Comprehensive Climbers Ranking

[Pozzovivo]

And by what difference was he better, and by what difference was he worse than Pogacar and Vingegaard on those climbs.

On PDB he was closer to Vingegaard's best ever performance than Almeida was to him. For the rest of the climbs the gap was quite small.

 

[Pozzovivo]

I have been very impressed by your work, @Peyresourde , but I strongly disagree with the claim that Evenepoel could have beaten, or even been competitive with, Pogacar and Vingegaard at the 2022 Tour if he had carried his Vuelta 2022 form. As you put it yourself, comparing one specific race to another is not always easy or advisable.


Riders who dropped Evenepoel outright at least once on the final climbs during that Vuelta:
Roglic
Mas
SupermanLopez
Ben O'Connor(!)
Jay Vine
Ayuso
Almeida
C. Rod
Arensman

Can't recall those guys dropping Pog and JV...

 

[Peyresourde]

Evenepoel fans are normally fast to remind you of his crash before Pandera / Sierra Nevada.
Pogacar was also dropped by Bardet and Gaudu on Granon.

All I am saying is that it was the only Tour I would have even given Evenopoel an outsiders shot in some parallel universe (gain some time on non mountain stages, do not crash, profit from tactical games between Vingegaard and Pogacar etc.).

In all other Tours it would have been completely impossible for Evenpoel to do anything with his from of the respective year.

Maybe there is at least 1 person in the world that agrees with me.

 

[Pozzovivo]

Evenepoel fans are normally fast to remind you of his crash before Pandera / Sierra Nevada.
Pogacar was also dropped by Bardet and Gaudu on Granon.

All I am saying is that it was the only Tour I would have even given Evenopoel an outsiders shot in some parallel universe (gain some time on non mountain stages, do not crash, profit from tactical games between Vingegaard and Pogacar etc.).

In all other Tours it would have been completely impossible for Evenpoel to do anything with his from of the respective year.

Maybe there is at least 1 person in the world that agrees with me.

His name: Remco Evenepoel

 

[Pozzovivo]

Pogacar was also dropped by Bardet and Gaudu on Granon

It was the greatest single day of racing I have ever watched

 

[Peyresourde]

11 riders are left now and only 2 of them are currently still active. So the notion that todays general climbing level is higher than in the mid 90s is debunked by my ranking at least. For that, we would have to see another uptick in level this or the coming years.

Here is Tier 3 'Epochal Power'. I will also start to rank riders, as I am reasonably sure that I have not missed/omitted anyone this high up.

Tier 3 (90-95)

5 | Bjarne Riis | 94.5 | PB: 104 (-4): 6.96 W/kg for 34:41 on Hautacam (Tour 1996)
6 | Jan Ullrich | 93.9 | PB: 105 (+15): 6.75 W/kg for 24:52 on Andorra Arcalis (Tour 1997)
7 | Alex Zülle | 92.9 | PB: 99 (-6): 6.85 W/kg for 36:33 on Piancavallo (Giro 1998)
8 | Lance Armstrong | 90.8 | PB: 98 (+5): 6.53 W/kg for 38:03 on Alpe d'Huez (Tour 2001)
9 | Richard Virenque | 90.6 | PB: 94 (-4): 6.69 W/kg for 35:30 on Hautacam (Tour 1996)
10 | Piotr Ugrumov | 90.4 | PB: 97 (+6): 6.62 W/kg for 30:57 on Avoriaz ITT (Tour 1994)
11 | Pavel Tonkov | 90.0 | PB: 99 (-6): 6.85 W/kg for 36:33 on Piancavallo (Giro 1998)

Notes:
1)Tonkov and Zülle both hit their PB on Piancavallo, but it is not an outlier as some of their other performances are almost as good. Many think of Zülle as a climber prone to collapses. This is partly true, but he still won the Vuelta twice and was 2nd in the Tour twice. Especially his 1995 Tour de France was of a great level.
2) Ugrumov never won much, but his 1994 Tour is reminiscent of Santi Perez in the 2004 Vuelta. he got stronger everyday, and had the race lasted 2 days longer he might have won.

3) Virenque often gets a bad rep, but it is not by accident that he won the KOM jersey of the Tour 7 times. He has multiple performances above 90 distributed over several years.
4)Riis was not a one hit wonder and also did not improve from 0 to 100 in one year. He was already good in 93 and 94. Then he was a monster in 95 + 96 and still good in 97.

5)Many people who first get into cycling and only know one name think Armstrong must have been the strongest rider of all time. Then when you get into climbing times and w/kg - anlayses, you may start to think that he was not even that good.
'Ullrich was much more talented and Armstrong was just lucky that Ullrich was lazy, otherwise he would have crushed Armstrong' ...

But consider that Armstrong is the only rider from the 2000s to make the Top 10 and he is not even far behind Ullrich in the ranking. If you then look at more intangibles like consistency, ability to change pace (attack) and tactics, I think Armstrong simply was the better climber/rider. And he was just as big of a talent himself, for sure.

 

[Pozzovivo]

Wow, @Peyresourde . Makes me reconsider my priors for sure. Never thought Virenque would be all the way up there. Never thought Riis would heve enough top performances to be up there.

For sure Lance was a better rider than Ulle all things considered - that's why he won seven freaking times! The ability to endure brutal and consistent training is the biggest talen one can have in endurance sport.

Am I right in thinking that Ullrich regressed from 97' onwards? According to Daniel Friebe's book about Ullrich he never returned to that weight.. and how does 03' Ulle stack up against the other years?

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Giving myself away here as a poor cycling historian, but I never in a million years would have named Zulle, Virenque, Ugrumov, or Tonkov as better climbers than Contador, Froome, Quintana, Roglic, Remco…

 

[kingjr]

Giving myself away here as a poor cycling historian, but I never in a million years would have named Zulle, Virenque, Ugrumov, or Tonkov as better climbers than Contador, Froome, Quintana, Roglic, Remco…

They all rode pre-50% hct limit and pre-EPO test.

 

[Red Rick]

Part of the reason today is treated as best ever is the PdB record and 3 riders breaking it, kind of ignoring it was one of Pantani's weaker records.

The other reason is in the 90s I think top climbing performacnes were much more concentrated in just the Tour or other target GTs.

Also, +15 on something like Arcalis is just a lot to me.

 

[Peyresourde]

Wow, @Peyresourde . Makes me reconsider my priors for sure. Never thought Virenque would be all the way up there. Never thought Riis would heve enough top performances to be up there.

For sure Lance was a better rider than Ulle all things considered - that's why he won seven freaking times! The ability to endure brutal and consistent training is the biggest talen one can have in endurance sport.

Am I right in thinking that Ullrich regressed from 97' onwards? According to Daniel Friebe's book about Ullrich he never returned to that weight.. and how does 03' Ulle stack up against the other years?

In his 1997 shape, Ullrich would have won almost any Tour in history. He already regressed the next year (weight) but would have still been easily good enough to win without his bonk to Les Deux Alpes.

In the Armstrong Era, 2001 and 2003 were the years were he was in respectable shape. But we are talking about high 70 - low 80 level, far away from his peak.

In 2003, Armstrong had some pyhsical problem during the Tour (apparently he was down to 65/67 kg!! instead of his normal 72kg at one point during the race.) Ullrich would have won if he did not have a bad day himself on Alpe d'Huez. Alternatively Ullrich could also have won with better tactics in the Pyrenees or if he did not crash in the last TT.

Also, +15 on something like Arcalis is just a lot to me.

Well, it is high altitude after a 7 hour stage with an uphill approach. If I did not adjust heavily for this, then my method would be somewhat useless. He also beat a Pantani that was in consistently good shape that Tour by over a minute (on a 25 minute climb).
Ullrich also had 2 other great performances in the ITT and on Alpe d'Huez (both 99).

+15 of my Index are also less than +15 would be on W2W. The steps in my Index are smaller. 15 points are equivalent to 0.375 W/kg