up to these bike races that are of color it's blowing my mind like literally I show up to these races and people are there for us you know and and it's been like an amazing experience because you know you you roll around and you like to think that you're not making that much of a difference but like when they when you see the crowd and you see all of these people and they're screaming for Legion it's yeah it's touching for sure let me take a second to talk about today's show sponsor because of something really exciting to share with you it's a game changer that's been making a noticeable difference in my performance recently especially when it comes to sleep allow me to introduce you to 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you come there for one or two races and it's like this once-off pressure-filled audition and if you don't perform on this one occasion in this pressure filled audition everyone's able to throw that stereotype back in your face say Hey you know it's just not good enough it's just culturally it's not good enough he doesn't get it whereas the likes of Remco you know you have years to marinate you can go you can make your mistakes get your 40th position dnf get 50 a position dnf season after season make small incremental improvements until you have the Breakthrough and then everyone goes it's an overnight success yeah that that is uh a perfect example of why a lot of the Americans go over to Europe and they struggle like you go over there like you said it's so much fresher to do good because you know everyone's rooting against you and everyone wants to say like see I told you and like yeah for us I feel like we've tried to take away the pressure of Performing and now like just because well I guess that was in the beginning because now like we're expected to win at some of these races and like there's a pressure in that but like we don't put pressure on each other I think there's more of an outer pressure on us so like we can be comfortable if one of us don't feel good we're not like hey like why don't like we always give the benefit of the doubt and it's because you know most of us show up all year round what do you think the normal Joe or Jane who is in a Cycling Club and is looking to promote more inclusion and be more welcoming of riders of every background what do you think they can do I think uh showing up to group rides you know being social and you know talking to the person next to you I think that everyone wants to feel included in something and like if you're riding around with I mean I guess it depends right because some people use group rides for instance for training and they have the headphones in but I think some social rides will be good and trying to figure out you know what clubs you want to ride with and showing up to bike races and supporting you know your favorite team and just being like a part of cycling I guess uh yeah you just want to be social I guess creating Legion was a really bold move and it's an ingenious move in so many ways as well because you look at the the Merry-Go-Round and European teams like as a Lotto quick step to conic like what's going on there it just sponsors are interchangeable and there's no equity getting built in the franchise and in North American teams and Premier League teams for years we see that Equity getting built in the franchise for the first time ever a single team we're seeing Equity get built in the franchise what inspires you to create Legion it's funny man like we have so many examples like in American Sports it's the Los Angeles Lakers and they have sponsorships that change but they're never they're never like like you said the lotto like that changes I I feel like I am a fan of the team that my grandfather was a fan of you know it's the same name it's the same team and I think there's a lot of importance in that like how do I follow a team that's called you know Old Spice and then next year it's called something else and like it it just gets lost in translation to where like you can't build generation like generations of fans and I feel like that was one of our biggest things that we wanted to to build for me coaching the most rewarding experience that I've seen it actually hasn't been I've had a bunch of Reuters who have kind of come from kafar to cop one and yeah that's pretty cool you get a kick out of watching that progression and seeing the smile on her face but actually what's much more impactful is watching how cycling can go beyond competition it's watching clients that can kick an addiction that can lose weight I can defeat mental health problems or because of their bike can you share any of those rewarding moments from your experience with build and Legion brands that kind of went beyond the win in Redlands yes I think uh you know when we go do these Bike Shop visits or like when we go to the Raffles that we we do like q and A's at and you just hear the stories of like you know I got into cycling because of you guys like I bought a bike because of you guys and I think a lot of it came uh with covet which was it was a blessing in disguise for us I think that there were so many more people that got into cycling there that like you know found my YouTuber they found some of these things and they like they went to their first bikers and like that's where you see like the impact is so much bigger than winning Revenge it's like people are coming to the sport looking for something to be a part of and Legion is there like that's awesome for us to like have that kind of impact and structurally how's the team set up now is it gonna be something that's around for the next five years 10 years or are you still on a year by year deals I mean most of our deals are like we're signing like three four years at this point so like hopefully we're gonna be around for a long time we don't have any uh plans of of messing it up because it seems like it's you know you see companies like Rafa and I do like Rafa so I don't want to dog on them but they're your I don't want to say it's they're exploiting you because at the same time you're almost exploiting damn you're capitalizing on this wave of diversity and inclusion and you're able to ride that way if Rafa are trying to take that diversity and inclusion box from their corporate spans and you guys are also able to position yourselves to capitalize on that has that been quite deliberate I think uh we like to call well our sponsorships are more Partnerships I feel like we all benefit from from it Rafa has one of the biggest cycling clubs in the world and also we have we have like you said that diversity diversity uh and inclusion box that they can take so like yeah it's a partnership we both get stuff out of it does it feel hollow like is if we're looking for a real diversity inclusion in Brands like that should we be looking at CEOs and CFOs and CEOs as people of color I mean I think we'll get there I I don't I don't think that it should be something they do out of pity you know what I mean like I feel like there's gonna be people working their way up in the company that will get there um but it starts you know starts here it starts out on the roads it starts you know people get into cycling and then you meet somebody and that's how you actually oh I can maybe work for Rafa like if I retire and you know I don't run Legion anymore I can go work for Rafa and maybe one day I can be uh in a high position there so I feel like just more people get of color getting into the sport that opens a lot more doors you've hooked up some cool collaborations like uh Rafa's Swift specialized if you collaborate with anyone any artist musician brand that kind of expresses the spirit of Legion who would that be oh that's a good question who would that be uh we're gonna have to get back to that one now that's you should uh set those questions a little earlier so I could thought about that like I was trying to take before who's the sound of La who's the the musician of your Utes who's the the song that encapsulates everything you guys are doing it's kind of counter-cultural yeah you know I know Snoop Dogg does a lot of uh collaborations and like he's he even has a kids show at this point so yeah if we could collaborate with Snoop Dogg I actually uh played football in his little league uh that he created it was called uh oh it's called Snoop league and I played football I played football there for like four years so that would be pretty cool you need to make that happen card yeah exactly and I want to give I love uh when I listen to her podcast and I walk away with something tangible and I know so many people listen to the podcast now they're a little intimidated by criteriums and they're listening to one of the best Criterium specialists in the world so I want to give them something that they can walk away with if you were starting else now as an overcoming Criterion racer what's the kind of tips that you wish you knew back then that you know now so it's it's not something that I wish I knew it's something that I wish more people knew uh growing up in cycling I feel like people have this goal of getting out of the category really fast uh for me even when I was young I always thought that it would be better because they kick you out when you win too much to kick you out so my goal is to get kicked out of every category so that I had that time to learn how to actually win a bike race in different ways so like I remember being like 17 years old and the kids like I was a cat I was in category three which is like mid category and they all make fun of me like oh why are you moving up like we're all tattoos but the tattoos race with the pros so like if I move up I'm not gonna have any experience whatsoever it's gonna be like I'm just gonna be holding on for my life so instead of moving up I took my time and learned how to actually race my bike and learn tactics so I feel like I wish everyone tried to do that before they just tried to go from the bottom to the top as fast as possible I think that's great advice we have a club League saying here in Europe where you've opened races you know like you do in the US on the weekends and some weeknights in the summer but you also have a club League that roams all summer and it's you can't get promoters in it it's just like there's not that cut one two three four so you're just in your group you're in a group but it's a great place to go and learn to win and some people when they start getting to cup one they think they're too good to race club League races or when they're tattooed or too good to race club League I'm always like go learn how to win like learn how to win a Tailwind Sprints where do you open out ahead wind Sprint to win how do you win a hill climb like learn how to develop these different skills because you don't get many chances to Sprint for a win in a pro race yeah and basically if you if you call this club League I go to the training crits every Thursday and I'm doing different things like okay if I wanted to Winter a solo where how long could I actually ride off the front by myself and I know that I don't want to do 20 minutes off the front so I'm looking for like maybe 15 or 10 minutes like that's a lot of things that you you can go there and learn it's not like you know everything I don't know everything about myself and I don't know everything about racing I want to go out there and I want to learn and the brilliant thing without it as well you understand the importance of wind you're like okay I can attack with 10 minutes to go when the Tailwinds what if I attack with 10 minutes to go into a headwind I'm toast hey exactly so yeah it's just about learning learning the bike and learning how to actually be successful in a lot of different situations if we fast forward 40 years over two grumpy old men sitting down for a point to Guinness over here in Dublin and we're looking back on your life and your career what do you hope will be your enduring Legacy I hope I inspired uh all the people in cycling to to be themselves like I know uh I'm a bit flashy with my gold chains and my my diamond studded uglies but I just I hope I inspire people to be themselves and not fall into the line of like this robotic cyclist Corey I love it thanks for chatting of course man have a good one if you enjoyed this chat with Corey Williams please press here for another conversation that I know you're going to love and please don't forget to subscribe to the show

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How do you get better at criterium racing?+

Cory Williams argues that positioning and emotional control matter more than raw fitness in criterium racing. Most riders lose races by moving too early, panicking in chaotic situations, or wasting energy in the wrong part of the field. Williams recommends practising patience and staying near the front without burning matches unnecessarily.

What is the key to winning a criterium?+

According to Cory Williams, the difference between a top-twenty finish and a win is almost always composure under pressure rather than superior power output. Riders who stay calm when the race turns chaotic are able to pick the right moment to move, while others react emotionally and spend themselves too early.

How does having a baby affect cycling training?+

Cory Williams discusses how fatherhood forced him to treat training time as a scarce resource, which made his sessions more focused and deliberate. Recovery became a higher priority because sleep and stress management were no longer optional considerations. The result was a more efficient, periodised approach built around limited but high-quality training windows.

What is Legion of Los Angeles cycling team?+

Legion of Los Angeles is a professional criterium team co-founded by Cory Williams and his brother Justin Williams. The team competes at the top level of American criterium racing and has become one of the most prominent outfits in the domestic scene. Cory Williams is consistently ranked among the best crit racers in the United States.

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