Rough Attempt at an All-Time Ranking

[Pantani_lives]

As a child in the late eighties I wondered why cycling, unlike tennis, didn't have a decent world ranking. So I started keeping my own list: 50 points for the Tour winner, 25 points for Paris-Roubaix etc. It was very incomplete, based on the results I found in newspapers. Later, in the late 1990s, I started doing it again. That time I started using books on cycling with old results to compile an all-time list. It's hard to decide which result is worth how many points. What's worth more: finishing third in the Tour, winning three sprint stages in the Giro, or winning Gent-Wevelgem? I came quite far back then, but I stopped keeping track in the following years.

Now with the Internet it's easier to look up old results, so after years of postponing I had a new attempt at compiling an all-time list based on points. The point system is just the one I've been using for myself; it has no official value. It's mostly about wins in big races. I'm too lazy to count every stage win in one-week races and all those places of honour. I'm sure I've also made a lot of mistakes, because I'm too lazy to check everything twice. So I made a ranking which is, as the title says, only a rough attempt at an all-time list. It only gives a basic idea of what an all-time ranking of men's road cycling could look like if it was done properly.

This is the point system [Edited 10/15/2023]:
Stage races:
*60/25/10/8/6/5/4/3/2/1 for top 10 GC in Tour
*40/20/8/6/5/4/3/2/1/1 for top 10 GC in Giro/Vuelta
*20 points for GC win in Paris-Nice/Dauphiné/Tirreno/Basque Country/Suisse
*10 points for GC win in Critérium International/Midi Libre/Catalunya/Burgos/Romandie
*5 points for GC win in smaller stage race

*5 points for stage/points classification/King of the mountains in Tour
*4 points for stage/points classification/King of the mountains in Giro/Vuelta
*2 points for stage in Paris-Nice/Tirreno/Basque Country/Dauphiné/Suisse

Championships:
*40/16/8 points for top 3 road race at WC/Olympics since 1996
*10 points for road race at EC//NC France/Belgium/Italy/Spain
*5 points for road race other countries

*20/10/5 points for top 3 ITT at WC/Olympics since 1996
*5 points for ITT at EC//NC France/Belgium/Italy/Spain
*3 points for ITT other countries

Classics:
*25/10/5 points for top 3 Monument
*15 points for GP des Nations/Gent-Wevelgem/Flèche Wallonne/Amstel/Strade Bianche/San Sebastián
*10 points for Omloop/E3/Emilia/Milan-Turin/Plouay/Paris-Tours/Bordeaux-Paris/Züri Metzgete/Hamburg
*5 points for other semi-classics

In case of a tie the biggest win makes the difference.

Of course this could lead to endless discussions about what is worth how many points. This system was not designed to benefit certain riders. One specific problem for the current century are the many disqualifications and Green Table decisions. I decided to follow the official results, even if I disagree personally with certain decisions.

The result contains quite a few surprises: some riders finished much higher or lower than I expected myself. Hard workers with a long and steady career finish higher than cyclists with three fabulous seasons who faded afterwards. Some almost forgotten names finish higher than some of the big stars. All-round riders tend to do better than specialists of one discipline. I'm thinking of presenting the top list as a countdown in this thread. In spite of its obvious flaws I think the result is quite interesting and can lead to good discussions in the winter season.

This is the top 200 with active riders in bold. [Updated: 13 October, 2024.]

1 | Eddy Merckx | 2027
2 | Bernard Hinault | 1266
3 | Jacques Anquetil | 1075
4 | Fausto Coppi | 1032
5 | Gino Bartali | 1009
6 | Sean Kelly | 958
7 | Alejandro Valverde | 921
8 | Tadej Pogačar | 907
9 | Roger De Vlaeminck | 873
10 | Francesco Moser | 830
11 | Alfredo Binda | 789
12 | Felice Gimondi | 778
13 | Costante Girardengo | 765
14 | Miguel Induráin | 740
15 | Rik Van Looy | 688
16 | Primož Roglič | 685
17 | Joop Zoetemelk | 657
18 | Chris Froome | 656
19 | Fabian Cancellara | 637
20 | Louison Bobet | 621
21 | Alberto Contador | 619
22 | Laurent Jalabert | 619
23 | Tony Rominger | 600
24 | Giuseppe Saronni | 599
25 | Vincenzo Nibali | 594
26 | Freddy Maertens | 594
27 | Tom Boonen | 523
28 | Peter Sagan | 520
29 | Rik Van Steenbergen | 484
30 | Fiorenzo Magni | 475
31 | Learco Guerra | 474
32 | Ferdi Kübler | 473
33 | Philippe Gilbert | 454
34 | Franco Bitossi | 452
35 | Johan Museeuw | 446
36 | Remco Evenepoel | 445
37 | Erik Zabel | 442
38 | Luis Ocaña | 441
39 | Mario Cipollini | 436
40 | Paolo Bettini | 432
41 | Greg LeMond | 429
42 | Raymond Poulidor | 425
43 | Jan Ullrich | 423
44 | Gianni Bugno | 423
45 | Mark Cavendish | 420
46 | Laurent Fignon | 418
47 | Jan Raas | 416
48 | Moreno Argentin | 409
49 | Nairo Quintana | 388
50 | Nicolas Frantz | 385
51 | Alex Zülle | 378
52 | Joaquim Rodríguez | 377
53 | Herman Vanspringel | 369
54 | Oscar Freire | 359
55 | Alexander Vinokourov | 356
56 | Wout van Aert | 351
57 | Charly Gaul | 348
58 | Mathieu van der Poel | 347
59 | Hugo Koblet | 339
60 | Walter Godefroot | 336
61 | Michele Bartoli | 335
62 | Gaetano Belloni | 334
63 | Jan Janssen | 332
64 | Henri Pélissier | 332
65 | Antonin Magne | 331
66 | Charly Mottet | 324
67 | André Leducq | 323
68 | Stephen Roche | 322
69 | Pedro Delgado | 322
70 | Giovanni Brunero | 322
71 | Bernard Thévenet | 317
72 | Claudio Chiappucci | 317
73 | Julian Alaphilippe | 311
74 | Jonas Vingegaard | 309
75 | Cadel Evans | 309
76 | François Faber | 307
77 | Philippe Thys | 305
78 | Vittorio Adorni | 303
79 | Abraham Olano | 303
80 | Rudi Altig | 303
81 | Alessandro Petacchi | 300
82 | Hennie Kuiper | 296
83 | Roberto Heras | 289
84 | Gustave Garrigou | 284
85 | Davide Rebellin | 276
86 | Briek Schotte | 275
87 | Gianbattista Baronchelli | 273
88 | Bradley Wiggins | 269
89 | Fred De Bruyne | 265
90 | Gianni Motta | 264
91 | André Darrigade | 263
92 | Nino Defilippis | 262
93 | Lucien Van Impe | 261
94 | Gilberto Simoni | 258
95 | Phil Anderson | 255
96 | Federico Bahamontes | 254
97 | Marino Lejarreta | 253
98 | Damiano Cunego | 252
99 | Stan Ockers | 249
100 | Tony Martin | 246
101 | Geraint Thomas | 245
102 | Julián Berrendero | 242
103 | Eric Vanderaerden | 242
104 | Marco Pantani | 241
105 | Michał Kwiatkowski | 240
106 | Michel Pollentier | 237
107 | Danilo Di Luca | 234
108 | Rolf Sørensen | 234
109 | Francesco Casagrande | 234
110 | Jean Stablinski | 232
111 | Samuel Sánchez | 231
112 | Pascal Richard | 227
113 | Delio Rodríguez | 226
114 | Raymond Impanis | 224
115 | Richard Carapaz | 223
116 | Greg Van Avermaet | 222
117 | Sylvère Maes | 221
118 | Lucien Petit-Breton | 218
119 | Gastone Nencini | 218
120 | Dietrich Thurau | 218
121 | Alexander Kristoff | 216
122 | Ivan Basso | 211
123 | Octave Lapize | 210
124 | Marcel Kint | 210
125 | Tom Dumoulin | 208
126 | Gerrie Knetemann | 208
127 | Arnaud Démare | 207
128 | Thor Hushovd | 206
129 | Carlos Sastre | 205
130 | Robbie McEwen | 204
131 | Denis Menchov | 203
132 | Stefano Garzelli | 202
133 | Adrie van der Poel | 202
134 | Claude Criquielion | 200
135 | Luis Herrera | 198
136 | Miguel María Lasa | 198
137 | Michele Dancelli | 197
138 | Pavel Tonkov | 196
139 | Ottavio Bottecchia | 195
140 | Giovanni Battaglin | 195
141 | Eddy Planckaert | 195
142 | Giuseppe Olmo | 194
143 | Richard Virenque | 193
144 | Georges Ronsse | 192
145 | Miguel Poblet | 192
146 | José Manuel Fuente | 189
147 | Jean Alavoine | 189
148 | Guido Bontempi | 187
149 | Georges Speicher | 186
150 | Heiri Suter | 185
151 | Maurizio Fondriest | 182
152 | Andy Schleck | 181
153 | Andrei Tchmil | 181
154 | Frans Verbeeck | 181
155 | Mariano Cañardo | 180
156 | Egan Bernal | 177
157 | Filippo Pozzato | 176
158 | Mads Pedersen | 176
159 | Peter Van Petegem | 174
160 | Adolfo Leoni | 174
161 | Carlo Galetti | 172
162 | John Degenkolb | 172
163 | Joaquim Agostinho | 172
164 | Rui Costa | 171
165 | Maurice De Waele | 171
166 | Ercole Baldini | 171
167 | Jakob Fuglsang | 170
168 | Luigi Ganna | 170
169 | Italo Zilioli | 170
170 | Louis Trousselier | 168
171 | Germain Derycke | 168
172 | Frank Vandenbroucke | 168
173 | Erik Breukink | 168
174 | Andreas Klöden | 167
175 | Pasquale Fornara | 166
176 | Roger Pingeon | 164
177 | Roger Lapébie | 164
178 | Franco Balmamion | 164
179 | Tom Simpson | 163
180 | Simon Yates | 163
181 | Jef Planckaert | 163
182 | Tom Steels | 161
183 | Firmin Lambot | 160
184 | Gaston Rebry | 159
185 | Domingo Perurena | 158
186 | Laurent Dufaux | 157
187 | Robert Millar | 156
188 | Ritchie Porte | 156
189 | Andrew Hampsten | 155
190 | Andrea Tafi | 155
191 | Filippo Ganna | 155
192 | Giovanni Valetti | 154
193 | Daniel Martin | 154
194 | Steven Rooks | 154
195 | Eric Leman | 154
196 | Fränk Schleck | 154
197 | Rigoberto Urán | 154
198 | Marino Basso | 153
199 | André Greipel | 153
200 | Paolo Savoldelli | 152

 

[BigCoward]

Eddie is first, Hinault/Coppi are second/third, after that it's open to interpretation/bias.

 

[King Boonen]

1. Hinault.
2. If you're not first you're last.

 

[Red Rick]

I'm not gonna make my own list but I will just point out everyone else is wrong.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

CyclingRanking.com - Ranking of the best pro cyclists since 1869

Find out about the best professional cyclists of the world. CyclingRanking.com given an overview of the rich history of cycling between 1869 and 2024. Navigate through the vast database of information on cyclists, their teams and countries, and the races they participated in.

www.cyclingranking.com

Enjoy.

 

[topcat]

1. Nibali
2, 3, ... Whatever

 

[OlavEH]

Enjoy.

Haha, Valverde as the far best cyclist after 2000. This ranking has some major flaws!

 

[tobydawq]

Haha, Valverde as the far best cyclist after 2000. This ranking has some major flaws!

How can you even make a points based ranking where he doesn't end up on top? The guy has 26 podiums in major races, who is even close to that?

 

[OlavEH]

How can you even make a points based ranking where he doesn't end up on top? The guy has 26 podiums in major races, who is even close to that?

Because he has one GT while Contador and Froome have 7. Nibali have 4 GTs and 3 monuments. Boonen have 7 monuments and Worlds. There are a lot of good candidates, and Valverde is very far from being the obvious choice as the best rider in the 2000s.

Edit: That depends totally on how the points based ranking is made. How many races does it include? How big a diffence are there between the top spots. And so on......

And it's not just that he is on top, but how far ahead of the others he is........

 

[Red Rick]

How can you even make a points based ranking where he doesn't end up on top? The guy has 26 podiums in major races, who is even close to that?

Well it's easy if you count major wins a lot heavier than just podiums, and it gets easier still if you rate GTs higher than monuments or WCs.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

How can you even make a points based ranking where he doesn't end up on top? The guy has 26 podiums in major races, who is even close to that?

Because second and third places don't separate the best from the rest.

Contador, Froome, Nibali and Boonen are all undoubtedly ahead in that regard, Gilbert probably is as well (especially if you can find a way to factor in the diversity in terrain he's won big races on), and Pogacar is catching up fast but is too young to have accumulated a lot of points yet. Valverde should probably be in sixth right now, just ahead of the likes of Sagan, Cavendish and Bettini (and Pogacar, for the time being).

Or to put it another way: Valverde is fourth of all time on that list, only behind Merckx, Kelly and Bartali. Can you really make the case that he's greater than for example Hinault or Coppi?

 

[tobydawq]

No but if you have to make a points based ranking, you have to engineer it quite ridiculously if you want someone else at the top.

 

[Red Rick]

No but if you have to make a points based ranking, you have to engineer it quite ridiculously if you want someone else at the top.

Or maybe it's just that annual rankings really overrate lesser races and podiums and lesser placings precisely cause it's the point of annual rankings to legitimize the lesser races more so thant the biggest races that everyone would love to win even if it gave 0 points.

And many of these all time rankings just add all the yearly points together. If you just look at point valuations of certain achievements there are so many absolute piss takes to not dismiss the rankings entirely.

So when a ranking goes something like Rebellin > Contador/Nibali with Valverde at #4, I don't think it's ridiculous at all to suggest reengineering it a LOT.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Or to put it another way: Valverde is fourth of all time on that list, only behind Merckx, Kelly and Bartali. Can you really make the case that he's greater than for example Hinault or Coppi?

If you asked fans to rank the best cyclists of all time, most would probably always put Hinault and Coppi ahead of Valverde. Bala also simply had an insanely long career at a consistently high level. With Hinault it was only eleven years and he rode from 1983 clearly less successful, because of his knee problems.

It would also be interesting to see where Coppi and Bartali would be if the war hadn't stolen so many years from them.

The operators write the following on their page:

This is the overall all time ranking of the most successful professional cyclists in the world since 1869. Use the year and country filters below to look at the same overall ranking until a specific year in the past and/or for a specific country. Riders score points based on their results in the races. These points depend on the (historic) importance of the race, the competition during the race and the toughness of the course. Click on any rider to get an all time overview of the rider with details on the scores and rank for the various seasons and the most important results for each year.

Of course, this is not very transparent, if you put a ranking on a numerical basis. However, if it were presented transparently to the outside world, it would be a very good method. So points also according to the field of participants and thus the strength of the competition to assign.

In any case, in my eyes you can't evaluate every race of the last seventy years according to the same criteria. The importance was partly completely different, the starting fields were completely different and many riders had twice the number of race days compared to today, and so on. It was a different sport. Even 25 years ago with pro's and amateur pro's.

 

[Red Rick]

I think if you consider that Valverde has been one of the best riders in the world for nearly 2 decades the amount of wins in monuments, GTs and Worlds/Olympics is rather underwhelming.

 

[BigCoward]

Yeah, consistently being very good doesn't make you an all time great. Less could definitely have been more for Valverde.

 

[bNator]

CyclingRanking.com - Ranking of the best pro cyclists since 1869

Find out about the best professional cyclists of the world. CyclingRanking.com given an overview of the rich history of cycling between 1869 and 2024. Navigate through the vast database of information on cyclists, their teams and countries, and the races they participated in.

www.cyclingranking.com

Enjoy.

Any all-time-great system that ranks Majka higher than Pogačar has some inherent flaws.

There’s a lot more to it than just saying a win at some event is worth x, at another event y etc. It’s how you win, it’s who you beat… maybe if these analyses employed machine learning, they could yield better results…

 

[Kaptain Kool]

Interesting. Outside of Froome and Armstrong, I can't see anyone post-2000 else even being ranked close to Valverde.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Or maybe it's just that annual rankings really overrate lesser races and podiums and lesser placings precisely cause it's the point of annual rankings to legitimize the lesser races more so thant the biggest races that everyone would love to win even if it gave 0 points.

I do think that annual rankings should take wins in lesser races and placements in the biggest ones into account to a greater degree than all-time rankings though. In a year, there are 9-10 really big races (GTs, WC and Olympic RR, monuments), no cyclists can compete for more than half of these in the same season in modern cycling. Whether a rider manages to win one of those 4-5 races in a year doesn't tell as much about how good his year was, otherwise Zaugg beats the Schlecks in 2011, for example. Over an entire career, that kind of thing evens out because the sample size is much larger and hence those big wins should count a lot more heavily relative to everything else. There isn't that much randomness to the amount of monuments and GTs a rider accumulates in 10-15 years, if someone keeps falling just short it's usually mostly down to their skills rather than a bit of luck, but that isn't the case on an annual basis.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Interesting discussions! We'll see which expectations turn out to be right, and how the result compares to the one on CyclingRanking.

So here comes the countdown: the top 150 of men’s road cycling. These ten riders only just make the cut:

150 Marcel Kittel 176
149 John Degenkolb 177
148 Tom Steels 178
147 Peter Van Petegem 178
146 Ivan Basso 180
145 Eddy Planckaert 181
144 Adrie van der Poel 182
143 Roger Lapébie 183
142 Nino Defilippis 184
141 Marino Basso 185

Seventeen riders in this list are still active. Their names will be in bold.

In case of ex aequo the advantage goes to the biggest win. Van Petegem is ahead of Steels, because the Tour of Flanders is bigger than Gent-Wevelgem.

Sometimes there are weird coincidences. Three sprinters at the bottom. Marino Basso ends up higher than his unrelated namesake. I like the mixture of prehistoric and more recent champions.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Monuments are undervalued. They should be closer to WC/Olympics and more above one-week races (i.e. 30 pts). As for the all time ranking my spoiler is:

1. Merckx
2. Hinault
3. Coppi

The Italian would have had a shot at being the GOAT if the war hadn't taken away a few years of his prime.

 

[OlavEH]

Interesting. Outside of Froome and Armstrong, I can't see anyone post-2000 else even being ranked close to Valverde.

Contador, Cancellara, Boonen and Nibali should be ranked ahead of Valverde. Perhaps Gilbert and Froome too.

 

[tobydawq]

Contador, Cancellara, Boonen and Nibali should be ranked ahead of Valverde. Perhaps Gilbert and Froome too.

Why? Is it only about major wins to you?

 

[Devil's Elbow]

For the record, here's more or less what I'd use for an all-time ranking:

Spoiler: Pedantry

60 points for a Tour win. 20 and 12 points for 2nd and 3rd, 6 points for a stage, points jersey or KOM jersey win

45 points for a Giro or Vuelta win. 15 and 9 points for 2nd and 3rd, 4.5 points for a stage, points jersey or KOM jersey win

40 points for a Worlds or Olympic RR win. 10 and 6 points for 2nd and 3rd (think its fair to have placements count less in a one-day race)

30 points for a monument win (so that all 5 monuments = all 3 GTs). 7.5 and 4.5 points for 2nd and 3rd.

15 points for the other main one-day races. Difficult to agree on which races should count, I'd go with:

Bordeaux-Paris (until 1980, to mirror its fall and the introduction of San Sebastian)
GP des Nations (until 1993, the final edition before the TT became a Worlds discipline)
Züri Metzgete (until its final edition in 2006)
Paris-Tours (until it wasn't included in the WT, so until 2011)
Flèche Wallonne
Gent-Wevelgem
Amstel Gold Race (from 1966)
Clasica San Sebastian (from 1981)
Worlds TT (from 1994)
Olympic TT (from 1996)
Strade Bianche (from 2012, mirroring Paris-Tours)

15 points for the main smaller stage races:
Paris-Nice
Tirreno-Adriatico
Euskal Herriko Itzulia
Tour de Suisse
Critérium du Dauphiné
Peace Race (until the fall of the Wall)

This keeps the included races somewhat consistent on an annual basis.

Small races really don't matter in an all-time ranking to me. The amount of GP Indurains or Tour Down Under stages won has no bearing on which rider I consider to have had a better career (sorry, André). You could argue that the number of smaller races should be expanded, but it's difficult to do so in a way that doesn't benefit more recent generations. I also don't like using national championships, as it helps riders from certain nations no matter which way you incorporate them.

I've contributed to hijacking the thread more than enough now...

 

[OlavEH]

Why? Is it only about major wins to you?

Yeah. Major wins is by far the most important factor. Valverde is impressive/unique in terms of length of his career and the number of top 10 or top 5 in major races, but I still think those riders I mentioned were better than Valverde.