most favourite tour de france winner poll

[c&cfan]

wake up please yourself, the difference in drugs between then and now is huge. Peds in the 60/70 do nothing in comparison with EPO and stuff like that... simple chemistry dude....

sure you misunderstood everything.

merckx still did the crime. he is as much of a doper as today's riders, if not worse since he is lying (unlike anquetil, that was honest) from 1968 and calling doper to some riders. he was trying to get an illegal advantage, in the edge of the medicine's help, and since he was competing against poor people, whose basic training was hard life, and he was "rich" for a cyclist (having his own team etc), how can you have sure that his advantage (competing against amateurs like agostinho (i am Portuguese), having the money for drugs, taking those same drugs) between them wasn't bigger than the advantage between MIG and riis? ulrich and pantani?

please, wake up.

 

[c&cfan]

...wasn't Merckx the winner of all the available jerseys in his first tour?....I don't want to question your incredible knowledge of cycling but to a piker such as myself Merckx seemed to have a bit of talent...and then there is that graph floating around this forum of output during the riding of the hour...Merckx, if memory serves me correctly still has ( despite all the advances in cycling training since his time ) the highest output....oh. and season where he won over 50% of the races he entered ( and he as a marked man )?....oh, and the 7 Milan-San Remo wins....

...but of course you are absolutely right...the guy was nothing special....

Cheers

blutto

he was the best of his era! he was great compared to his rivals! but they all did the same program of races, targeting the same goals etc. almost all of them were "mini merckx". one was a little better in the cobbles, other in the sprints. but overall, they were the same project, but merckx was better.

EPO is good, but it isn't as good (in pure raw power) as eating boxes of anphetamines, alcohol, a mix of dangerous drugs (ask tom simpson. ups. but anquetil is still alive, he said what he did) and the fact that you don't have to be skinny to win GTs, because cycling wasn't specialized. most riders can't have that muscle mass and their output is still close. those that aren't that skinny, already did better in that aspect in the hour, as a study of the genius ferrari shows (indurain). oh, and no one cares about it anymore, only susenkas.

since he was a great athlete for that era, and races were an endurence contest, that's no surprise that he did it.

 

[c&cfan]

...still against the rules and still cheating. Efficacy is a red herring.

Driver, to the Clinic at full speed!

yes! he was what today we call a farce, a joke. he was dirty. he is scum. right? or that's just for contador? or that's just for those that you (not you chuffy) choose?

hypocrites.

 

[Le breton]

The great thing about the Hour Record is that everything is recorded for posterity. The figure I saw for Merckx's Hour Record was an average of 485 watts over the hour. ........

an average of 485 watts over the hour

I debunked that 485 watts figure just a few days ago on the thread called "The hour".

 

[c&cfan]

The great thing about the Hour Record is that everything is recorded for posterity. The figure I saw for Merckx's Hour Record was an average of 485 watts over the hour. That exceeds what every rider since has been able to do, remarkably, even with intense medical augmentation. Merckx truly was a freak.

indurain did more than 500 watts, without preparing just for it (if i am not mistaken). armstrong, ulrich, ris, cancellara, rominger, etc they never tried. did lemond tried? maybe rominger did, i can't remember.

i guess not, and why?no one cares.

again, do you want the answer?talk to someone\read something about someone that has taken boxes of anphetamines plus alcohol, steroids, cocktails of drugs, like merckx did, and you will see.

i remember a doc about an weak football player, that after taking one\2 pills of amphetamines broke the record of his school in the hammer by a huge margin.one\2 pills, no alcohol, no steroids, no other drugs. i wonder how was merckx day prior to the hour attempt, viva o mexico!

 

[blutto]

they are minutes and minutes faster when going up the climbs, the average speed is also much higher, specialized riders, specialized teams, 30 sprinting to win roubaix and liege is proof, the average rider in today's peloton is that much better ( also no more amateurs racing like every man for himself like only endurence matters), evolution and natural selection made it impossible for a all rounder (sprints cobbles hilly GT and TT) to be successful again. but hey, maybe darwin and lamark are wrong, right? and maybe we will be monkeys again. who knows?

...funny how you lumped Darwin and Lamark together like that...but given the general tenor of your rationalizations that really doesn't surprise me...and you actually have the nerve to call someone else's post $hit ( and to do that to one of the nicer, more thoughtful people on this forum...bravo...well done... )...

...and as long as I'm being nice, one more thing, your attitude would be hard to take even if you actually had something even remotely intelligent to say, but you don't....

Cheers

blutto

 

[Maxiton]

an average of 485 watts over the hour

I debunked that 485 watts figure just a few days ago on the thread called "The hour".

Thanks, Le breton. I'll check it out.

indurain did more than 500 watts, without preparing just for it (if i am not mistaken). armstrong, ulrich, ris, cancellara, rominger, etc they never tried. did lemond tried? maybe rominger did, i can't remember.

i guess not, and why?no one cares.

again, do you want the answer?talk to someone\read something about someone that has taken boxes of anphetamines plus alcohol, steroids, cocktails of drugs, like merckx did, and you will see.

i remember a doc about an weak football player, that after taking one\2 pills of amphetamines broke the record of his school in the hammer by a huge margin.one\2 pills, no alcohol, no steroids, no other drugs. i wonder how was merckx day prior to the hour attempt, viva o mexico!

If you bothered to read the history and analysis of cycle sport - i.e., really follow the sport - you'd know you're the only who makes this argument. Why? Your position has no basis in fact, that's why. If you really followed the sport, you wouldn't take this position in the first place, because you're speaking out of ignorance.

Your effort to think in this regard is exceeded only by your effort to punctuate. The combination makes your argument hard to read and there's no payoff at the end to reward the effort and the annoyance. Welcome to my ignore list.

...funny how you lumped Darwin and Lamark together like that...but given the general tenor of your rationalizations that really doesn't surprise me...and you actually have the nerve to call someone else's post $hit ( and to do that to one of the nicer, more thoughtful people on this forum...bravo...well done... )...

...and as long as I'm being nice, one more thing, your attitude would be hard to take even if you actually had something even remotely intelligent to say, but you don't....

Cheers

blutto

Ditto that.

 

[blaxland]

I voted for Merckx but My most favourite TDF winner is Bjarne Riis...

 

[blutto]

an average of 485 watts over the hour

I debunked that 485 watts figure just a few days ago on the thread called "The hour".

...sorry to be a bit of a lumox but I'm having a bit of trouble following the calculation path you took to arrive at your debunking...I looked at the reference to the hour records and was somewhat confused by some of the data presented there...for instance the cd numbers given for the various riders are odd...for instance, .75 for Merckx and .165 for Boardman doesn't at first blush make sense, the disparity seems way too wide...and can one account for the noodle of a bike Merckx rode ( if that is in fact a significant variable )

...would love to hear more about the way you arrived at your conclusion...and I would find it interesting to see how Boardman's numbers in the standardized hour record stack up....though ultimately maybe all the power numbers presented on that reference page should be looked at again with fresh eyes....

Cheers

blutto

 

[DISTRICT 9]

sure you misunderstood everything.

merckx still did the crime. he is as much of a doper as today's riders, if not worse since he is lying (unlike anquetil, that was honest) from 1968 and calling doper to some riders. he was trying to get an illegal advantage, in the edge of the medicine's help, and since he was competing against poor people, whose basic training was hard life, and he was "rich" for a cyclist (having his own team etc), how can you have sure that his advantage (competing against amateurs like agostinho (i am Portuguese), having the money for drugs, taking those same drugs) between them wasn't bigger than the advantage between MIG and riis? ulrich and pantani?

please, wake up.

To attack King E. Merckx in anyway is blasphemy.
He was talent and toughness,perseverance, willful and determined.

 

[pmcg76]

in what overall careers are concerned, I agree with you. but not about the giro-tour. that has almost 0 in importance compared to do it now. they were still doing the giro as prep for the tour. even pantani. today that's different. even in the majority of lance's TDF wins.

however, indurain had something else. and based on what we know and saw after indurain retired, that moment when he flies past armstrong in a TT is just legendary!

I agree with the others who have said you have behaved like a **** in this thread, especially when so much of your evidence is incorrect.

You simply dismissed the Giro's as preperation for the Giro which it definitely was not when Indurain won, Chiappucci, Chioccioli and all the Italian teams were not prepping for the Tour, the Giro was their main focus. The Mecair team were serious rivals to Indurain in 93 and they were not even going to the Tour that year. Pantani only rode his first Giro in 93 so 94 was the first time he competed against Indurain and he was not riding the Giro as prep for the Tour as nobody knew who he was before the 94 Giro, that was the race that brought him to prominence.

The problem with the Giro now is that there is only a handful of Italian teams and a lot of the international teams send their B teams, back in the early 90s, there were 10/11 Italian teams whose main target was the Giro as most werent going to the Tour so it was more competitive with the Italians all aiming to win something.

On the 70s, you say everyone rode the same programme, hello. The likes of De Vlaeminck, Godefroot, Van Steenbergen, Moser, Maertens were hardly Tour riders and the likes of Ocana, Fuente, Agostinho, Zootomelk, Gimondi were hardly men for the northern classics. There were only a handful of guys like Kuiper who targeted both. Merckx took them all on and beat them all.

Finally if you want to make a proper comparative argument, you either have to put Lance back to the 70s with the relevant mentality, attitude, preperation and medical assistance of the time or bring Merckx forward and do the same. Either way, I am sure Merckx would destroy Lance in either era.

If people want to put Lance as the greatest Tour rider, fine with me but not based on the arguments you are putting forward.

 

[Cobblestoned]

To attack King E. Merckx in anyway is blasphemy.
He was talent and toughness,perseverance, willful and determined.

Ooops, he really did it again.
Told him, too. This is hyper-blasphemy.

I would hand out lifetime-bans for this anyway.

 

[Grand Tourist]

I voted Merckx for the 1969 'rampage' (& the rest) - we won't see anything like that ever again.

 

[perico]

Have to go with Hinault. He was so bad@$$- aviators and 5 o'clock shadow. To quote Jeremy Whittle "strutting around like a demented porn star."

Unlike Merckx, Hinault was still on top of his game when he retired. After LeMond's accident, the Badger probably could've won a few more GTs, maybe even the Tour one or two more times.

 

[Angliru]

doing well is different than wining\dominating. kelly was great in the classics and "did well" in the tour. that's what i mean.

for me merckx and hinault are tied, or maybe hinault has the edge. during his career he raced against some that were already specialising. this is my point and you already agreed with it in your post.

also being specialized also means "peaking" and no racing to win all year long. that's why i already rate contador ahead of eddy for example. merckx did what all were doing, and that's why he was wining so much. with contador, like LA said:
"the most talented guy that ever raced a bike".

I doubt there was much sincerity intended when that statement was made.

 

[Angliru]

Ah, I fear that we have had some badmouthing of José Manuel Fuente in this thread.

I will not tolerate this, for José Manuel Fuente is more or less the blueprint for the kind of cyclist I enjoy.

+1
One of my all time favorites. This outrage will not be tolerated.
I chalk it up to a simple lack of familarity with the sports history. To say that the competition during Merckx' career was subpar is to show one's ignorance of the champions of that era.

 

[Angliru]

how is it sane to admire climbers (that weren't that successful) but hate sprinters?

...because it's personal opinion not a ****ing/rating contest.

 

[Angliru]

You are totally wrong about there being no specialisation in Merckx's day. There was, but he beat the specialists.

You say that there is nothing to prove he would beat today's riders, but seem convinced that he would not - where is your 'proof'?

You aren't supposed to ask that question! what's wrong with you?

 

[jsem94]

Bahamontes.

 

[Duartista]

You aren't supposed to ask that question! what's wrong with you?

I gather it's something to do with Darwin's Theory of the Evolving Cyclist. I don't know, biology was never my strong point.