Poll

Road cyclist, that is.  Who gets your vote?

Anquetil
Merckx
Hinault
LeMond
Armstrong
Wiggins
Coppi
Indurain
Fignon
Cavendish
Burton
Teethgrinder
Other (please state)

Author Topic: Greatest cyclist of all time?  (Read 116392 times)

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #25 on: 23 July, 2012, 07:49:13 pm »
Bartali. Won the tour both before the war and ten years after. His record during the war which only became known quite recently and after his death shows that he was seriously heroic in the absolute sense as well as on the bike.

Hillbilly

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #26 on: 24 July, 2012, 08:52:32 pm »
Other. Being jure robic.

Nick H.

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #27 on: 28 July, 2012, 11:03:12 am »
Obree.

IanDG

  • The p*** artist formerly known as 'Windy'
    • the_dandg_rouleur
Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #28 on: 28 July, 2012, 11:36:46 am »
Roger De Vlaeminck

Coolest cyclist ever - Gios - Campag - Brooklyn

I have to go for Merckx as the greatest tho'

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #29 on: 29 July, 2012, 02:42:06 am »
Merckx, easy. If you were to qualify "greatest cyclist" in any way then it'd be someone else, but Merckx was the complete package. No cyclist before or since has even come close to his all-encompassing dominance.

AndyK

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #30 on: 29 July, 2012, 08:13:08 am »
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/sziZ6PejrfM&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/sziZ6PejrfM&rel=1</a>

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #31 on: 29 July, 2012, 03:05:11 pm »
From my era, Big Mig, even though I wasnt a fan.
Ever then its Merckx

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #32 on: 08 August, 2012, 07:38:35 pm »
I'm bigging up Maitre Jacques (Anquetil - alright, it's Merckx really) when I remember how he won the Criterium Du Dauphiné stage race one afternoon, then after speaking to the press for a couple of hours, caught a plane to Bordeaux, ate a chicken with a few glasses of champagne on the flight, had a bit of a snooze and then set off at silly o'oclock the next morning to win the 370 mile Bordeaux-Paris race. Bonkers. ISTR he also once did a 100km TT in around 2 hours in 1960. Alright, so he was partial to a bit of whizz, but as it was pretty much a level playing field back then drugs-wise, I can sort of forgive him.
'Something....something.... Something about racing bicycles, but really a profound metaphor about life itself.'  Tim KrabbĂ©. Possibly

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #33 on: 18 September, 2012, 10:22:43 pm »
Binda, the only one who actually got paid not to race because he killed the excitement; also probably the greatest cyclist to abandon the TdF, did 2 stages IIRC.
Bartali, of course.
and Arthur Lynton (who says dodgy trainers, drugs and cycle racing don't mix!)

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #34 on: 23 September, 2012, 01:24:13 pm »
Marianne Vos.

Dominant across disciplines throughout her whole career. And still going strong.

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #35 on: 23 September, 2012, 02:34:32 pm »
LeMond doesn't get the recognition he probably deserves.  He would very likely have won five Tours de France, had he been able to ride in 1987 and 1988.  I think his reputation was tarnished because he kept going for four declining years instead of retiring at the top, in 1990.

Remember, this was the guy who recorded probably the highest VO2 max of any professional cyclist, ever.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #36 on: 23 September, 2012, 03:31:20 pm »
LeMond doesn't get the recognition he probably deserves.  He would very likely have won five Tours de France, had he been able to ride in 1987 and 1988.  I think his reputation was tarnished because he kept going for four declining years instead of retiring at the top, in 1990.

Remember, this was the guy who recorded probably the highest VO2 max of any professional cyclist, ever.

Some justice in my eyes for a guy who gets his rocks off by going hunting. Had he been less trigger happy and not been on a hunting trip, he might have won more titles  :demon:

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #37 on: 23 September, 2012, 04:29:03 pm »
It was turkey hunting, so not exactly depleting the biodiversity of north America.  ISWYM though.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #38 on: 23 September, 2012, 05:01:12 pm »
Is the next poll about whether Campag is better than Shimano? ;)

Phew! Almost missed that one. Shimano over that Italian made packaged stuff everytime.



Where's the smiley that means 'runs away with pin in teeth'?

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #39 on: 23 September, 2012, 05:11:30 pm »
LeMond doesn't get the recognition he probably deserves.  He would very likely have won five Tours de France, had he been able to ride in 1987 and 1988.  I think his reputation was tarnished because he kept going for four declining years instead of retiring at the top, in 1990.

Remember, this was the guy who recorded probably the highest VO2 max of any professional cyclist, ever.

Though with the benefit of hindsight, you have to ask yourself how much of his decline was down to much of the rest of the peloton being juiced up to the eyeballs on EPO, and how much was due to over-training in an effort to keep up?
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #40 on: 24 September, 2012, 01:34:10 am »
Most of it, IMHO
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #41 on: 24 September, 2012, 01:36:12 pm »
Marianne Vos.

Dominant across disciplines throughout her whole career. And still going strong.

'Still'?  You make her sound old, but she's only 25.  Using Judith Arndt as an example, Vos has 11 years left.  (27 if you take Longo!)

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #42 on: 24 September, 2012, 06:05:19 pm »
Exactly my point. She's the greatest in my opinion with plenty of miles left to race, on and off-road.

Still.  ;D

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #43 on: 24 September, 2012, 06:17:12 pm »
LeMond doesn't get the recognition he probably deserves.  He would very likely have won five Tours de France, had he been able to ride in 1987 and 1988.  I think his reputation was tarnished because he kept going for four declining years instead of retiring at the top, in 1990.

Remember, this was the guy who recorded probably the highest VO2 max of any professional cyclist, ever.

Though with the benefit of hindsight, you have to ask yourself how much of his decline was down to much of the rest of the peloton being juiced up to the eyeballs on EPO, and how much was due to over-training in an effort to keep up?

I'm not up to speed (!) on the personalities involved doping.  Are we saying Lemond didn't?

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #44 on: 24 September, 2012, 06:43:58 pm »
I don't believe LeMond did dope.  He was winning before the EPO era and is vocally anti-doping.  There is some history with Armstrong, predictably.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #45 on: 24 September, 2012, 07:09:58 pm »
That's not what he says about you.

That Rogerzilla is some guy. Totally juiced up to the tits, man. He could climb the Eiger in the big ring. Blood like treacle. Makes Riis look like a pussy.

 ;)

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #46 on: 24 September, 2012, 07:12:44 pm »
I don't believe LeMond did dope.  He was winning before the EPO era and is vocally anti-doping.  There is some history with Armstrong, predictably.

Even the Clinic heavyweights, who would give Joe McCarthy a run for his money when it comes to seeing Reds under the bed dopers in the peloton, consider LeMond to have ridden clean.
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #47 on: 24 September, 2012, 07:14:06 pm »
I'd like to think so!

Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #48 on: 27 October, 2012, 08:59:05 pm »
So... are the yACF Management Committee going to reassign Armstrong's votes? :demon:
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: Greatest cyclist of all time?
« Reply #49 on: 27 October, 2012, 09:11:26 pm »
So... are the yACF Management Committee going to reassign Armstrong's votes? :demon:

Probably best to allocate Armstrong's votes to Lemond, a multiple world champ, multiple Tour winner from the USA.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...