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Who is your Men's Rider of the Decade?

Page 15 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

Who is the Men's Rider of the Decade

  • Fabian Cancellara

    Votes: 2 1.4%
  • Mark Cavendish

    Votes: 1 0.7%
  • Alberto Contador

    Votes: 9 6.1%
  • Chris Froome

    Votes: 50 33.8%
  • Philippe Gilbert

    Votes: 8 5.4%
  • Marcel Kittel

    Votes: 1 0.7%
  • Vincenzo Nibali

    Votes: 16 10.8%
  • Peter Sagan

    Votes: 48 32.4%
  • Greg Van Avermaet

    Votes: 1 0.7%
  • Alejandro Valverde

    Votes: 12 8.1%

  • Total voters
    148
  • Poll closed .
But the decade is from 2011 to 2020 so we still don't know.

Seems like this is a myth. I read about this elsewhere, and i'm glad we can forget about this. While this backwards logic is used in the Ordinal system, this is not the standard way of counting decades. The Cardinal system is, and this puts decades in groups with the same digits. Thereby dismissing the dumbass that decided Jesus was born at the start of the second year (after a full "year 1"). You can also check that "the 1900's" are indeed the decade from the start of 1900 till the end of 1909.


screenshot_2020-01-04wuju8.png


I'm glad we can all forget about this ridiculous notion and sleep well at night, with the knowledge that the balance in the universe has been restored.
 
Seems like this is a myth. I read about this elsewhere, and i'm glad we can forget about this. While this backwards logic is used in the Ordinal system, this is not the standard way of counting decades. The Cardinal system is, and this puts decades in groups with the same digits. Thereby dismissing the dumbass that decided Jesus was born at the start of the second year (after a full "year 1"). You can also check that "the 1900's" are indeed the decade from the start of 1900 till the end of 1909.


screenshot_2020-01-04wuju8.png


I'm glad we can all forget about this ridiculous notion and sleep well at night, with the knowledge that the balance in the universe has been restored.
The 1900s are 1900 till 1999 tho :D
 
Think he's pretty close to Sagan tbh.

By that I mean that all arguments to put Sagan ahead of Nibali put Valverde ahead of Sagan, unless you specifically rate WC higher than winning the Tour or Giro, which is pretty lolworthy. Sagan really only leads Froome and Nibbles in stage wins (barely) and in tier 2 wins i.e. races like GW and E3, but Valverde destroys him there.

Generally think Sagan gets more credit than his results show cause people are always talking about him, which is aided by the fact that he gets lots of attention for doing wheelies while vulturing lesser jerseys when GC riders are duking it out for the biggest races in the world.

Meanwhile Nibali continuously gets underrated cause he doesn't dominate small races but consistently gets great results in the biggest races without dominating them.

The more I think about it, the more I think Nibali and Froome are the clear top 2, between whom both our choices will be extremely obvious.
really what you want to say it.....the correct answer is Chris Froome:p
 
More inclined to rate 2nd and 3rd as 30% ans 15% of a win or something

Hoy you rate the Pais Vascos and FWs vs the monuments and GTs is another matter
Now that is a subject!

I'm closer to rate it 50% and 30% for the 2nd and 3rd, with 4th 15% from the win and so on. However when we compare riders and have one who won a Monument and another one who came 2nd twice, I will always give the edge to the winner.

Now, Pais Vascos and FWs as you said, maybe 60-70% from the Monument, Montreals and Binck Bancks 30-40%, and that new WT races maybe 20%. HC races 10-12% and Cat.1 6-8%. Also for HC and Cat 1 races awarded would only be a winner, for WT races only podium places and for Monuments top 10.

Now GTs. Tour in my opinion would worth like two Monuments, Giro would be maybe 80-85% from the Tour, Vuelta 70-75%. With podium places distributed like in the Monuments. I would also awarded only top 10 riders, cause nobody's into fight for 12th or 15th place, while we often see a fight for top 10 spot.

For stages, in all events, from GTs up to Cat 1 it would be something between 10-15% from the overall win.

And finally Worlds and Olympics. Road races could be like Monuments, or maybe to give additional 10-20% more. ITT could be like biggest Classics and stage races.
 
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3 consecutive wins at the WC, 5 consecutive green jerseys that should have been eight. More than 10 TDF stages. At least podium in every classic except Lombardy.

Plus one of the major factors defining Sagan. Not a grey mouse like most of his competition.

Consistency should be key and in that aspect Sagan is the most complete rider.
 
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What can I say. I like Sagan more, but the only argument against Froome being better than Sagan is that he British

I don't know about that. The Tour de France is the biggest race, and nobody has made that his playground like Sagan has this decade. Of course he isn't winning it, but he has done much more in the race than any rider that isn't a top GC contender ever has.

7 points jerseys, top 5 in almost half the stages he has ever ridden on wildly different terrain, wearer of yellow jersey on several occasions, super-combatif one year, constantly visible.

On each occasion, he has set out to make the points competition a war, but it has ended up looking like a game because nobody has has the class to threaten him in the slightest.

I know that is a hard thing to quantify but it should not be shrugged at, either.

And then he has of course excelled many places with spectacular racing where Froome never shows himself.

Plus 5 big wins, including 3 WCRR in a row, riding for a country that has only him as a good bike rider.
 
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First of all, we have to define the Decade.
Is it still lasting, or has it ended?

With the Men's Rider part shouldn't be argument... it was up to UCI to verify.
And "your" throws out any objective criteria from the voting.

So, since I'm late to the party and familiar with counting, I'll wait another 11 months for my vote casting.
 
I don't know about that. The Tour de France is the biggest race, and nobody has made that his playground like Sagan has this decade. Of course he isn't winning it, but he has done much more in the race than any rider that isn't a top GC contender ever has.

7 points jerseys, top 5 in almost half the stages he has ever ridden on wildly different terrain, wearer of yellow jersey on several occasions, super-combatif one year, constantly visible.

On each occasion, he has set out to make the points competition a war, but it has ended up looking like a game because nobody has has the class to threaten him in the slightest.

I know that is a hard thing to quantify but it should not be shrugged at, either.

And then he has of course excelled many places with spectacular racing where Froome never shows himself.

Plus 5 big wins, including 3 WCRR in a row, riding for a country that has only him as a good bike rider.
Winning green on every attempt except the year he was DQed is a pretty amazing achievement. Was it last year too that he arrived to Paris half broken after a terrible crash
 
3 consecutive wins at the WC, 5 consecutive green jerseys that should have been eight. More than 10 TDF stages. At least podium in every classic except Lombardy.

Plus one of the major factors defining Sagan. Not a grey mouse like most of his competition.

Consistency should be key and in that aspect Sagan is the most complete rider.
not when Chris Froome is kicking about
 
Some interesting thoughts here on how to weight the relative positions on the podiums. To be sure, I did describe my method as "ridiculously simple" and I suspect it might even be statistically specious. I'm a fantasy writer and English teacher by trade, what are you gonna do?

Anyway, my interests are about 75% in prolificacy of podium placements and 25% in quality of podium placements. For the former, sure, I can just look at the total number of podiums. For the latter, well, I'm comfortable with what I'm doing--suits my personal needs ("needs"), anyway.

Maybe when I'm through with the data entry I'll throw my spreadsheets up online someplace and you folks can do what you will with weighting and formulae and so on.

The spreadsheets I'm doing basically have entries for race, year, rider name, rider nationality, and podium placing. I've got all the data in for the Monuments (including a couple of oddball mid-20th century situations which in one case saw two winners, one second, and one third--this was the instance where Fausto Coppi threw his weight around so that his brother could win Paris-Roubaix--and in another saw two winners, no seconds, and three thirds). I'll enter the Grand Tours, professional road World Championships, and Olympic Games road races (after they admitted professionals), oh, sometime! The semester is getting ready to start and soon all my limited cycling time will be given over to just watching races!
 
Sagan's results have happeend almost exclusively in sprints and moderately hilly races. He's got no ITT results to speak of.

Portraying him as most complete is a function of flat stages being vastly overrepresented everywhere. Now here comes the part where somebody posts videos of like 2 stages in small races where he wins a murito finish or mountain stage from a break. Sagan isn't in the top 5 most versatile riders out there. And as for his consistency, he still has only 5 monument podiums this decade, despite being the leader for most of them. That's the same amount as Nibali, van Avermaet, or Rodriguez and Boonen who both retired years ago and less than Gilbert, Valverde, Boonen and Cancellara.

Sagan is no doubt the most popular rider of the decade. That has nothing to do with the merit of his palmares. He gets overrated cause he's talked about all the time. Saying he's agressive cause he goes in breakaways in the Tour is a false equivalence cause GT riders don't have that luxury, and still over 80% of Sagan's wins involve sitting in the bunch until the final 200m.
 
I think the way "monuments" are used in this discussion is ridiculous. We have to include World Championships there as they are in the same tier.

Also, what the hell are you talking about, not being top 5 of consistent riders? Perhaps not right now but a few years ago, he certainly was.
 
Sagan is no doubt the most popular rider of the decade. That has nothing to do with the merit of his palmares. He gets overrated cause he's talked about all the time. Saying he's agressive cause he goes in breakaways in the Tour is a false equivalence cause GT riders don't have that luxury, and still over 80% of Sagan's wins involve sitting in the bunch until the final 200m.

Well, sure. He's an opportunist. But your argument seems (I could be wrong about this) to be based on the assumption that races/stages that feature a lot of climbing, mountain-top finishes, and perhaps individual time trials--or rather, wins in same--are somehow more impressive or of higher quality than, say, sprint wins. Which is a perfectly valid opinion to hold. But some people like sprint finishes and appreciate the skill and nous it takes to win them.
 
Well, sure. He's an opportunist. But your argument seems (I could be wrong about this) to be based on the assumption that races/stages that feature a lot of climbing, mountain-top finishes, and perhaps individual time trials--or rather, wins in same--are somehow more impressive or of higher quality than, say, sprint wins. Which is a perfectly valid opinion to hold. But some people like sprint finishes and appreciate the skill and nous it takes to win them.
I don't say they're lower value. I say it's an argument against versatility and the intangible that is 'exciting racing'.
 
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Do you consider his Roubaix win a sprint victory? If so, sure, he wins most of his races from sprints.
Pretty sure he doesn't and still by far most of his wins are sprints.

Edit: So, this got me curious. I just looked at Sagan's wins from the last few years and (except if I missed something and ignoring his national chanpionship which is basically just a, "let's give one of the Sagan's a pretty Jersey" race) I realized Paris Roubaix was actually his last non sprint victory. And before that you have to go back to Kurne-Brussels-Kurne 2017 to get another one. Just goes to show that while entertaining, Sagan's success still mostly comes from being a sprinter.
Btw I treated uphill sprints as sprints, just if some of you wondered.
 
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