Rough Attempt at an All-Time Ranking

[OlavEH]

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

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 is a pretty good scale. I would probably given a bit more for podium finishes and perhaps one week races, but I think the weighting between the most important races are really good.

 

[Blanco]

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

No. Not single one of them should be ranked ahead of Valverde, and no one really isn't. We have various rankings: Procyclingstats, CQ rankings, CyclingRanking, etc and in all of them Valverde is far ahead of all those you mentioned. That's not coincidence.
Only kind of ranking in which Valverde would be placed below some of these guys, is if we would only count just major wins and nothing more. Even then he would be in the league of those guys.
But the moment we inlcude podiums, minor placings, other races, there's no contest anymore...

 

[Devil's Elbow]

What a coincidence that everyone who wants to have placements count heavily also happens to be a Valverde fan.

 

[Blanco]

What a coincidence that everyone who wants to have placements count heavily also happens to be a Valverde fan.

You don't need to count them heavily, just count them. That will be enough...

 

[OlavEH]

No. Not single one of them should be ranked ahead of Valverde, and no one really isn't. We have various rankings: Procyclingstats, CQ rankings, CyclingRanking, etc and in all of them Valverde is far ahead of all those you mentioned. That's not coincidence.
Only kind of ranking in which Valverde would be placed below some of these guys, is if we would only count just major wins and nothing more. Even then he would be in the league of those guys.
But the moment we inlcude podiums, minor placings, other races, there's no contest anymore...

All those rankings take into account about every single race on the calendar. IMO that is not very important

 

[Red Rick]

What a coincidence that everyone who wants to have placements count heavily also happens to be a Valverde fan.

Mathematicians to come up with a theorem to determine how many Andalucia stage wins = 1 Tour de France win.

 

[Fantastico]

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)

What kind of diversity do you mean? It's been many hilly monuments, a WC and the Northern classics. You consider that more diversity than Valverde's hilly monuments, a WC, some bunch sprints, mountain-top finishes and even a GT with several podiums? Not to take away anything from Gilbert, he clearly has a way better monument record than Valverde. But to imply that he has a more diverse record than Valverde...

 

[Fantastico]

Even as a Valverde fan, I think that these rankings are flawed and overvalue a lot of good results compared to major wins. You can definitely argue that riders like Froome, Contador, Nibali etc. have a more impressive career. That's mainly depending on how you weight the different results. However, on the other hand, I feel that some people here really undervalue the impressiveness of having great results in GTs and monuments consistently for about 20 years.

 

[Red Rick]

21st century would probably go like

God tier:

Spoiler

Vinokourov

S tier
Contador, Nibali, Froome

A tier
Bettini, Valverde, Cancellara

B tier
Boonen, Sagan, Freire, Cavendish

C tier
Gilbert

D Tier
Roglic, Pogacar, Alaphilippe, Evans, Cunego, Di Luca, Quintana, Bernal, Rodriguez


Now the bottom line I wouldn't consider legends yet, but I think the guys still active will get there eventually

 

[Devil's Elbow]

What kind of diversity do you mean? It's been many hilly monuments, a WC and the Northern classics. You consider that more diversity than Valverde's hilly monuments, a WC, some bunch sprints, mountain-top finishes and even a GT with several podiums? Not to take away anything from Gilbert, he clearly has a way better monument record than Valverde. But to imply that he has a more diverse record than Valverde...

GT + one different monument is far more common than four different monuments as a palmares in the current day and age. This century alone, Nibali, Pogacar, Roglic, Schleck, Di Luca, Vino and Cunego have managed the former in addition to Valverde. That's two more than that have won four different monuments ever.

You don't need to count them heavily, just count them. That will be enough...

Depends. Valverde narrowly wins with the system I mentioned above, but use the same system without the smaller races (not even without the placements in big races) and he doesn't.

 

[Blanco]

Mathematicians to come up with a theorem to determine how many Andalucia stage wins = 1 Tour de France win.

200

 

[Fantastico]

GT + Liège is far more common than four different monuments.

So what? Gilbert has never done anything impressive in GTs when it comes to the GC. So in some sense, he is also very limited as a rider. I don't think that winning four monuments makes him a more versatile rider automatically.

 

[Fantastico]

GT + one different monument is far more common than four different monuments as a palmares in the current day and age. This century alone, Nibali, Pogacar, Roglic, Schleck, Di Luca, Vino and Cunego have managed the former in addition to Valverde. That's two more than that have won four different monuments ever.

And how many of those have also won a WC or bunch sprints?

 

[Devil's Elbow]

And how many of those have also won a WC or bunch sprints?

None... but Vinokourov has an Olympic title to his name, and multiple other riders listed have won different monuments (which Valverde hasn't). Also, Valverde hasn't won full bunch sprints at major races, and if we're counting uphill and/or reduced ones, then so has for example Roglic.

 

[Red Rick]

I don't even think Gilbert is that alround he just massively overperformed in winning 4/5 monuments. I definitely do not rate him more alround than Valverde, Nibali or Sagan.

 

[Fantastico]

None... but Vinokourov has an Olympic title to his name, and multiple other riders listed have won different monuments (which Valverde hasn't). Also, Valverde hasn't won full bunch sprints at major races, and if we're counting uphill and/or reduced ones, then so has for example Roglic.

Yes, both is true. But you have to factor in the quantity as well. Or would you consider Bettini a more versatile rider than Valverde just because he's won three different monuments instead of just one?

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Ranking Valverde above Contador or Froome is like ranking Ryan Giggs above Ronaldinho because he has more completed passes and more successful dribblings in his career... with the former having played about double the amount of games than the latter.
Credit it where it's due for Valverde to compete this long but you have to be pretty deluded to take him above guys that won 7 GTs because of stat rankings that reward a bazillion Vuelta podiums and fleche wallone victories.

 

[Red Rick]

Yes, both is true. But you have to factor in the quantity as well. Or would you consider Bettini a more versatile rider than Valverde just because he's won three different monuments instead of just one?

In all honestly I don't htink Lombardia adds that much versatility to LBL (especially before the harder routes became common), but Sanremo does a bit.

I also don't wanna go overboard on the versatility points for different monuments cause the variance in monuments is much higher in the first place.

Gilbert was a bit weird in that he focused on the hilly classics in the first half of his career more, but Fleche and Liege were literally already too hard for him in 2012.

Second question is do you need to be on top of the world in the disciplin to get extra credit for versatility in a department, or do we give Cunego the same credit for winning GTs as Valverde.

Third question for me is how you rate ITT world and Olympic ITT champs for versatility (Cancellara, Dumoulin, Wiggins, Roglic), as well as say lesser cobbled races for a guy like Geraint Thomas.

 

[Kaptain Kool]

Wouldn't Valverde be more like Xavi who was, in fact, better than Ronaldinho?

 

[Carrick-On-Seine]

I'd only count wins in the GTs, Monuments, Worlds and Olympics. Point for each win.

 

[OlavEH]

Wouldn't Valverde be more like Xavi who was, in fact, better than Ronaldinho?

No, I think Ryan Giggs was a pretty accurate comparision.

Edit: Or perhaps Cristiano Ronaldo. But that is because those two have the absolutely most dedicated fanboys in their respective sport.

 

[Bonimenier]

Masnada is first.

Long distance behind that Merckx and Hinault are 2 and 3.

 

[Red Rick]

No, I think Ryan Giggs was a pretty accurate comparision.

Spoiler: Footie stuff

Tbh *** your sister in law for 8 years without your brother finding out is absolutely next level

 

[johnymax]

I'd only count wins in the GTs, Monuments, Worlds and Olympics. Point for each win.

That would be a terrible ranking. You'd have a rider with a fluke win like Pereiro in the Tour, Poels in LBL or Zaug in Lombardia ahead of riders with multiple GT podiums and multiple monument and WC podiums.

 

[Carrick-On-Seine]

Spoiler: Footie stuff

Spoiler