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Rough Attempt at an All-Time Ranking

Page 12 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Boonen was not a pure sprinter, but a puncheur with an excellent sprint. But he was outclassed by Cancellara when push came to shove, whose motor was just bigger. Of course winning is part of cycling, but not every win is equal to others. Only two or three teems can have a potential Tour winner on their rosters. All the other teams have to make due with the resources they have to try and get wins in situations outside GC, which is why the overall winner is the most accomplished rider in the peloton, against whom all others are awarded their relative status and merits. But the king is the king.
No he was a cobbled classics rider and sprinter but you just wiped out a lot of his results. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone classify him as a puncheur.

No, but the Tour is the Tour. Or do you not think the Tour winner is not the biggest among the Bigs? To make things more obvious, Tour winners, because they are such gifted and special riders have in the history of cycling also been capable of winning the Giro and Vuelta, the classics, World's, PN, TA. So for me the difference is among the riders who can win some of the other races, but not the Tour, demonstrates a limit in their greatness. That's it. Of course, cycling is not just the Tour, but the French race is a pretty massive trump card when set against the careers of riders with excellent palmares who have not won it.
That is not true at all that a Tour winner could win Giro or Vuelta. They have completely different routes and skill sets. Have we not been debating that riders should focus on a different GT because the one they are doing doesn’t suit them? Of course a GT winner should be able to win stage races. Not all GT riders can win monuments or classics, especially now with more specialized compared to previous decades.
Thomas, Froome, Wiggins, Contador, and Pereiro/Landis not to mention TGH, Dumoulin, Quintana, Hesjedal, Basso, Scarponi, Horner, Aru, and Menchov aren’t winning a monument. Bernal might not even win a monument.
 
I'm surprised by the pushback to the notion that uphill sprints are still sprints. They both involve delivering as much power as possible in a short time and calculating your effort to avoid going too soon so you can hold it until the finish line. I don't know why this would be controversial.
 
I'm surprised by the pushback to the notion that uphill sprints are still sprints. They both involve delivering as much power as possible in a short time and calculating your effort to avoid going too soon so you can hold it until the finish line. I don't know why this would be controversial.

Because it's obviously not the same thing?

One thing is peak anaerobic power versus aerodynamics, the other is anaerobic capacity versus body mass.

I get that it's about stomping hard in the pedals and being well-positioned in both but that doesn't make them the same thing...
 
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When Hushovd was first over the line (ahead of Rojas) among the riders in the peloton on Mont des Alouettes, was that not decided in a sprint?

I'd say something can both be a puncheur finish and a sprint. When Evans beat Contador a few days later, he won the sprint.
Yes, but there are sprints and there are sprints. A rider who is able to sprint for the win in Liege, is NOT A PURE SPRINTER...if we can't agree on this at least there is no understanding.
 
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No he was a cobbled classics rider and sprinter but you just wiped out a lot of his results. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone classify him as a puncheur.


That is not true at all that a Tour winner could win Giro or Vuelta. They have completely different routes and skill sets. Have we not been debating that riders should focus on a different GT because the one they are doing doesn’t suit them? Of course a GT winner should be able to win stage races. Not all GT riders can win monuments or classics, especially now with more specialized compared to previous decades.
Thomas, Froome, Wiggins, Contador, and Pereiro/Landis not to mention TGH, Dumoulin, Quintana, Hesjedal, Basso, Scarponi, Horner, Aru, and Menchov aren’t winning a monument. Bernal might not even win a monument.
Boonen was a fast, stamina labled puncheur. The Tour in the modern age requires such sacrifices that only the elect few can win other GCs in a given season. But there are those select few. By contrast, it's not a given that someone who can win the Giro or the Vuelta, who even tries his hardest and sacrifices everything to win the Tour, can actually do it. Herein lies the difference. Look at Simoni, for example, who was a great Giro winner, but had nothing for the Tour in GC. Plus the Tour is where every single rider is in their best possible condition. It's just on another level, another level. You can't compare the winner of a Giro or Vuelta to the Tour, unless of course it is the same rider. And I love the Giro as much as the Tour, but the French race is simply on another planet.
 
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Boonen was a fast, stamina labled puncheur. The Tour in the modern age requires such sacrifices that only the elect few can win other GCs in a given season. But there are those select few. By contrast, it's not a given that someone who can win the Giro or the Vuelta, who even tries his hardest and sacrifices everything to win the Tour, can actually do it. Herein lies the difference. Look at Simoni, for example, who was a great Giro winner, but had nothing for the Tour in GC. Plus the Tour is where every single rider is in their best possible condition. It's just on another level, another level. You can't compare the winner of a Giro or Vuelta to the Tour, unless of course it is the same rider. And I love the Giro as much as the Tour, but the French race is simply on another planet.
Examples of such racers include Philippe Gilbert, Julian Alaphilippe, Alejandro Valverde, Simon Gerrans, Joaquim Rodríguez, Marc Hirschi, Peter Sagan, Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. Only one he is kinda comparable to is Sagan but Sagan has had better puncheur success.

Just like it’s not a guarantee a Tour winner can win a monument unless they get extremely lucky. But if we want to go that route than Cav or Cipo can win the Tour if they get extremely lucky.
 
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Examples of such racers include Philippe Gilbert, Julian Alaphilippe, Alejandro Valverde, Simon Gerrans, Joaquim Rodríguez, Marc Hirschi, Peter Sagan, Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. Only one he is kinda comparable to is Sagan but Sagan has had better puncheur success.

Just like it’s not a guarantee a Tour winner can win a monument unless they get extremely lucky. But if we want to go that route than Cav or Cipo can win the Tour if they get extremely lucky.
Yea, but a Tour winner can be in contention for a monument if not win it (as they have in the past and in numbers that frankly the monument specialsits have rarely obtianed) or loose by marginal time. A monument rider who is not ALSO a GC contender, normally losses the Tour by tens of minutes if not more than an hour. Then in today's cycling to win the Tour means sacrificing all else for that goal. If he is that select few of a rider he can also win monuments, but a monument rider who is only a specialist in monuments is far, far, behind in the Tour. Musseuw docet! Cav or Cipo winning the Tour...IMPOSSIBLE! Whereas a Tour winner winning Milano- San Remo is entirely within the realm of possibility as history shows. Time is the key, not over a day, but three weeks, that is what separates the men from the boys. And this is why the Tour trumps everything else if were talking about power to endurance efficiency, which ultimately determines the hierarchy.
 
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Yea, but a Tour winner can be in contention for a monument if not win it or loose by marginal time. A monument rider who is not a GC winner, normally losses the Tour by tens of minutes if not more than an hour. Then in today's cycling to win the Tour means sacrificing all else for that goal. If he is that select few of a rider he can also win monuments, but a monument rider who is only a specialist in monuments is far, far, behind in the Tour. Musseuw docet!
The riders I listed can win if they are extremely lucky in how it is raced and the route. Just like Cav and Cipo can be extremely lucky in the route and how it is raced. Let’s say a Tour comes along that has 10 flat stages, no mountain top finishes, all single climbs with a downhill, and short prologue, and cobbled stage with all stages having bonus seconds. Cav wins all 10 stages and even gets 3-4 crosswind stages that he puts time into the others. He maintains his lead and wins the Tour in Paris. Is he soundly on the level of Schleck, Pantani, Ullrich, Riis as the Tour is the greatest accomplishment and just winning it once without winning anything else makes you better than 98% of all the other cyclists?
 
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The riders I listed can with if they are extremely lucky in how it is raced and the route. Just like Cav and Cipo can be extremely lucky in the route and how it is raced. Let’s say a Tour comes along that has 10 flat stages, no mountain top finishes, all single climbs with a downhill, and short prologue, and cobbled stage with all stages having bonus seconds. Cav wins all 10 stages and even gets 3-4 crosswind stages that he puts time into the others. He maintains his lead and wins the Tour in Paris. Is he soundly on the level of Schleck, Pantani, Ullrich, Riis as the Tour is the greatest accomplishment and just winning it once without winning anything else makes you better than 98% of all the other cyclists?
The Tour cannot not have mountain top finishes, lest it would not be in the nature of itself. So, I repeat, time is the key, not over a day, but three weeks, AND ON ALL TERRAINS (THE RAISON D'ETRE OF A GRAND TOUR) that is what separates the men from the boys. And this is why the Tour in which every rider is tops trumps everything else if were talking about power to endurance efficiency, which ultimately determines the hierarchy. So my Biblical quote resonates. Cav and Merckx have the same wins in Tour stages, but Cav before Merckx should say: "I am not fit to even untie the straps on His sandals."
 
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The Tour cannot not have mountain top finishes, lest it would not be in the nature of itself. So, I repeat, time is the key, not over a day, but three weeks, AND ON ALL TERRAINS (THE RAISON D'ETRE OF A GRAND TOUR) that is what separates the men from the boys. And this is why the Tour trumps everything else if were talking about power to endurance efficiency, which ultimately determines the hierarchy
The Tour can have whatever route it is given and is not required to have anything. It is still the Tour de France. It didn’t suddenly lose its name, prestige, and history. Cav won 10 stages and was the best over the three weeks. He maintained his lead and didn’t lose it. There go he is a Grand Tour rider, master of his power and endurance efficiency and too of the hierarchy. A Grand Tour isn’t a Grand Tour just because it has mountain top finishes or all terrains, otherwise stage races would be Grand Tours. Nor is there cobbled every edition or even frequently. Just like a climber can win the Tour even though they’re not good in the other terrain.
 
If it had been 750m, maybe, but it was shorter. I just checked the profile.

Then it's still about peak power rather than anaerobic capacity.

Plus the speed doesn't go down much which means CdA is still probably as important as mass.
After searching for it, it seems it was indeed just over 400 m long and a bit steeper than 5 %. Source

If the speed is lowered by 25 %, the power needed to overcome the air resistance is lowered by 58 % (under the simplifying assumption that the riders are as aerodynamic on a hill as on the flat, which ofc they aren't). If the speed is lowered by 20 %, then it's 49 %.

It's not clear to me at what point it is a sprint, according to you.
 
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The Tour can have whatever route it is given and is not required to have anything. It is still the Tour de France. It didn’t suddenly lose its name, prestige, and history. Cav won 10 stages and was the best over the three weeks. He maintained his lead and didn’t lose it. There go he is a Grand Tour rider, master of his power and endurance efficiency and too of the hierarchy. A Grand Tour isn’t a Grand Tour just because it has mountain top finishes or all terrains, otherwise stage races would be Grand Tours. Nor is there cobbled every edition or even frequently. Just like a climber can win the Tour even though they’re not good in the other terrain.
No the Tour has to test a rider's ability on the flats, the hills, the high mountains and timetrials. Otherwise it's not the Tour. Can't agree with you here. And if climbers have a shot over sprinters in the overall title, it's because riding up mountains is way more grueling that riding the flats. You can suffer on the flat like a pig but remain hitched, whereas if you can't climb you can suffer all you want bet get ineluctably detached. That's just physics

PS: As far as cobbles are concerned, let's put it this way, should Pogacar crash out on the pavè next year, because unavoidably someone went down right in front of him, when on asphalted roads such a risk greatly diminishes, I for one would look at the rest of the Tour as "but Pogacar is no longer in the race." Not the best for an event in which the main contenders should go mano a mano on the terrain that counts for overall victory. Once upon a time at least the overall contenders actually rode Paris-Roubaix. This no longer being the case, however, the risks involved with cobbled stages have imo become greater for the overall outcome than the terrain and spectacle justifies their inclusion in the par course. In other words, I'd rather sacrifice a cobbled stage than sacrifice one or more of the contenders not making it to the mountains and the tts in the deep race. We always have Paris-Roubaix in April after all.
 
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The Tour can have whatever route it is given and is not required to have anything. It is still the Tour de France. It didn’t suddenly lose its name, prestige, and history. Cav won 10 stages and was the best over the three weeks. He maintained his lead and didn’t lose it. There go he is a Grand Tour rider, master of his power and endurance efficiency and too of the hierarchy. A Grand Tour isn’t a Grand Tour just because it has mountain top finishes or all terrains, otherwise stage races would be Grand Tours. Nor is there cobbled every edition or even frequently. Just like a climber can win the Tour even though they’re not good in the other terrain.

Do you think that top GT (GT with actual climbs and time trials) riders would enter a scaled up version of the Eneco Tour?

Do you think that this would have no effect on the prestige of the victory?

And regarding the history, there have been Pyrenees since 1910 and Alps since 1911. That's history.
 
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None of the following five has won the Tour, but they share thirty-nine monuments among them.

10 Alejandro Valverde 842
9 Costante Girardengo 896
8 Sean Kelly 911
7 Francesco Moser 942
6 Roger De Vlaeminck 955

Valverde is like the tortoise that beats the hare. With his consistency over the years he crawled past other riders with higher peaks. El Imbatido is a weird nickname for someone with so many top 5 spots, but no other cyclist born since 1960 has collected more points. He even dethrones Big Mig as the highest ranked Spaniard.

After the youngest comes the oldest. Girardengo is the best rider born in the nineteenth century. In 1915 he was disqualified in Milan-San Remo, but he hit back by winning it six times and completely dominating the Italian races in the years after World War I.

Kelly was an Irish farmer's son who moved to France and Belgium to become a dominant force in the classics. His wins range from Paris-Roubaix to the Vuelta, which proves how exceptionally all-round he was. Nowadays he's a friendly commentator, but as a rider he was ruthless.

Moser is another all-rounder whose victories stretch from Paris-Roubaix to the Giro. Some say that the Giro organizers made the route easier to suit him. I didn't expect him above Kelly, but Lo Sceriffo did win an awful lot of races in the '70s and '80s. He's also remembered for breaking the hour record.

With eleven monuments Roger De Vlaeminck is the second best in that department. With his older brother Eric, seven-time world champion in cyclo-cross, he had a difficult relation. Monsieur Paris-Roubaix still draws attention with his controversial statements about the current generation - a bunch of wusses.

Rest assured, the top 5 consists exclusively out of multiple Tour de France winners.
 
Do you think that top GT (GT with actual climbs and time trials) riders would enter a scaled up version of the Eneco Tour?

Do you think that this would have no effect on the prestige of the victory?

And regarding the history, there have been Pyrenees since 1910 and Alps since 1911. That's history.
Why wouldn’t they race it? There is mountains, they still have a chance to win. Not according to what we’ve heard all morning that the Tour is the pinnacle of the whole sport and winning it puts you at the top 2%, no prestige lost. Alps and Pyrenees will still be there in the race. They don’t need a mountain top finish. In the history books and no prestige lost when someone looks at the results 20+ years from now.


No the Tour has to test a rider's ability on the flats, the hills, the high mountains and timetrials. Otherwise it's not the Tour. Can't agree with you here. And if climbers have a shot over sprinters in the overall title, it's because riding up mountains is way more grueling that riding the flats. You can suffer on the flat like a pig but remain hitched, whereas if you can't climb you can suffer all you want bet get inenutcably detached. That's just physics
The Tour design can be whatever it wants to be. If they want 21 mountain stages then they will have 21 mountain stages.
 
Why wouldn’t they race it? There is mountains, they still have a chance to win. Not according to what we’ve heard all morning that the Tour is the pinnacle of the whole sport and winning it puts you at the top 2%, no prestige lost. Alps and Pyrenees will still be there in the race. They don’t need a mountain top finish. In the history books and no prestige lost when someone looks at the results 20+ years from now.

Ok, but there is no way on earth Cavendish wins that hypothetical Tour then, so I am not sure what your example is about if the idea is to keep within the realm of realistic outcomes instead of wishful thinking.
 
Ok, but there is no way on earth Cavendish wins that hypothetical Tour then, so I am not sure what your example is about if the idea is to keep within the realm of realistic outcomes instead of wishful thinking.
The world may never know but extremely, extremely unlikely. It isn’t realistic to begin with that the Tour will have 10 flat stages, let alone 3-4 actually have crosswinds. And it was in reply that all Tour winners can win a monument if everything went there way, just like a sprinter can win a Grand Tour if everything went there way.
 
Why wouldn’t they race it? There is mountains, they still have a chance to win. Not according to what we’ve heard all morning that the Tour is the pinnacle of the whole sport and winning it puts you at the top 2%, no prestige lost. Alps and Pyrenees will still be there in the race. They don’t need a mountain top finish. In the history books and no prestige lost when someone looks at the results 20+ years from now.



The Tour design can be whatever it wants to be. If they want 21 mountain stages then they will have 21 mountain stages.
Nonsense. Who said the Tour can be 21 mountain stages? The Tour is what it's been designed now for the better part of a century and more: flat stages, rolling hills, high mountains and timetrials. And there is a reason for this, namely the organizers and designers want the best rider, and only the best rider, in the world who can handle all terrains to win. You need mountain top finishes to show a potential winner can excel, if not triumph (as often has happend), on the most dificult of terrains. Plus the high mountians are simply the most magestic of races. Can you imagine a Tour with 21 stages between Amiens and Bordeaux? :eek:
 
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Nonsense. Who said the Tour can be 21 mountain stages? The Tour is what it's been designed now for the better part of a century and more: flat stages, rolling hills, high mountains and timetrials. And there is a reason for this, namely the organizers and designers want the best rider and only the best rider in the world, who can handle all terrains, win. You need mountain top finishes to show a potential winner can excel, if not triumph (as often has happend), on the most dificult of terrains. Plus the high mountians are simply the most magestic of races. Can you imagine a Tour with 21 stages between Amiens and Bordeaux? :eek:
The route designers when they release the route of course lol

I actually can’t imagine as I don’t know where those are located or the geographical area around them unfortunately.
 
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