Who had the best season in the last 20 years?

[hrotha]

Re:

Contador 2014 for GC placing. No Tour, but Vuelta field was stacked that year. Plus GC wins in TA, Pais Vasco. Podium at Dauphine, Catalonia, Algarve... stage wins across the season.

Wiggins 2012 beats that easily.

I'm very sceptical about claims that the routes were stacked in Wiggins' favour. He still outclimbed all his rivals.

 

[Netserk]

Re: Re:

Contador 2014 for GC placing. No Tour, but Vuelta field was stacked that year. Plus GC wins in TA, Pais Vasco. Podium at Dauphine, Catalonia, Algarve... stage wins across the season.

Wiggins 2012 beats that easily.

I'm very sceptical about claims that the routes were stacked in Wiggins' favour. He still outclimbed all his rivals.

Agreed, but I think it's fair to penalize a season if its success was based on team dominance. Imagine Wiggings in the Tour with the support Nibali or Evans had. I doubt he would have outclimbed all his rivals then.

 

[KyoGrey]

Gibert 2011 and the funny thing is that he could've won even 1 more big race if circumstances had been diferent in San Remo or Flanders...or if the WC parcours had been decent.

 

[perico]

Re: Re:

Contador 2014 for GC placing. No Tour, but Vuelta field was stacked that year. Plus GC wins in TA, Pais Vasco. Podium at Dauphine, Catalonia, Algarve... stage wins across the season.

Wiggins 2012 beats that easily.

I'm very sceptical about claims that the routes were stacked in Wiggins' favour. He still outclimbed all his rivals.

I wouldn't say the route was stacked as much as Wiggins as beneficiary of being in the right year at the right time. Not even bringing Contador into the picture, I don't think Wiggins would've won had Schleck not effectively ended his competitive career at the Dauphine a month prior to the TdF. I don't necessarily think Schleck would've cracked Sky, but would've forced Sky to use the Froome card a year ahead of schedule.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Marianne Vos 2021
As for men, I'm tempted to say 2011 Gilbert

 

[Pennino]

Chris Froome every season that he's ridden since 2011 hands down.

 

[SKSemtex]

Sagan 2018

 

[Carols]

Pantani
No one has ever come close to the double since!

 

[Netserk]

Re:

Pantani
No one has ever come close to the double since!

No one has won 3 of MSR/RVV/PR/LBL/GdL/WRR/ORR in the same season since Merckx; except Tommeke!

 

[Pennino]

Re: Re:

Pantani
No one has ever come close to the double since!

No one has won 3 of MSR/RVV/PR/LBL/GdL/WRR/ORR in the same season since Merckx; except Tommeke!

Froome would have if he'd had targeted them.

 

[Tonton]

Pantani '98 for me...

Libertine Seguros, how about PFP '14?

 

[Screecher]

Best season(s) in recent history : Peter Sagan 2016 - 3215 PCS points and Philippe Gilbert 2011 - 3086 PCS points. Any other season in the last 20 years should be below 3000 points.

 

[Mozart92]

Speaking of women, Anna van der Breggen is pretty impressive this year.

-Giro
-Tour of California
- Liegi
- Fleche
- Amstel
- Season not over yet...

 

[Singer01]

Best season(s) in recent history : Peter Sagan 2016 - 3215 PCS points and Philippe Gilbert 2011 - 3086 PCS points. Any other season in the last 20 years should be below 3000 points.

Sagan secures so many points through consistency and being competitive in many different types of race. However GV, ToF and WC alone as big wins doesn't make it the best year in the last 20, unless you consider consistency more important than victories. Wiggins (who didn't even make the list) won PN, Dauphine, Romandie, TdF and OG TT. The fact that he isn't in the options is testament to the ridiculous bias this board has against Sky.

 

[Blanco]

Best season(s) in recent history : Peter Sagan 2016 - 3215 PCS points and Philippe Gilbert 2011 - 3086 PCS points. Any other season in the last 20 years should be below 3000 points.

PCS are not reliable, their results are not complete. Merckx wins in Piemonte, Emilia, Escalada a Montjuic, A Travers Lausanne, Trofeo Baracchi, GP Union Dortmund, GP Hainaut are not listed, his 4th place at the WC RR also. He was way above 5000 pts for sure.

 

[Amazinmets87]

Ulrich 2000?

 

[Blanco]

Re:

Contador 2014 for GC placing. No Tour, but Vuelta field was stacked that year. Plus GC wins in TA, Pais Vasco. Podium at Dauphine, Catalonia, Algarve... stage wins across the season.

He was not the best in that single year, let alone in last 20 years! He had better seasons that that one...

 

[Red Rick]

This thread.....


You have Pantani. Why bother putting in another GT centered rider? He won the magic double, so any 1 GT season is out by default, and as much as I like to fawn at Alberto Contador, Chris Horner really stopped Nibali from beating that only 5 years later.

Sprinter winning Worlds + classic +stages ain't good enough. Only possible sprinter in is Boonen 2005, and that's because of classics

Why Gilbert would be in is beyond me, it's effectively a season where he wins 1 monument, and one GT stage. Huge bunch of other races ofcourse, but I consider it worse than Cavendish in 2009.

And now I'm gonna barricade the door in case Pisti knows where I live


It's really between Boonen 2005, Sagan 2016 (similar classics seasons) and Pantani 1998. Classic greats winning multiple of the 7 biggest one day races in the world in a season is not unheard of, especially if they have a good sprint. If you add the worlds it becomes a bit more circumstantial, as it's pretty dependent on the worlds course.

The Giro-Tour double is widely considered impossible nowadays. Only once this decade has the best GT rider at the moment even tried it, and he got 1st and 5th, and he was the best GT rider by a huge margin at the time. The best climber of the world tried it this year. He got 2nd and 12th.

With all due respect to how great Boonen's and Sagan's seasons were, I'd take Pantani in a heartbeat any day, in any state.

Any other option is a mockery of the sport.

That's not considering the women's, which I think is a seperate debate entirely, and I only think it should be compared if competition is a lot more equal.

 

[cantpedal]

Re: Re:

Contador 2014 for GC placing. No Tour, but Vuelta field was stacked that year. Plus GC wins in TA, Pais Vasco. Podium at Dauphine, Catalonia, Algarve... stage wins across the season.

Wiggins 2012 beats that easily.

I'm very sceptical about claims that the routes were stacked in Wiggins' favour. He still outclimbed all his rivals.

He out climbed Froome? :surprised:

 

[Ruby United]

Re: Re:

Probably Wiggins in 2012

This.

IMO the most overrated season. Wiggins got carried by the route design and his superior team through pretty much every race he won.

Completely irrelevant (and wrong anyways.)
Who cares?
We are looking at palmares - at who has the best results.

Gilbert 2011 and Wiggins 2012 are joint winners for me (Gilbert probably edges it):

Wiggins 2012:
1st Tour de France - 2 stages
1st Olympics - TT
1st Paris Nice - 1 stage, points classification
1st Tour of Romandie - 2 stages
1st Criterium du Dauphine - 1 stage
2nd UCI WT
2nd CQ Rankings

 

[Valv.Piti]

I also forgot to add the saddest field of GC-contenders I can remember. And all those factors are highly relevant to me, it was a Mickey Mouse year.

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

Wiggins 2012 beats that easily.

I'm very sceptical about claims that the routes were stacked in Wiggins' favour. He still outclimbed all his rivals.

He out climbed Froome? :surprised:

Froome was or acted as a rival?

 

[Red Rick]

Wiggins won tts and gc"s devoid of any threatening climber or mountains

he wasn"t even the best rider that year

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

Probably Wiggins in 2012

This.

IMO the most overrated season. Wiggins got carried by the route design and his superior team through pretty much every race he won.

Completely irrelevant (and wrong anyways.)
Who cares?
We are looking at palmares - at who has the best results.

Gilbert 2011 and Wiggins 2012 are joint winners for me (Gilbert probably edges it):

Wiggins 2012:
1st Tour de France - 2 stages
1st Olympics - TT
1st Paris Nice - 1 stage, points classification
1st Tour of Romandie - 2 stages
1st Criterium du Dauphine - 1 stage
2nd UCI WT
2nd CQ Rankings

Guy with the best season in the last 20 years should at least win respective rankings in that same year!

 

[Gigs_98]

I think Gilbert 2011 was the most impressive season in the poll, but he had the "Valverde problem". In your memory he was incredibly strong, sometimes almost unbeatable but if you look back at what he actually won his only wins are races in the Ardennes and besides that hardly anything big. I remember when in 2015 half the forum argued that Valverde was by far the best rider of the year but when I looked at his results, his only really important wins were FW, LBL and a vuelta stage.
Now don't get me wrong. Imo Gilbert's 2011 season was way better than Valverde's best season but it still wasn't quite as good as it may feel in our memory.

Imo Pantani 1998 has to be the winner although it feels kinda wrong to say that the best season was achieved by only being good in two races. On another note, if Purito had managed to win the giro and the vuelta in 2012 I'd probably vote for his season but we all know how that turned out