Greatest Riders of All Time
- Thread starter Frigo's Luggage
- Start date
Zabel is probably up there because of his classics wins: 4 MSR wins, 3 Paris Tours, 1 Amstel and 1 HEW. Ok lets forget HEW. That was never a classic. Zabel has an impressive record.Wayne666 said:
What a beautiful moment, right as he notices Freire's wheel. I like Zabel, but that there is funny, I don't care who you are.snood said:He should of won another MSR.
Plus how many green jerseys?Frigo's Luggage said:
Zabel rates high. But when you think about what he's done and then compare him to Kelly, who is a similar rider, there's no comparison. It's Kelly, hands down.
Actually you were listed but I told them to ban you from the list. It would have been embarrasing and just too expensive, imagine all books had to be rewritten: Not Merckx but Huskey greatest champ etc.jhuskey said:I am relieved that I wasn't listed. It would have been a big embarassment to my modesty.
Eddie is the man!
Besides, Eddy is a nice guy to have a beer with ;-)
Have you guys ever see this video of Merckx riding rollers.cyclingheroes said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7K4O7YTLQQ
Guy was a sewing machine!
More like the haters will complain that he is that high on the list. Anyone who knows even a little about Cycling as a whole wouldn't be surprised. Now, if he was ranked 6th all time on a list of just Tour de France riders then I could see a complaint.Crankyfeet said:I can guarantee that a lot of Americans will not be able to fathom how Armstrong ranks sixth.
"How can a guy who wins SEVEN Tour de France's come sixth? Is there another race or something??"....
Is the formula they use to calculate the total points for each cyclist explained, or is it kept hidden or vague to avoid argument on how its weighted?
Not to quibble over logic or get personal here, but those last two questions are not exactly mutually exclusive.azdroptop said:
But I think everyone gets the gist. I just couldn't avoid being a smartass *****.
So getting back to azdroptop's question which I really can't answer, as I never saw him ride.
To answer your question, yes Lance doped. Just check out the positive urine tests.azdroptop said:
azdroptop said:
I think a mixture of both, as always when someone dominates. However nobody can deny Merckx record, it is very good. If you look at Formula 1 for instance, Schumacher was by far the most talented for over a decade and would certainly be in the top 5 of all time, his competition however wasn't great over this time.......no Senna, no Prost or Mansell etc..
This is why comparing era's is so difficult, cycling has changed so much over the years, especially with the targeting of specific events. Merckx and Hinault are always going to stand out though.
ad9898 said:
An era is an era............but.
Given that the level of opposition against both merckx and hinault are also named as part of the all time top 20.......their respective palmares is all the more special.
I'd go as far to suggest that Indurains opposition is significantly better than the level of opposition in the late 90's/early 2000's.
azdroptop said:
Short answer - Merckx is the greatest rider ever.
Statistically, Merckx palmares is several levels above his nearest statistical rival Bernard Hinault.
On a statistical level, therefore he's the greatest.
However further viewing of his opposition enhances the statistical evidence.
His immediate opposition, Poulidor, Gimondi, Moser, Ocana, Maartens, statistically have very compelling palmares of their own and are rated highly.
Break down the numbers again - and given the volume of racing which Merckx had to complete and given the quantity of wins as a proportion of those races, he competed in, the case for just how good Merckx was becomes even more compelling.
Breakdown the numbers further, any review of Merckx palmares in terms of statical wins obscures the facts that Merckx not only won races, he literally dominated races inw hich statistics alone cannot articulate.
For example, in the 1969 TDF he won several stages and won the race overall.
But in winning the race, he also won all of the classement jerseys in that single TDF.
His win count in terms of numbers of stages in the race shows he won the TDF in 1969.
What the statistics do not bear out - in statistical terms - is any increase to his palmares for winning the Points jersey for example.
In other words winning the points jersey, doesn't increase the number of statistical stage wins in that particualr race......but winning the points jersey,
as well as every other classement jersey, does add to the phenomenal performance of that TDF.
And when you weigh in all of the other classement jerseys, in all of the other GT's that Merckx won - and which are not reflected in pure statistical stage wins or races wins - then his record becomes even more compelling.
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