El Pistolero said:Cycling was a big sport in Europe in the 70s. Bigger than it is now in fact. Female cycling is no big sport at all. So your comparison hardly makes sense. And trust me, there was definitely specialisation back then. Lucien van Impe, Ocana, Fuente were all pure climbers. Although Ocana had a decent time trial, much like Contador. Freddy Maertens was by far the best sprinter in his heyday. Yes, he won the Vuelta. But there were no mountains in the Vuelta that year
Moser was a pure classics specialists. Again, he won the Giro, but there were almost no mountains in the Giro that year and he got help from the Italian organisers(helicopters,etc).
lol... you really don't have the "talent" to say anything correct do you?
it was a big sport in europe, in fact it was the people's sport, where guys without any training since the "early" days could contest the tour just because they had a hard life--were hard men. for example agostinho was good because he was delivering mail (using a bike) in africa during war until 27. even kelly was good because he was a farm-boy when he was young. for me they were hard men and they deserve all my respect, but i consider them as amateurs compared to modern cyclists.
obviusly a heavy\big guy has more tendency to be better on the flats and skinny men normally will have their strongest point in mountains, but fact is: moser and freddy were GT contenders. in fact, they were contenders at everything just like merckx. can cav peta or cipo win a GT?never and most likely they are\were better athletes.
like i said in previous threads, modern cycling and the old eras are almost different categories of this sport. we are not talking about hendrix vs slash here, we are talking about a group of spartan warriors VS F-22s, M-16, krav maga, nuclear weapons.