I think it's a difficult one to include "cycling heroes" per se, because it will always be subjective. For that reason, people like, say, Merckx or Indurain aren't actually as relevant as Bradley Wiggins, because not being funny, but young Belgians and Spaniards will have had worthwhile cycling heroes to look up to regardless, as they are cycling hotbeds, and there were already prominent big name Belgians in the mid-late 60s when Merckx emerged just as there were already prominent Spanish stars in the late 80s when Indurain emerged. They might have had a slightly reduced pool of prospects because fewer people would have got the bug if not for those riders, but the impact of a first major superstar in at least a generation for a country where cycling was a complete minority sport like the UK brings a lot of people who wouldn't have been interested in the sport to it. I would argue that of Spanish ex-pros, actually at present a case could be made that Delgado and Escartín probably should feature ahead of Indurain; Delgado is one of the main voices of cycling and Escartín works with Unipublic and is a large part of the route design crew there. Similarly Jalabert having been a prominent voice of cycling in France for several years means that he has a stronger platform than many French riders of similar prominence.
Part of the reason for Annemiek (and part of the reason why I mention Cille) is that they have actively challenged both audience and race organiser perceptions of women's racing. Annemiek has actively campaigned for more challenging races and both she and Cille, like Edita Pučinskaitė and Emma Johansson before them, have criticised route designers and race organisers such as ASO to drive better courses and races for the women. Again, with Cille, part of the success of that is the fact that it is her that's doing it, as she is afforded a platform by her popularity that means if she makes such comments it likely reaches a wider cycling milieu than when similar points are being made by others - including some who have been very crucial in the presentation of women's cycling in recent years such as Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, who is almost always a sensible and rational voice that rises above a lot of the arguing that these kind of debates can raise.
Outside of that kind of campaigning for races, race coverage and similar, there are few active cyclists I would say merit a place on the list purely for cycling. The nearest would probably be Peter Sagan in fairness; I may have said my piece about the kind of people attracted to the sport by him (as I've said in the past, people who are cycling fans who happen to be Peter Sagan fans who were attracted to follow the sport because they were inspired by his racing to follow it are one thing, but the kind of people who support Peter Sagan simply because he's Peter Sagan are the kind of people who will leave the sport again when he's not there, and they aren't the kind of people that the sport needs as fans; that differentiation is there for a reason and I don't want to argue it further) but given the testimonies we've had of people who were there at Richmond, at California etc., sure that's the kind of milieu he is built for but his mainstream appeal is clearly more significant than anybody else in the last decade for certain - almost everybody else that has that level of mainstream appeal only does so on a more regional basis. I mean, hell, if we're going to include people solely for their cult of personality, then given the way every single year seemingly requires at least one Giro moment of veneration, we should include Marco Pantani, and he's been dead for sixteen years!
Realistically, the number of cyclists who changed the sport such as to have been involved in a list such as this just for how they cycled ever are few in number, and would probably be restricted to those who have been absolute pioneers for countries on the periphery that have gone on to become central powers in the sport (eg Greg Lemond, Cochise or Phil Anderson) or whose racing has resulted in significant changes to the sport (eg Vicente Trueba, Rik van Looy).
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