So who is the greatest of all time?

[Roy E. Munson]

Spinning off the tail of another thread:

Who do you think the greatest cyclist of all time is (besides me) is? If you answer, please justify the choice. And the jerk doesn't count either!!

[Russ]

These guys are in the same group:

1) Munson
2) Merckx
3) Hinault
4) Fignon*
5) Coppi
6) the jerk

* yes, Fignon, he's won a number of races that others have not!

[dnovo]

First Place: Merckx. There is no second place, nobody else comes close. Just my (very) humble opinion of course. Dave N.

[David Kirk]

Merckx !








Dave

[saab2000]

Merckx is clearly head and shoulders above the rest.

After that is clear, it is possible to talk about others being careful to not mix generations.

Big names include (in no particular order)

Hinault
Kelly
Lemond
Coppi
Bartali
Indurain
Anquetil
Fignon

I am sure I am missing some great ones here too. But these guys come right to mind.

Lance Armstrong must also be included here. His mastery of the TdF is not to be discounted. He has won it 5 times and has won other significant races. I would like to see him to more, but who am I to argue with 5 TdF wins. But even if he wins 6 Tours he will not be the greatest. Merckx won, for example, 5 Giri d'Italia, Milano-San Remo 7 times, P-R, L-B-L, and on and on and on.

Nobody else even comes close to Mr. Eddy Merckx. To top it off he is a nice guy. I met him once and he could have simply not taken the time to meet with a nobody racer from the US, but he met me in his factory and it was cool. Great racer and great guy.

[Jeff N.]

Merckx.

[gt6267a]

i am the master of my driveway. i have never been beat between the door and the street. (of course, i've never been raced either, but that's beside the point. i'm still my driveway champion.)

ohh, do you mean outside my little reclusive world? the obvious answer to make the crowd cheer is merckx. i think an interesting addition to this thread is to ask, who is the most inspiring cyclist?

my answer to that question is lemond. when i was a kid, he inspired me to ride. he was beyond cool. i even had his black and yellow giro helmet.

[Russ]

I think gt6267a statement is right.... I rather see great riders as inspirational riders. Merckx has achieved just too much to be inspirational, he is almost like a cycling God.

I do agree about Greg LeMond as my most inspirational rider. I just can not put him on the same achievement level as Hinault or Fignon...

Perhaps he is out there with Indurain, Roche, and others I don't remember.

IMHO, Hinault and Fignon won sereral Classics and other Tours, which LeMond never entered or finished. A lot f credit goes to him for coming from the USA to Europe.... But....

[Kevin]

Merckx.

Kevin

[Climb01742]

some guy named eddy.

[dbrk]

As Krsna says in the Bhagavadgita, "Of mountains, I am the Himalayas; of rivers, I am the Ganga; of cyclists, I am Merckx..."

Well, maybe that last one isn't in there but it makes the point. I am too old to have been inspired by LeMond though he is redoutable. For me as a shop rat kid in 1969 there was only Eddy...a bit like being a mariner who once saw Nelson on the quarterdeck as a mere reefer midshipman.

dbrk

[Andreu]

1) Munson
2) Merckx
3) Hinault
after that the list becomes difficult or even meaningless because we end up arguing about stuff like....."Armstrong only does the Tdf" "Kelly and Zoetemelk (sp?) had loads of second places" "Bahamontes was the best in the mountains" ....hair splitting..... and anyway there are more urgent things to argue about like how many angels you can get on the point of a needle etc etc..
AF

[Kevan]

but can I put my vote in for Sandy? He's clearly won the heart of everyone in this forum.

Why, I can't imagine. :D

[Andreu]

I didn't say why I chose Munson, Merckx and Hinault....but it is obvious...isn't it?
Anyway Mr Munson who is second and third on your list and why?
A

[pale scotsman]

Eddy Merckx without a doubt. When I was a wee lad living in Germany one of our German neighbors was a huge cycling fan. He loved Merkckx. He also loved beer. Bitburger by the way.

My family would go to Liege to the open air market maybe once a month, and I'd be looking for Eddy out on the roads. This was '74 - '76 and to an eight year old it was entirely possible.

[David Berry]

Of course one can define greatness in many ways. But for the purpose of this message, lets define greatness as winning or standing on the podium of Grand Tours. In golf its how many majors you win, Tennis how many grand slam events, so this is as good of measure as any in cycling.

1. Eddy Merckx
Tour de France - 1st GC in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 2nd in 1975
Giro - 1st in 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974
Vuelta - 1st in 1973

Merckx won 11 Grand Tours, more than anyone else, and finished on the podium 12 times. He didn't win the Tour 5 years in a row like Indurain or Armstrong, but 1973, the year he didn't win the tour, he won both the Vuelta and the Giro.

2. Bernard Hinault
Tour de France - 1st in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985, 2nd 1984, 1986
Giro - 1st in 1980, 1982, 1985
Vuelta - 1st in 1978, 1983

Sure, maybe Lemond was the stronger rider during the tour in 1985, but it still remains that Hinault won 10 grand tours and finished on the podium 12 times. I think this would surprise most people that at least in terms of Grand Tours, in terms of wins, Hinault is right behind Merckx

3. Jacques Anquetil
Tour de France - 1st in 1957, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 3rd in 1959
Giro - 1st in 1960, 1964, 2nd in 1959, 1961, 3rd in 1966, 1967
Vuelta - 1st in 1963

Anquetil won 8 grand tours, and is one of only three riders I looked at that have won all three (Merckx and Hinault the other two, though no one has won all three in a year). However, it is interesting to note that Anquetil finished on the podium 13 times, more than any other rider.

4. Fausto Coppi
Tour - 1st in 1949, 1952
Giro - 1st in 1940, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 2nd in 1946, 1955

Any list would be incomplete about Fausto Coppi. One wonders, how many more events might he have won had World War II not been fought? Might he rank up with or even ahead or Merckx? We shall never know. It is also interesting to note that Coppi won the Giro in 1940 and 1953, and was 2nd in 1955. How many other riders have achieved such excellence over a decade and a half? Not many

5. Miguel Indurain
Tour - 1st in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995
Giro - 1st in 1992, 1993, 3rd in 1994
Vuelta - 2nd in 1991

No one reading this board needs to be reminded how Indurain dominated cycling during the early 1990's. 5 straight Tour wins, and the Tour-Giro double in both 1992 and 1993. Of the modern riders, Indurain must be ranked above Lemond, Armstrong and Ulrich because of having more Grand Tour Victories, and accomlishing the impressive double twice.

Other riders:
From here, its hard to say who you put where, but I'll include a few other favorites for comparison.

Lance Armstrong
Tour - 1st in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003

No doubt Armstrong's run of tour victories is impressive, but it simply doesn't move him into the top echelon above. He was 4th in the Vuelta in 1998 (but that is off the podium, so it doesn't help in this comparison), but he has never raced the Giro. Many of the rider's above won two Grand Tours in a single year, where as Armstrong has not even attempted to race in two Grand Tours.

Greg Lemond
Tour - 1st in 1986, 1989, 1990, 2nd in 1985, 3rd in 1984
Giro - 3rd in 1985

As storied and accomplished as Greg Lemond's career was, one can't help but to wonder where he would rank had it not been for an unfortunate hunting accident. Some say he could have been the first man to win 5 consecutive Tours. Without the pellets lodged in his test, would the reign of Miguel Indurain been delayed a year, two years?

Jan Ulrich
Tour 1st in 1997, 2nd in 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003
Vuelta - 1st in 1999

Ulrich is the seemingly perenial runner up in the tour. Still he has 7 podium finishes, the most of any active rider. nd if it wasn't for Lance Armstrong, we would probably be talking about Jan Ulrich's place in history.


So there you have it. Some numbers. Are you surprised? Remember, this is only an analysis of Grand Tours. I suppose one could do a similiar analysis of one day races, major climbs, sprints, you name it.

What these numbers do bear out though is who the greatest truly were.

David

[saab2000]

... but in my mind it is not whole. There is no doubt about the top riders because in addition to their incredible number of Grand Tour victories, they won a bunch of other races too, including the so-called Monuments of the sport like the World Championships, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, etc. Because of Merckx' domination of these races his place at the top cannot really be contested by anyone.

Sean Kelly only won 1 Grand Tour, but I believe he deserves a place here too, though his inability to get to the podium of the Tour does mean something.

Even so, a very nice post with a great list and rationale for the riders' positions!

[David Berry]

saab2000,
I agree with you. Sean Kelley won Paris-Nice 7 times (I think), and that should count for something! And you are right, this analysis completely excludes riders whose specialty is one day races

I would like one day to do a more complete analysis, including what I will call 'minor' tours' (Paris-Nice, Tour or Switzerland, etc) and the major one day races (Milan-San Remo, Paris Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, etc). Obviously, its a time issue to research all the results and put them into some sort or readable format.

I had put the results you saw together some time ago, and I thought it appropriate to put them out there. We of course all know that Eddy Merckx was great, and we know Indurain was really good. But I think people tend to forget Hinault and Anquetil. As a first pass though, this gives some sort of ranking, and I think the results are interesting

David

[merlinagilis]

Greg LeMond. Heluva strong rider, brought the sport into the 90's. He rocked.

[davep]

There is an analysis that weights the Grand Tours and also other major races, see http://www.cyclinghalloffame.com

Their top five:

Merckx
Hinault
Coppi
Bartali
Anquetil
Indurain
Gimondi
Bobet
Zoetemelk
Armstrong

If Armstrong wins this year he will move up to just behind Indurain.

[chuck]

Major Taylor

[saab2000]

...proposed movie about Major Taylor. I do not know what became of it, but I never saw it in theaters.

It would be interesting to compare a rider of a totally different generation, but Major Taylor rode before even guys like Coppi and Bartali. While his acheivements are monumental, and must not be ignored, it is really not possible to compare Major Taylor to the other more recent riders who any more than it is possible to compare Babe Ruth with the more recent baseball players.

Given what we know about recent baseball acheivements, that puts the acheivements of Babe Ruth in an even brighter light in my eyes, and likewise, the acheivements of Major Taylor shine brighter today because of the dark cloud of doping and scandal hanging over today's cycling.

Unfortunately, he rode events which, to my knowledge no longer exist and so cannot be compared. But his name is clearly one of the pillars of American cycling.