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Best ever single season by a rider?

Page 4 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
This was a great year for Anquetil. The last win brought a smile to my face !
1963
1st Overall Vuelta a España

1st Stage 1b (ITT)

1st Overall Tour de France

1st Stage 6b (ITT), 10, 17 & 19 (ITT)
2nd Points classification
5th Mountains classification

1st Overall Paris–Nice

1st Stage 6a (ITT)

1st Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré

1st Stage 6a (ITT)

1st Overall Critérium International

1st Stage 3 (ITT)

1st Critérium des As
1st Overall Super Prestige Pernod International
1st Trofeo Baracchi (with Raymond Poulidor)
 
Cannibal72 said:
But Ocaña and Fuente were all time greats, who often pushed Merckx to his limit.

I think they are two of the most overrated riders of all time. Fuente might have been a great climber but he was just a climber and nothing else.

Ocaña was too focused on the Tour of France. How many times was he in contention with Merckx but in Orcière-Merlette? Almost never. Merckx crushed him on every other occasion. There's more to cycling than just the Tour of France. De Vlaeminck, Gimondi & Poulidor were fiercer opponents to Merckx than Ocaña was. Because they were complete and because they kept themselves for years and because they defied him on every kind of races.
 
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Echoes said:
Cannibal72 said:
But Ocaña and Fuente were all time greats, who often pushed Merckx to his limit.

I think they are two of the most overrated riders of all time. Fuente might have been a great climber but he was just a climber and nothing else.

Ocaña was too focused on the Tour of France. How many times was he in contention with Merckx but in Orcière-Merlette? Almost never. Merckx crushed him on every other occasion. There's more to cycling than just the Tour of France. De Vlaeminck, Gimondi & Poulidor were fiercer opponents to Merckx than Ocaña was. Because they were complete and because they kept themselves for years and because they defied him on every kind of races.

Fuente: Yes, he was. So?

Ocaña: Firstly, Orcieres-Merlette psychologically crushed poor Ocaña, but he was competitive in more races than you give him credit for. As I'm sure you know, Ocaña came close in the '71 Giro do Lombardia, but lost because all the other riders were too frightened of Merckx and too conservative to help him. Ocaña was a good enough TTer to win numerous competitions in that discipline. Through 1972, Merckx and Ocaña battled in all kinds of races; the ones that only one of them was in, that person dominated. Ocaña repeated that dominance without Merckx in his remarkable '73 TdF. But it's hard to blame Ocaña for his focus on the TdF, given how Orcieres-Merlette affected him (and given his future life, his mental frailty is easy to see); he was haunted by that crash, and desperate to win the Tour to make up for it.
 
Echoes said:
Cannibal72 said:
But Ocaña and Fuente were all time greats, who often pushed Merckx to his limit.

I think they are two of the most overrated riders of all time. Fuente might have been a great climber but he was just a climber and nothing else.
While I don't disagree with your point on Ocaña's palmarès, as he could have achieved a much stronger list of wins had he focused less on the Tour, Fuente is rated so highly solely as a climber. I don't know about how much Ocaña is overrated either, but I think the era has a lot to do with it. Because Merckx is so universally recognized as the greatest and the Tour is the most universally known race whether we like it or not, those that pushed close in that era get more veneration than those who pushed, say, Indurain, or Hinault, similarly close in their eras of domination. There are plenty of riders who are as overrated if not more than Ocaña. We've had a couple of them in this very thread in fact. Anyway, on Tarangu, everybody pretty much acknowledges that climbing was all he could do, but the fact that he pushed Eddy so hard on multiple occasions while Eddy held the cards in every category except climbing is testament to just how good he was at that element of riding. And although the fields weren't all that in those days, the fact a guy who was a climber and a climber alone could win the Vuelta twice in the days when it was effectively a medium mountain race is another point. And maybe you're right to point out that those who challenged Merckx in the one-day races do not get as much credit as threats to him as those who challenged him in the stage races, but Fuente was never going to accumulate a palmarès in one-day races with his skillset, now, was he? When people talk about Tarangu as a legend, it's not in the company of de Vlaeminck et al, it's in the great pantheon of mountain goats, from Vicente Trueba to Federico Bahamontes, Charly Gaul, Lucien van Impe, Lucho Herrera. And he absolutely deserves his place in that pantheon.
 
Jul 29, 2012
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LS, who do you think had the most dominating season in the last 15 years (except for Marianne of course xD)?

I know you mentioned gilbert '11, so he's the one for you?
 
Cannibal72 said:
Ocaña: Firstly, Orcieres-Merlette psychologically crushed poor Ocaña, but he was competitive in more races than you give him credit for. As I'm sure you know, Ocaña came close in the '71 Giro do Lombardia, but lost because all the other riders were too frightened of Merckx and too conservative to help him. Ocaña was a good enough TTer to win numerous competitions in that discipline. Through 1972, Merckx and Ocaña battled in all kinds of races; the ones that only one of them was in, that person dominated. Ocaña repeated that dominance without Merckx in his remarkable '73 TdF. But it's hard to blame Ocaña for his focus on the TdF, given how Orcieres-Merlette affected him (and given his future life, his mental frailty is easy to see); he was haunted by that crash, and desperate to win the Tour to make up for it.

He never was an Armstrong or an Ullrich, that's for sure but it's safe to say that riders such as Felice Gimondi or Franco Bitossi were an awful lot more consistent throughout the season than Ocaña was. In 1972, Ocaña battled with Merckx on several races but never managed to beat him. On the contrary he was beaten by other riders. Poulidor defeated both in Paris-Nice. Poulidor beat Merckx twice at Paris-Nice. His ascent of the Col d'Eze in 1972 at age 36 would still place him top10 nowadays despite his heavier bike. I've always rated Poulidor higher than Ocaña. Ocaña came 8 times second to Poulidor. I don't think Ocaña beat Poulidor as often. In 1977 Poulidor still managed to beat both Ocaña and Van Impe (then at his peak!) while aged 41 (at the Trophée des Cîmes). That's another point. Ocaña's career was way too short compared to other all-time great.

And when it comes to heavy crashes, every all-time greats had once crashes like the one in the Col de Mente.

Libertine Seguros said:
And maybe you're right to point out that those who challenged Merckx in the one-day races do not get as much credit as threats to him as those who challenged him in the stage races, but Fuente was never going to accumulate a palmarès in one-day races with his skillset, now, was he? When people talk about Tarangu as a legend, it's not in the company of de Vlaeminck et al, it's in the great pantheon of mountain goats, from Vicente Trueba to Federico Bahamontes, Charly Gaul, Lucien van Impe, Lucho Herrera. And he absolutely deserves his place in that pantheon.

Yes, it's how he should be seen but it's not the point of this thread since Fuente never really had a season consistency that is on par with those mentioned in previous posts. A long time ago I read a poster on this forum claiming that Fuente was a bigger opponent to Merckx than Poulidor was, which baffled me, to be honest. It's not giving credit to Fuente.

But the riders I mentioned did not just defeat Merckx on single-day races. Poulidor, twice at Paris-Nice, Gimondi on a Tour of Italy and De Vlaeminck on a Tour of Switzerland.

I don't deny that Fuente was the best climber of his era but unlike many think Merckx was not a climber and feared them like plague: more particularly Fuente, Baronchelli or Galdos. I've got a testimony by Moser about that. Goddet and Torriani both designed routes to suit climbers at best in order to sink Merckx and eventually it never worked. That's why the Puy de Dôme and the Pla d'Adet often were included. They are short and steep climbs, taylor-made for climbers such as Van Impe or Fuente. Same for the Monte Vesuvio, for example. On the other hand, stages got considerably shorter in order for Merckx not to capitalize on his stamina and of course the ITT lengths were a lot shorter in the Merckx days than in the Hinault days. In Italy you only had one ITT for three consecutive years. The classic loop around Forte dei Marmi. I think it was <40km.

So climbers outclimbing Merckx on steep climbs was not something rare. Merckx had a form weight of 72kg. It's just a matter of physics. :)
 
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Echoes said:
Cannibal72 said:
Ocaña: Firstly, Orcieres-Merlette psychologically crushed poor Ocaña, but he was competitive in more races than you give him credit for. As I'm sure you know, Ocaña came close in the '71 Giro do Lombardia, but lost because all the other riders were too frightened of Merckx and too conservative to help him. Ocaña was a good enough TTer to win numerous competitions in that discipline. Through 1972, Merckx and Ocaña battled in all kinds of races; the ones that only one of them was in, that person dominated. Ocaña repeated that dominance without Merckx in his remarkable '73 TdF. But it's hard to blame Ocaña for his focus on the TdF, given how Orcieres-Merlette affected him (and given his future life, his mental frailty is easy to see); he was haunted by that crash, and desperate to win the Tour to make up for it.

He never was an Armstrong or an Ullrich, that's for sure but it's safe to say that riders such as Felice Gimondi or Franco Bitossi were an awful lot more consistent throughout the season than Ocaña was. In 1972, Ocaña battled with Merckx on several races but never managed to beat him. On the contrary he was beaten by other riders. Poulidor defeated both in Paris-Nice. Poulidor beat Merckx twice at Paris-Nice. His ascent of the Col d'Eze in 1972 at age 36 would still place him top10 nowadays despite his heavier bike. I've always rated Poulidor higher than Ocaña. Ocaña came 8 times second to Poulidor. I don't think Ocaña beat Poulidor as often. In 1977 Poulidor still managed to beat both Ocaña and Van Impe (then at his peak!) while aged 41 (at the Trophée des Cîmes). That's another point. Ocaña's career was way too short compared to other all-time great.

And when it comes to heavy crashes, every all-time greats had once crashes like the one in the Col de Mente.

But the riders I mentioned did not just defeat Merckx on single-day races. Poulidor, twice at Paris-Nice, Gimondi on a Tour of Italy and De Vlaeminck on a Tour of Switzerland.

I mostly agree with you, here. I still think Ocaña is an all time great, just for pushing Merckx to his limit (as LS points out), but Gimondi is certainly a better candidate for best season (although I don't know which season that would be). But on the crash: I'm not referring to the fact of the crash - after all, Blois 1969 was one of the worst of all time - but to the psychological impact of crashing while leading against the greatest rider of all time, which is an experience no one can compare with, especially since Ocaña was so mentally fragile: it's hard to blame him for trying and trying to atone for that disaster.
(I'm interested to know which De Vlaeminck season you think is the best, since I don't know a huge amount about him.)
 
EvansIsTheBest said:
I think it's pretty obvious that when it comes to volume of high quality wins, consistency and all-around ability nobody can compete with Merckx so I think it's more interesting to break it down into specialities (TT, sprint, cobbled classics...) so there can be at least some debate.

Squire said:
Libertine Seguros said:
People's talk of recent times may want to consider Cunego in '04, winning Trentino, the Giro (four stages), Lombardia, Appennino, a bunch of other wins at the Italian one-day calendar, and top 10 at the Worlds. Also Cavendish in '09 as pure sprinters go could be a contender, but the calibre of wins, MSR aside, isn't really a match for Gilbert '11.

Oh, you thought I'd forget? Marianne Vos 2012 ;)

(In all seriousness, though, if she'd done the Ronde, it would have been nigh on impossible for her to have had a better season, but obviously against the lower depth of field and in the more homogenized and less specialized calendar it's comparatively limited).

Cipollini 2002 beats Cavendish 2009 easily for a "best sprinter's season".

Milano-Sanremo, Gent-Wevelgem, Worlds, six Giro stages (+points), three Vuelta stages.

The three best recent seasons just judging by results are in my opinion Gilbert '11, Wiggins '12 and Boonen 05', but the first two were massively helped by the absence of what would've been their no. 1 rival that season.
It's funny that you undermine Gilbert and Wiggins for the absence of their rivals which they have no control on but use the fact that Cipo lucked out in having a sprinter-friendly course at Zolder (he still had to go out and win obviously) to push him ahead of Cavendish. I mean when given the opportunity, Cavendish did deliver in the WCRR so I don't think it should be held against him. I don't think that when comparing Cipo '02 and Cav '09, it's really fair to put too much emphasis on Zolder. Cipo's GW win was great but it had little to do with his sprinting ability and more with showing how awesome a rider he can be when he actually tried (I wasn't particularly fond of the way he quit in GT when the moutains showed up). There's a lot of elements that made Cipo's 2002 season more successful but I wouldn't necessarily say it was greater than Cavendish's 2009's season.

For me, greatness is not something limited to the result itself but how it was achieved. The feeling of dominance that a rider projects is very important. Scrapping by for every win isn't the same as leaving everybody a couple of minutes behind. For instance, I consider Hinault's LBL win as greater than Gerrans' despite the fact that the end result is the same. Cipollini was super strong in 2002 and had better result in the classics but I have never felt the same sense of invincibility around a sprinter as Cavendish in 2009. He lost like one sprint all year and he did have that magical sprint in MSR too. Plus, the way he dominated the field that year in the TDF is something I have never seen before or since from a sprinter. So yeah, I pick Cavendish as the best sprinter season I've seen. Cipo 2002 is definetely up there though as are Petacchi's best seasons (I don't think we're going to see someone win 4+ stages in all 3 GT the same year anytime soon). Further back, guys like Freddy Maertens had some amazing seasons but not having seen him is in prime, I can't really judge him against Cav or Cipo.

Sorry for being a bit late to the party here, but...

I thought this thread was more about what kind of palmares a rider was able to amass during one season, and based on that premise, I stand by my Cipo pick as the best (or most successful) season for a sprinter, which you seem to agree with.

I agree with you that Cav 2009 vintage is the best sprinter I've ever seen, and had the Copenhagen worlds (or Zolder for that matter) been in 2009, no doubt he would've won it. But if it was the unbeatable 2009 Cav that won MSR, Worlds, G-W, and 6 Giro + 3 Vuelta stages, in Cav 2009 fashion, I guess you would've said that was a better season than his 2009 one. The six Tour stages are big, but in a strictly palmares discussion, I feel they're outweighed by a Gent-Wevelgem and the Worlds.

And I also didn't mean to diminish Wiggins' or Gilbert's seasons. They are the best seasons for one rider that I have first-hand experience of. I was just pointing to a reason why they were able to do what they did. They still had to go out and do it. Sometimes these lucky circumstances happen, and it shouldn't take anything away from the achievements.
 
Cannibal72 said:
(I'm interested to know which De Vlaeminck season you think is the best, since I don't know a huge amount about him.)

As said in my first post on this thread 1975 is widely considered as the absolute top of his career (including by himself). Starting out with the Cyclocross Worlds (while he intended to make his brother win) & Nats (+ a few high profile cross wins such as Overijse), a usual win at Tirreno, the epic battle with Merckx in Paris-Roubaix with Merckx getting back after a puncture and attacking straightway which Roger could feel coming, a win at the Championship of Zurich, 7 stage wins at the Tour of Italy including two mountain stages (beyond the Pordoi) and 4th overall, 5 stages and GC wins at the Tour of Switzerland, ahead of Merckx, including a MTF in Galtür, Austria (if not mistaken), a disappointment at the Yvoir Worlds, coming 2nd to Kuiper, probably because of a feud with Van Impe. 44 victories overall.

Most amazing is that Merckx's 1975 still was better. The best season by TWO riders, by far. While the field was huge in those years.
 
Only one mention of Sean Kelly so far. I agree that 1984 deserves a mention, but I think that his 1986 merits a place in the post-Merckx era.

Sean Kelly's 1986 palmares:

Paris Nice overall, including 3 stages.
Milan San Remo winner
Paris Roubaix winner
Volta Catalunya overall, including 1 stage
Vuelta points jersey winner
Vuelta 2x stage winner
Nissan Classic winner

Runner up in RVV, GdL, 3daagse and GP Ouest France Plouay
Third in Vuelta GC
Fifth in Fleche Wallone and WCRR

His monument record was 1,2,1,12,2
Third in a GT and 5th in WCRR.
Three overall wins in what would now be World tour week-long races.
 
Away from the pros there were a few huge years in the old Eastern Bloc amateurs (Barinov '81, Schur '59 for example); we could mention Ryszard Szurkowski 1973:

World Champion, Amateur Road Race
World Champion, Team Time Trial (quartet)
1st, Peace Race GC
1st, Peace Race Activity Classification
3 stage wins, Peace Race
2nd, Tour de Pologne
5 stage wins, Tour de Pologne
3rd, Tour d'Algérie
1st, GP d'Annaba
2nd, Circuit de la Sarthe
1st, Course de l'Amitié
1st, Rund um Thiersee
2nd, Poland National Road Race Championship
2nd, Poland Team Time Trial Championship
3rd, Poland National Time Trial Championship

Because they were at least nominally amateur, however, race entries were limited and so judging them fairly against the West is pretty difficult.
 
Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
Away from the pros there were a few huge years in the old Eastern Bloc amateurs (Barinov '81, Schur '59 for example); we could mention Ryszard Szurkowski 1973:

World Champion, Amateur Road Race
World Champion, Team Time Trial (quartet)
1st, Peace Race GC
1st, Peace Race Activity Classification
3 stage wins, Peace Race
2nd, Tour de Pologne
5 stage wins, Tour de Pologne
3rd, Tour d'Algérie
1st, GP d'Annaba
2nd, Circuit de la Sarthe
1st, Course de l'Amitié
1st, Rund um Thiersee
2nd, Poland National Road Race Championship
2nd, Poland Team Time Trial Championship
3rd, Poland National Time Trial Championship

Because they were at least nominally amateur, however, race entries were limited and so judging them fairly against the West is pretty difficult.
Surprised you didn't pick a Soukho year, '79 maybe. Peace race with a bunch of stages, Tour de l'Avenir (was open at the time), a stage race in Italy iirc, a guy who could have given Hinault a tough run for his money...
 
The problem with Soukho is that, like Ivan Ivanov a few years later (who never managed a top 10 at the Peace Race but did manage one at the Vuelta), the depth of the Soviet team at the time and his specialization being in hillier and more mountainous races that there weren't that many of in the Eastern Bloc meant that he wouldn't get as many selections as other more rouleur-adept riders; as a result, while he'd be great in everything he'd enter, the Soviets mightn't get to race as many races that suited him as he'd have needed to put together that type of year. It's a shame the Vuelta was still in April then, as he could have targeted the Friedensfahrt AND the Vuelta.
 
Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
The problem with Soukho is that, like Ivan Ivanov a few years later (who never managed a top 10 at the Peace Race but did manage one at the Vuelta), the depth of the Soviet team at the time and his specialization being in hillier and more mountainous races that there weren't that many of in the Eastern Bloc meant that he wouldn't get as many selections as other more rouleur-adept riders; as a result, while he'd be great in everything he'd enter, the Soviets mightn't get to race as many races that suited him as he'd have needed to put together that type of year. It's a shame the Vuelta was still in April then, as he could have targeted the Friedensfahrt AND the Vuelta.
Agree 2000%. It's a shame that one-time GT winners get so much recognition when this amazing guy gets nothing. But he sure maximized his few opportunities. He received excellent coverage in France then, although it was before the Youtube generation, and there's not much to watch for the newer (post Hinault) fans. Heck, even the '81 RRWC Maertens/Saronni/Hinault best sprint ever is almost lost in memories...
 

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