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.