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Prediction - best rider of the 2020s

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Who will in 10 years be considered as the best rider of the 2020s?

  • Wout Van Aert

    Votes: 3 5.0%
  • Mathieu Van der Poel

    Votes: 3 5.0%
  • Egan Bernal

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Tadej Pogacar

    Votes: 48 80.0%
  • Julian Alaphillipe

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Primoz Roglic

    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • Remco Evenepoel

    Votes: 2 3.3%
  • Tom Pidcock

    Votes: 2 3.3%
  • Jose Almeida

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 1 1.7%

  • Total voters
    60
I feel that Bernal would trade his Giro 2021 win for a Vuelta win against Roglič and Pogačar. Tour win likely not as people tend to exaggerate when it comes to the Tour. For Tour nobody usually asks you who is it you won it against. As somehow it is always assumed it had to be aliens or more.
 
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"Prediction"

There is no prediction here, unless he is Armstrongned(and in that case he will not be the only one) TP is head and shoulders above the competition, by the time a genuine contender may arise (and no, Remco will never be one), we would be in the mid-20s and it will be too late for any change.
 
The fact is Roglic has tried win the most-prestigious GT (TdF) and second-most prestigious GT (Giro) and failed every single time.
He needs to win many, many more Vueltas to come close to Pogacar's 2 TdFs or even Bernal's 1 TdF + 1 Giro. Outside of that. he has 1 less monument than Pogacar.

Roglic is good rider and might end up Top 15 of the decade but it's too much to make up as a 32-year old to come close to the top.
You can't be serious, he might end up top15 of the decade...lol
I'm not even arguing here that he is going to be considered the best rider of the decade. I don't think he will. Pogačar is already ahead of him and has probably more years of prime ahead of him. There are maybe other riders that will catch up with Roglič and surpass him. But saying he tried and failed every single time at the Giro and the Tour is almost trolling. He had one attempt at a Giro GC. It's like saying Remco or Almeida have failed at a Giro GC every single time. Then he had one serious attempt at a Tour GC (in 2018 he wasn't even going for GC at first, in 2021 he crashed in the 3rd stage) in 2020 and was riding in yellow for more than 10 days and looked the strongest only to lose on the last day ending up in 2nd place. You can call it failure and in many eyes it was, but still a 2nd place in the Tour has always been prestigious.

Also one other point I've mentioned before. I understand rating all the Tour (and all other races) wins equally when talking about riders of an era I (we) didn't watch cycling yet. But when we are talking about the current era, which we follow closely, I think putting those victories into context matters. Is Tao's Giro victory more prestigious than any of the Roglic's Vueltas. I'm not sure about you, but I'm leaning no.

Saying Roglič has to win many more Vueltas to come close to Bernal is very wrong IMO. They've raced against each other several times and every time was Rogla the one who came out on top. I'd say if you ask among cycling fans who is the better rider between the two at least 90% will choose Roglič (it should have been 100%, but you always have some biased fans). Bernal has won a Giro with the 2nd best riders being Damiano freaking Caruso. He has won a Tour against Kruijswijk and Buchmann. Context my friend, context. Now you are going to tell me the Roglič that we know doesn't win those races? Please...

Another thing. People usually overrate potential and underrate what has already been achieved when trying to compare riders. It will be very difficult for any of those riders to achieve what Pogačar already has. Maybe two or three of the list could do it, but not more. So Pogačar has almost a lap on everybody for this decade already.
 
... but Bernal's full career so far beats Roglic's.
Do people really believe that? I must be living in some parallel universe it seems. I'm not saying when it's all said and done Bernal career won't be better than Roglič's. He is younger and has probably more prime years ahead of him. But right now? So far? Let's have a look:

Roglič (left) vs Bernal (right)

GT wins: 3 vs 2
GT stage wins: 15 vs 2
WT stage races: 6 vs 3
Monuments: 1 vs 0
Semi classics: 4 vs 1

Roglič has also an Olympic gold and a WC ITT silver medal. Not to mention the shitload of WT stages and other smaller races he won, giving him a total of 60 wins against Bernal's 19 wins. The only thing Bernal has going for him is that one of his GT wins was the Tour. But does this do enough to compensate the enormous deficit he has to Roglič otherwise? Also considering the Tour he won had one of the weakest fields I can remember and the second strongest rider was his teammate? I don't know how it is even debatable tbh.
 
Do people really believe that? I must be living in some parallel universe it seems. I'm not saying when it's all said and done Bernal career won't be better than Roglič's. He is younger and has probably more prime years ahead of him. But right now? So far? Let's have a look:

Roglič (left) vs Bernal (right)

GT wins: 3 vs 2
GT stage wins: 15 vs 2
WT stage races: 6 vs 3
Monuments: 1 vs 0
Semi classics: 4 vs 1

Roglič has also an Olympic gold and a WC ITT silver medal. Not to mention the shitload of WT stages and other smaller races he won, giving him a total of 60 wins against Bernal's 19 wins. The only thing Bernal has going for him is that one of his GT wins was the Tour. But does this do enough to compensate the enormous deficit he has to Roglič otherwise? Also considering the Tour he won had one of the weakest fields I can remember and the second strongest rider was his teammate? I don't know how it is even debatable tbh.
I'd say the careers are a dead heat if you ignore the monument and OGTT gold, that's what pushes Roglic to the fore.
Roglics final uphill sprint GC stages are not exactly a glorious way to pad out your resume. It's an important skill but it's hardly an epic ride over the mountains burying your rivals.
And who gives a *** about minor wins really? Lance won nothing of note most of the season, but delivered when it mattered.
A Giro and a tour beats 3 vueltas, 4 vueltas might be close.
 
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Winning a tour if course bigger than the Vuelta, but circumstances should also be taken into consideration. Kim Collins did win a 100m in the World Championships in Athletics, while Asafa Powell didn't. Still Powell was a much better sprinter than Collins that won a championship against really weak competition.

2019 was by far the mest competitive version of a TDF. And while I believe that Bernal in time will be the biggest rider, so far Roglic without a single shred of doubt had a better career than Bernal.
 
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For the past three years, Roglic is either the best rider of the peloton or at least among the top 3. Bernal on the other hand was never considered the best rider of the peloton, he was maybe 3rd in 2019 (behind Rogla and Ala) when he won the Tour. In 2020 he was nowhere, and in 2021 we have at least 3 riders ahead of him (Pogacar, Rogla and Van Aert).
So how the hell is Bernal record better then Roglic's then? To me, as I said they are not close, Roglic is better by a margin.
 
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People are discussing two different things, palmares and the fashion in which they were accomplished. Every rider needs to strike where their strength lies, and a rider can only beat the guys lining up for that race.
Personally I think many posters overvalue GT riders in this discussion. Granted, Pogacar and Roglic are both great overall racers, but to compare them with WVA, MVDP (and Alaph for that matter) is just plain wrong. They have another skill set, making them perfect for grand tours, which the other guys don't have. It's like apples and oranges.

I'm sure Pogacar will have better GT palmares than Roglic come 2030, if we're talking stage races in general, I'm not so sure. I also think Van Der Poel and Van Aert will have better one-day palmares than both Slovenians at that time.

Pidcock is my main prospect to compete with the guys above, since he'll have both one-day and stage race potential.

Evenepoel is a category of his own, just due to the sheer fashion in which he triumphs. He might not get away with his "trick" in bigger races in the future, so his palmares might not be all that great, except if he improves his race intellect. (Maybe that can be said for VDP as well)
 
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And just to name a few riders that might/might not make the list in 2030:
Juan Ayuso, already showing great promise
Alessandro Covi, improving rapidly this year
Marco Brenner, earlier touted as the new Evenepoel, but so far haven't shown much
Cijan Uijtdebroeks, probably too young to really make a mark before the last half of the decade
Andrea Bagioli, the next Bettini or Bartoli?
Mick Van Dijke, already mixing it up with the pros in various terrains.
 
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Roglič (left) vs Bernal (right)

GT wins: 3 vs 2
GT stage wins: 15 vs 2
WT stage races: 6 vs 3
Monuments: 1 vs 0
Semi classics: 4 vs 1
Bernal might not have won the most prestigious version of the TDF and Giro, but if we're talking palmares/wins, a TDF + Giro quite easily trumps 3 Vueltas. In fact, i think a lot of pros would chose Bernal's palmares regardless it lacking a monument or more one week WT races etc.

I'm not advocating Bernal is the better rider, but well... he did win the Tour. That said, i'm not yet sure Bernal will go on to win a lot more in the future. And i see Roglic being relevant for another year or two. But that's another reality in this regard, it's only 2021, early in the decade, and Roglic is already 31 years old.

At this moment you'd have to say Pogacar is the easy pick. Let's hope he'll get some competition, be it from Evenepoel or someone else. But if the team keeps buying other potential rivals (Ayuso, Almeida...) we'll have to see who would be able to take that step. The problem is, that from a physical point of view, it's possible Pogacar will even improve ever so slightly over the next 4 or 5 years, so that anybody who comes after him, even if he's "the next Pogacar", will always be behind the curve. Let's say Ayuso might be just as good as Pogacar at that age, it doesn't mean he'll be able to win the Tour 2 times when he's 23, because he'll face a more mature Pogacar.
 
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Bernal might not have won the most prestigious version of the TDF and Giro, but if we're talking palmares/wins, a TDF + Giro quite easily trumps 3 Vueltas. In fact, i think a lot of pros would chose Bernal's palmares regardless it lacking a monument or more one week WT races etc.

I'm not advocating Bernal is the better rider, but well... he did win the Tour. That said, i'm not yet sure Bernal will go on to win a lot more in the future. And i see Roglic being relevant for another year or two. But that's another reality in this regard, it's only 2021, early in the decade, and Roglic is already 31 years old.

At this moment you'd have to say Pogacar is the easy pick. Let's hope he'll get some competition, be it from Evenepoel or someone else. But if the team keeps buying other potential rivals (Ayuso, Almeida...) we'll have to see who would be able to take that step. The problem is, that from a physical point of view, it's possible Pogacar will even improve ever so slightly over the next 4 or 5 years, so that anybody who comes after him, even if he's "the next Pogacar", will always be behind the curve. Let's say Ayuso might be just as good as Pogacar at that age, it doesn't mean he'll be able to win the Tour 2 times when he's 23, because he'll face a more mature Pogacar.
Yeah it's the difference between ability and palmares.

Honestly think 2019 Vuelta Roglic would've put 3 minutes into Bernal that Tour no worries. Wonder if Jumbo are ever kicking themselves about that scheduling decision
 
Pidcock is my main prospect to compete with the guys above, since he'll have both one-day and stage race potential.

Evenepoel is a category of his own, just due to the sheer fashion in which he triumphs. He might not get away with his "trick" in bigger races in the future, so his palmares might not be all that great, except if he improves his race intellect. (Maybe that can be said for VDP as well)

I'd say Pidcock & MvdP are in a category all of their own; combining 3 disciplines, and pretty successful at all 3. MvdP is the only current rider with World Tour wins, and Elite World Cup wins in XCC. XCO & CX. Pidcock is the only other rider who can/will do this......

I have a slight problem with rating GT winners higher - as it's not because of their better 'skillset'; it's down to physiology.
 
Perhaps. I think it depends on how Van Aert and Van der Poel will prioritize in the coming years. Van Aert is IMO the best candidate to be the first to win all five monuments since De Vlaeminck. But then he must have to focus less on CX racing, sprints and mountain stages. If he does this, I could definitely see him winning 6-7-8 monuments during the 2020s even competing against Van der Poel in some of them.

And Van der Poel has a combination of explosivity and engine I've rarely or ever seen. That makes him especially suited for races like RVV. And he is probably the best suited rider I've ever seen to explode on Poggio and win MSR a least a couple of times during his career. There are 40 monuments left in the 2020s. In addition to 10 Olympics/Worlds. I could easily see these two guys at least winning 12-15 of these combined. But that presume that the avoid serious accidents, and that they go all in for road racing.
“6-8 monuments,” “12-15 of these combined”?

The 2 of them have 1 monument each, and have both blown chances to add a 2nd, and realistically neither of them are winning Liege or especially Lombardia absent a dramatic change in parcours, so there’s really only 24 left. They have time on their sides, but let’s not go awarding them more wins than Moser in races that haven’t happened yet.
 
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The 2 of them have 1 monument each, and have both blown chances to add a 2nd, and realistically neither of them are winning Liege or especially Lombardia absent a dramatic change in parcours, so there’s really only 24 left. They have time on their sides, but let’s not go awarding them more wins than Moser in races that haven’t happened yet.
Of course Van Aert could win LBL. Perhaps Il Lombardia also. Van der Poel might only have 3 chances each year.
 

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