Saucy said:
Gntlmn, I have noticed that all of your arguments seem to revolve around hypotheticals "if, then". Greatness is not measured in hypothetical arguments. It is measured by accomplishments. The fact is that LA does not have the same list of accomplishments that these other riders have.
It is not necessary to imagine a Merckx/Armstrong drag race on similar equipment in similar conditions as this will only measure natural talent which is not what this poll is about. All that is necessary is to look at their accomplishments or palmares. Do that, and the only conclusion is that Merckx is the greater rider, by far. In my mind, this isn't even close.
First of all, I voted for Merckx. He is, in my opinion, the greatest rider of all time. What my discussion is about is that the nature of the game has changed so much from the time that he rode until now that it is a completely different Tour de France.
Back in Merckx' time, all the riders rode as many races as they could, for the most part. They weren't as selective as now. And the reason for this is that they couldn't afford to be selective.
To give you some idea of the disparity in earnings between some of the current pros, consider that Armstrong's salary plus endorsements and other earnings will be something to the tune of $16.5 million this year. Did you know that some people who lined up for the 2004 Tour de France have only a base salary of $20,000? The low paid rider can still make it in a year with his other travel per diem. That's now. Imagine how meager it was back then in Merckx' time.
The riders had to ride more. Because they had to ride more, each TdF was not as much of a race. It couldn't be because they couldn't peak like they do now. So to say that because Merckx won all those races back then that he would automatically win an event that is fundamentally transformed into a once-a-year peaking event by the best cyclists in the sport is to ignore this fundamental transformation which occurred during the time of Greg Lemond. Tour winners continued to contest the Giro for a while, mostly using it for conditioning, and a couple of riders--Indurain and Pantani--chalked up double wins as this transformation continued to occur. In Indurain's later years, even the Giro became more of a conditioning event. I think a Giro/TdF double is becoming less and less likely now because of this fundamental shift.
By the very same reason that you give, that "Greatness is not measured in hypothetical arguments. It is measured by accomplishments," I made further the statements that I made below. I repeat them here.
"I don't know if Merckx would have won if he would have done all the tours as he did then as compared to Lance riding only the Tour de France. I think if he did, then Lance would win. If Merckx instead would have focused on the Tour de France, as Lance does now and many pros do, it would be a good race. On the other hand, if Lance were to ride so many races in a year like Merckx did, I have a feeling it would be Merckx winning. But this will always be debatable, I suppose."
The reason I chose this way, that Merckx would have still been the greater rider riding year round to win was that that is his record. I didn't pull it out of thin air. He had a proven track record of cannibalizing his opponents when the game was to ride as many races all year to win. Now that the game has changed, that riders tend to focus much more now on certain races to the exclusion of others, I said that a Merckx/Armstrong duel would be close in the Tour de France if Merckx would focus. I didn't pull this out of thin air either. Lance's record shows that he is able to focus very well on the Tour, better than anyone else in history over a period of time. That it would be a close race is my way of tipping my hat to Merckx, that his accomplishments truly were amazing even when he didn't have to contend as much with this transformation of riders focusing on particular events.
You can't have it both ways. If you consider that the greater champion is the one with the better palmares, then you vanquish any chance of current riders to emulate the accomplishments of the past champions. Instead, you view a win in the Tour de France now the same way as you would then. It's not the same. To ignore this is to ignore the facts.
You have to keep looking at the facts to see if you are continuing to compare apples with apples. When you look again and see apples and one orange, you might keep calling them all apples until the rest of us begin to see that there's an orange in the bunch now, and they were only all apples then. The orange being the Tour de France.
Actually, it's beginning to look like the Vuelta is perhaps an orange too. Note that the winner did not finish the Tour de France this year nor did he go to the Olympics. He bailed out early from the TdF and avoided breaking his Vuelta training at the Olympics. His focus was duly rewarded with a tour win. Roberto Heras ties the record with 3 Vuelta wins.
