Cyclists with 100+ Pro Wins

[PremierAndrew]

Does anyone know where to find a full list of cyclists throughout history with more than 100 pro wins?

Also are all the stats on procyclingstats right? I mean Cipo 158 wins? Thought he had closer to 190. And merckx's tally of 133 wins certainly doesn't seem right

 

[Cannibal72]

Can be hard to define pro wins, but the standard figure for Merckx is 525.

 

[Jspear]

Can be hard to define pro wins, but the standard figure for Merckx is 525.

This number never ceases to amaze me. Does anyone even come close to this number?

 

[TMP402]

Can be hard to define pro wins, but the standard figure for Merckx is 525.

This number never ceases to amaze me. Does anyone even come close to this number?

I think it includes all kinds of criteriums and amateur races - and track races too. Not like the overall Six Days of X, but the individual races within Six Day and other track events. So a sprinter who regularly competes/d on track could be competitive.

 

[Cannibal72]

Can be hard to define pro wins, but the standard figure for Merckx is 525.

This number never ceases to amaze me. Does anyone even come close to this number?

The Wikipedia article on Francisco Moser says Van Looy is second with 379, Lo Sceriffo third with 273, Van Steenbergen's 270 put him in fourth, while De Vlaeminck claimed the fifth most with 255. I'd be very surprised if those four Belgians weren't very close to the top (and I think Van Looy is normally given second to Merckx in this record), but those stats could well be wrong. Merckx's dominance is unmatched, not just in cycling but in every other sport. No one could ever come close, I think.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Per CQ, Marianne Vos has 231 career wins on the road to date, that includes .NE events however, although some of them like Omloop van Borsele have pro fields so it's hard to judge exactly.
Per Dutch wiki, she has 79 'cross wins to date, 7 MTB wins to date. I have absolutely no idea how to work out her track output.

 

[BigMac]

That has to be counting kermis and club races.

Marianne could have come close had she shown up more often to obliterate the same kind of opposition*.

*with all due respect.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

Per CQ, Marianne Vos has 231 career wins on the road to date, that includes .NE events however, although some of them like Omloop van Borsele have pro fields so it's hard to judge exactly.
Per Dutch wiki, she has 79 'cross wins to date, 7 MTB wins to date. I have absolutely no idea how to work out her track output.

If we take her total track wins, irrespective of how professional they are, I would say she would have to be around van Looy's total. Frustrating that there isn't a definitive site I know of that could confirm this.

 

[Squire]

Does anyone know where to find a full list of cyclists throughout history with more than 100 pro wins?

Also are all the stats on procyclingstats right? I mean Cipo 158 wins? Thought he had closer to 190. And merckx's tally of 133 wins certainly doesn't seem right

The win count on Procyclingstats only lists wins in categories X.1 and above, and the earlier equivalents.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

That has to be counting kermis and club races.

Marianne could have come close had she shown up more often to obliterate the same kind of opposition*.

*with all due respect.

Hence why I say it's hard to judge. You have some .NE races like this where Vos and van Dijk are the only name riders, but then others like this with a pretty decent field including Vos, Blaak, Scandolara, Pieters, van Gogh, Post, Slappendel and Koedooder, or this with Guarnier, van Dijk, Stultiens, Daams, de Vocht as well as the above, and this with Anna VDB, van Dijk, Pieters, van Vleuten, Brand, Knetemann, Soek... some non-UCI racing in the Netherlands gets better fields than some higher level races, however some are absolutely shooting fish in a barrel for her, but knowing which ones to count and which not to is an inexact science. I mean, that last one, field looks pretty good, but then you realise that at the time Annemiek, Brand and Knetemann were all teammates of hers... Taking the non-UCI wins out she's still at about 180 road wins anyhow.

 

[BigMac]

Re: Re:

That has to be counting kermis and club races.

Marianne could have come close had she shown up more often to obliterate the same kind of opposition*.

*with all due respect.

Hence why I say it's hard to judge. You have some .NE races like this where Vos and van Dijk are the only name riders, but then others like this with a pretty decent field including Vos, Blaak, Scandolara, Pieters, van Gogh, Post, Slappendel and Koedooder, or this with Guarnier, van Dijk, Stultiens, Daams, de Vocht as well as the above, and this with Anna VDB, van Dijk, Pieters, van Vleuten, Brand, Knetemann, Soek... some non-UCI racing in the Netherlands gets better fields than some higher level races, however some are absolutely shooting fish in a barrel for her, but knowing which ones to count and which not to is an inexact science. I mean, that last one, field looks pretty good, but then you realise that at the time Annemiek, Brand and Knetemann were all teammates of hers... Taking the non-UCI wins out she's still at about 180 road wins anyhow.

Oh, I was talking about Merckx and not Marianne in that first line. It's hard to judge for both, but how many of Merckx wins were not kermesse or club? I was thinking Vos could have come closer had she opted to race that same kind of races more often or if there were as many oportunities in that regard for the ladies. But then again, it's as you say, many club races in the Netherlands already have pretty good fields and she is the womens equivalent of Merckx for most, anyway.

 

[Panda Claws]

There are a few cylists with 100+ in the current generation too (I do not count Points/Mountain jerseys, nor criteriums etc.). They might not be 100% accurate but they are very, very close.

Tom Boonen: 119 Victories
Alejandro Valverde: 97 Victories
Mark Cavendish: 141 Victories
André Greipel: 134 Victories

 

[Tonton]

Re: Re:

Oh, I was talking about Merckx and not Marianne in that first line. It's hard to judge for both, but how many of Merckx wins were not kermesse or club? I was thinking Vos could have come closer had she opted to race that same kind of races more often or if there were as many oportunities in that regard for the ladies. But then again, it's as you say, many club races in the Netherlands already have pretty good fields and she is the womens equivalent of Merckx for most, anyway.

BigMac my friend, when you add the big numbers, i.e. monuments, classics, GT stages and classifications, world championships and nothing else, Eddy is already there. One third of every race entered. He's on a league of his own. The discussion is about who is second...

And for the ladies, Marianne is to Jeannie what Hinault is to Eddy...yeah baby . Number two...too...

 

[TMP402]

Re:

There are a few cylists with 100+ in the current generation too (I do not count Points/Mountain jerseys, nor criteriums etc.). They might not be 100% accurate but they are very, very close.

Tom Boonen: 119 Victories
Alejandro Valverde: 97 Victories
Mark Cavendish: 141 Victories
André Greipel: 134 Victories

And Cavendish has wins on the track to consider too.

 

[CheckMyPecs]

The great Erik Zabel won 209 pro road cycling races plus a few more on the track.

On another note, can someone produce a more realistic estimate for Merckx and other riders of decades past? Counting criteriums, amateur races, and individual track races is as nonsensical as Romário counting the goals he scored as a kid towards his 1,000 goal objective.

 

[Echoes]

I've seen a dozen such rankings, each of them with different figures, depending on which type of races are included.

The problem is: criteriums are and always have been fixed in advance by the organisers but kermesses are not in theory at least. I have many accounts of the facts that kermesses were true competitions and fiercely fought for races (the few that remain still are true competition, to my knowledge, like Gullegem Koerse), even if they are not official races and in practice there was a lot of fixing on the circuit, just like in official races, for that matter. So you gotta be pretty elitist to discount kermesses in such classifications. Besides, Merckx was not a kermess regular, least of all club race regular, but perhaps at the start of his career. He went to the track, for the money.

The problem is that on a palmares, it requires a great deal of attention to separate what is a criterium to what is a kermess. I'm not knowledgeable to do that.


No, contests within Sixes have never come up in any palmares whatsoever. However according to Achiel van den Broeck in "De miljoenenfiets van Van Steenbergen" (De Brauwere, 1966), in the days of Girardengo, each leg of an omnium contest was classified as a victory but not the GC of that omnium. The reason is that the concept of omnium was not firmly established yet. That's why according to Van den Broeck, Girardengo reached a total of 1083 wins (955 in the track and 128 on the road; I don't know if youth categories were included or not).

Rik Van Steenbergen according to the same author won 1134 races with the modern counts (so only the GC of an omnium included), including 803 on the track and 279 on the road, including 52 races in the youth categories on the road and 47 of them on the track, which means a grand total of 1033 pro wins.

If we used the old method that would compare him to Girardengo, we would have had a grand total of 1643 wins for Van Steenbergen, including 1544 with the pros compared to the 1083 for Girardengo and 955 for Thorwald Ellegaard.

According to Rik Van Walleghem in "Patrick Sercu: Portret van een puzzel" (Lannoo, 2004) and with the calculation of Hilaire Sintobin a good friend of his, Patrick Sercu won a grand total of 1206 races, including 1015 as pro (914 of them on the track and 101 on the road), 191 wins in the youth categories (124 on the track and 67 of them on the road).

They are both above 1,000 victories and the only two riders to achieve that.

 

[rghysens]

Can be hard to define pro wins, but the standard figure for Merckx is 525.

This number never ceases to amaze me. Does anyone even come close to this number?

I think it includes all kinds of criteriums and amateur races - and track races too. Not like the overall Six Days of X, but the individual races within Six Day and other track events. So a sprinter who regularly competes/d on track could be competitive.

The number of 525 victories is the total amount of road victories, including youth categories. Merckx had 445 pro victories (including kermesses and criteriums) and 80 in the youth ranks. Add to that some dozens 6days and other track events.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re:

There are a few cylists with 100+ in the current generation too (I do not count Points/Mountain jerseys, nor criteriums etc.). They might not be 100% accurate but they are very, very close.

Tom Boonen: 119 Victories
Alejandro Valverde: 97 Victories
Mark Cavendish: 141 Victories
André Greipel: 134 Victories

Worth mentioning that Sagan already has 77 wins at .1 or above

 

[jsem94]

And Sagan potentially still has his best years ahead of him. He could end up on 250+ victories.