This is a list of the top ten best road bicycle racers of all time. My criteria are that the bicycle racers have performed well in both the three big stage races – Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España – but also in the minor stage races such as Tour de Suisse, Paris-Nice and Dauphiné Libéré and the Classics like Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. I have not looked at doping verdicts or accusations as trying to separate the “clean” from the “guilty” would lead to absolute chaos.
Jan Ullrich is a German former bicycle racer born in 1973. He won the Tour de France in 1997, the white jersey in 1996, 1997 and 1998, and he has 5 second places in the Tour, this earned him the nickname: The Eternal Second. Ullrich has also won Vuelta a España in 1999 and the Tour de Suisse in 2004 and 2006. Other notable wins are the World Time Trial Champion in 1999 and 2001 and the Olympic Road Race in 2000. Ullrich is a powerful bicycle racer with a soft, athletic style, but he often got out of shape during the off-season and had problems losing the extra weight before racing the big races.
The American Lance Armstrong holds the record of most victories in Tour de France with his 7 consecutive wins. Armstrong also won the 2001 Tour de Suisse and the World Cycling Championship in 1993. This earns him a place on this list, but because Armstrong never impressed in the Giro D’Italia, the Vuelta a España or the Classics, I can’t place him any higher on the list.
Miguel Indurain was born in Spain in 1964. He has won the Tour de France 5 times in a row and the Giro D’Italia 2 times in a row. He has also won the Olympic Time-Trial Championship in 1996 and the World Time-Trial Championship in 1995, as well as two wins in both Dauphiné Libéré and Paris-Nice.
Indurain was relatively big compared to other professional riders – 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) and 80 kg (176 lbs) – this earned him the nickname “Miguelón”, meaning “Big Mig”. At the top of his career, Miguel Indurain had a physique that was not only superior when compared to average people, but also when compared to his fellow athletes. His blood circulation had the ability to circulate 7 liters of blood around his body per minute, compared to the average amount of 3-4 liters of an ordinary person and the 5-6 liters of his fellow riders.
Fausto Coppi was born in Italy in 1919. He won the Tour de France twice, in 1949 and 1952, and the Giro D’Italia five times in 1940, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953. He also won the World Championship in 1953, the Giro di Lombardia in 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1954, the Milan-Sanremo in 1946, 1948 and 1949, and the Paris-Roubaix and the La Flèche Wallonne in 1950
Felice Gimondi was born in Italy in 1942. In 1968 Gimondi was nicknamed “The Phoenix” after winning the Vuelta a España, this victory made him the second rider after Jacques Anquetil to win all three big stage races, he is one of only five riders to ever win all three. Gimondi won the Tour de France in 1965, the Giro D’Italia in 1967, 1969 and 1973 and the Vuelta a España in 1968. Gimondi also won Paris-Roubaix in 1966 and the World Road Cycling Championship in 1973.
Gino Bartali was born in Italy on 1914. He has won the Tour de France twice, in 1938 and 1948, both times also winning the mountain competition, and the Giro D’Italia three times in 1936, 1937 and 1946, also here he won the mountain competition all three times. Bartali also won the Tour de Suisse in 1946 and 1947. Bartali was a good climber and a pioneer of derailleur gears. His style was unusual: he rarely danced on the pedals and often stayed in the saddle throughout a 15km climb. When others attacked, he stayed in the saddle but changed up gear, to a sprocket three teeth smaller.
He rode smoothly on mountains but every now and then freewheeled, always with his right foot lowered with his weight on it. Then a second or two later he would start pedaling again.
Séan Kelly was born in Ireland in 1956, and became one the most successful rider of the 1980s and the best Classics rider of all times. His wins include the Vuelta a España in 1988, 4 point class wins in both the Tour de France and the Giro D’Italia, 7 consecutive win in Paris-Nice form 1982 – 1988, 2 wins in Tour de Suisse, Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liége.
Jacques Anquetil was born in France in 1934. He has won the Tour de France five time, in 1957 and 1961-1964, the Giro D’Italia twice in 1960 and 1964, the Vuelta a España in 1936 and the Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1966. Anquetil also holds several records:
- He was the first to the Tour de France five times
- He was the first to win all three big stage races
- He was the first French rider to win the Giro D’Italia
- He was the first French rider to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France form the first day to the last.
Bernard Hinault was born in France in 1954, and is one of only five riders to have won all three big stage races, and the only to have won each more than once. Hinault is the only rider ever to have finished either first or second in each Tour de France he finished. He won the Tour de France in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985, the Giro D’Italia in 1980, 1982 and 1985 and the Vuelta a España in 1978 and 1983. Among Hinault many other victories are Paris-Roubaix in 1981, Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1977 and 1980 and the World Road Cycling Championship in 1980.
Eddy Merchx was born in Belgium in 1945 and became the best road bicycle racer the world has ever seen. He won the Tour de France 5 times in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1974, the Giro D’Italia 5 times in 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973 and 1974 and the Vuelta a España once in 1973. Merckx also won the Tour de Suisse once, Paris-Nice 3 times, Dauphné-Libéré once, Paris-Roubaix 3 times, Liège-Bastogne-Liége 5 times and the World Road Race Championship 3 times. Eddy Merckx is also one of only five riders to win all three big stage races during their career, the four others are: Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Bernard Hinault and Alberto Contador.
Coool.. i always wanted to try out one of those 5000 dollar bikes
i tought my bike run from work ment alot …i guess not
what kind of feet do they have!
YES EDDY EDDY BELGIUM BELGIUM!!
belgium ftw!
Saves on gas money pedal power ftw
Always interesting to see whether people place Coppi or Bartali first…
I am not sure, I would have included Ullrich – He had the talent definately, but in my oppinion if to be judged his actual perfomances he don’t belong in the leage with the rest.
I am Italian, and here nobody would ever place Coppi after Gimondi.
In Italy, Coppi is considered by the majority the best bicycle racer we ever had.
I was interested so I did a quick search:
Eight drivers from this Top Ten list are confirmed or confessing dopers.
A ninth (Indurain) has been believably accused of doping during the trial against Festina.
The only driver on this list who probably did not cheat is Hinault.
you mean lance armstrong was on the juice?!
LoL @ #9… I guess another sport which will forever have asterisks in the rankings. booooo
The only one I knew was lance… not rly my sport.
Armstrong was tested positively in the 1999 Tour de France on EPO when they retested frozen blood samples in 2004.
That is not a proven fact. The French lab has generally been accepted as tainting the samples
actually they take 15 samples and Armstrong only tested positive to about 5 of them which were taken right after he race so his numbers would be higher so it is nothing is proven for sure. he is just very talented which people have a hard time excepting.
What, no Greg Lemond?
i REALLY was expecting an honorable mention to Joaquim Agostinho. Oh well…
The best drivers are the one that got the best drugs that is nt found by medics?
#7′s face looks as if it were chisled from granite.
“Top 10 Best Road Cycle Racers Of All Time” oh who cares.
Not my type of sport – but ***** if some rider makes a mistake while they are all bunched up, he takes out quite a few of his competitors as well.
I am not familar with many of these racers, but it was an interesting read this morning. And after reading each of the descriptions, I can understand why Armstrong wasn’t higher. Good list.
Coppi should definitely be ranked higher in the list, i’d place him second or third (at least i would not put him behind Gimondi, that’s kinda crazy to see).
And Sean Kelly’s fourth place confuses me. He is not that good, seriously.
Agree with Merckx and Armstrong, anyway.
Wait so is it Merckx or merchx?
Steroid-monkeys on wheels, very interesting.
for another sport with asterisks like baseball what about earlier ‘superstars’ of the sport prior to stringent testing. Cyclings been notorious for performance drug abuse. It didn’t just begin recently been going on for decades.
I think you forgot a couple more Belgians on this list though! (y)
@ DC, number 21 : it’s Merckx.
I would probably like this list if I were into road bicycle racing… uhh… good list? I’ve only ever heard of Lance Armstrong. Heh. My bad.
Great to see Eddy Merckx on nr 1, because he is indeed the best ever.
Cycling is only popular in the Flemish part of belgium though, and I would consider him more Flemish then belgian.
No offence to the French part
Signe – this would be THE most inaccurate list of all time!
How the #@%& can you place Armstrong at 9th?????
Eddie Merckx: Absolutely a definite #2 – but Armstrong must be #1 simply due to the fact that he won 7 of them – - – - consecutively!!! AND he won them after overcoming a cancer which came close to killing him several times; 99.9% of people who got to the point Armstrong reached DON’T recover – they croak!
BTW: not only was Armstrong’s “positive” 2004 drug re-test actually false; the drugs they found were anti-cancer drugs; NOT performance enhancers! Armstrong was cleared.
Finally: Italian – you’re an idiot: if Coppi’ss the best you can provide; you’re pretty hard up – and he was a cheat!
yay first comment! salsa and chips!!
@ shagrat
there are more races then just the tour de France.
What a Euro-Centric list! Just kidding… I always see comments about how American so many lists are, I thought I’d see how it feels to be on the complaining side!
Seriously, Interesting list.
The drugs are a part of all sports now. Steroids won’t make a mediocre athlete into a great athlete. The relative skill and endurance levels are still the same, just all up a notch. If you’re good at a sport, you gotta use the juice cause the guy across town who’s equally good is gonna use it. Can we get drugs out of sports? Well, how effective has the War on Drugs been so far? Let’s face it, we live in druggy times, especially here in the USA, from ritalin to viagra, prozac and the statins. We’re going to prosecute the use of drugs? We should GET REAL instead. We’re all queer. We’re all more or less here. Maybe we could just get used to it.
I know someone’s going to hit me about the Q word. Just so you know, I’m using it in the old sense: in this case, a drug induced slight alteration that nobody notices but has changed the way we think and communicate, possibly for the better, actually.
Very interesting list. Thanks.
What some readers may not be aware of is the danger inherent in bicycle racing. If the organizers of the race have not done their job ahead of the race, blocking off cross streets, putting up warning signs, etc. accidents happen, often fatal.
For example: In a bicycle race in VA. Triathlon participant G*** T***** died midway through the competition after his bicycle crashed into a woman’s car. The car was on a road which was supposed to have been blocked off, being one that ran straight through the race course. G*** t-boned the car and died. The woman suffered deep emotional scars which are still, 9 years after the fact, haunting her.
Sure, there’s no sport that’s absolutely 100% safe (ok,ok, ping pong , shuttle coq, and shuffle board), but these guys are always in danger.
That’s not to say I disapprove of the sport! No! I love it. It’s exciting and who doesn’t doesn’t love to look at those amazingly beautiful asses and arms!
Hey yo! I used to love watching the Tour on TV, and got used to all the names pretty quickly. Those guys are amazing – I used to want to have a go myself – but after cycling aroung Creté on holiday once I realised I’d need to by roughly 10000x fitter. Hats off to Lance for winning for the U.S. and battling on several fronts at once. Perhaps this urge to get back and win was the one thing that pulled him through. They say you are many times more likely to overcome the ‘C’ word if you have something to live/fight for.
Anyway, I enjoyed the list, and I put a wish out there to see a similar one on F1 sometime.
What? No Pee-wee Herman?
The problem with this list is that post-Lemond, we now live in an era of specialists (i.e., Armstrong), who focus on one main event per year. There’s simply no one left who can “do it all” like Merckx or Hinault. You’d be much better off comparing the best riders of the (a) pre-WWII era, (b) 1950s to 1990s, and (c) current era.
Don’t know any of these besides Lance Armstrong, and he wasn’t even #1. I mean, c’mon, he only gots one nuts.
this list = epic listverse fail
racist as *****!
Comparing one-day races (classics) to tours is like comparing apples to oranges. This is begging for two separate lists
I am an admirer of several of these athletes.
Did they use performance enhancing drugs? I really can’t say, nor would I fault them for it. The drive to win leads folks to do some pretty stupid things. Maybe a shortened life is worth being in the record books.
Two separate lists! Thats what this subject needs…. so we could all be 2x as disinterested!
Jacques Anquetil was born in France in 1934. He has won the Tour de France five time, in 1957 and 1961-1964, the Giro D’Italia twice in 1960 and 1964, the Vuelta a España in 1936 and the Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1966.
So he was 2 when he won the Vuelta a España??
Fair effort.
@Frank
Haha nice catch. I guess he was superior for his age
What?
No Marcus sommers or David Sommers? What about Muzzin? You gotta have Muzzin on the list!
oh…wait…I’m thinking of the movie American Flyers….
oh well…only ones I have heard of are Indurain, Ulrich, and Armstrong.
BTW, why does the picture for Coppi (# 7) remind me of Tony Hawk…
You can make two separate lists but Merckx would still be on top of both of them.
The trick to winning is apparently to wear yellow.
Anyone else notice a lot of them were wearing yellow?
Armstrong never tested positive for anything despite being the most drug tested athlete in the world.
The bitter French doctored one of Armstrong’s drug test years after the fact, and desperately tried to push that as “proof”.
The world knows it’s all lies, and Armstrong went over there and won their damn race seven times in a row. The hell with them.
I’ve never commented before but I feel I must about this list.
I hate Lance Armstrong…but I never really knew why. I just did. Since a few days ago, I now have a reason. I watched a Michael J. Fox special with him as a guest, I realize how much of a wuss he really is. They showed him in a race where there was a pile-up and he was in it. He broke his collarbone and it was right then and there as he sat in the mud he thought about giving up on biking…But then (as the program describes)he worked through the pain and was back on his bike in 6 weeks. It’s a miracle. Not! I am a road/mountain biker and I broke my collarbone also. You get your arm in a sling and I was better in a month. But I will admit, I didn’t go back to biking as soon as Lance did….I had to save up to repair my bent wheel. Lance probably has a 100 bikes in his mansion to pick from. He probably had his handlers throw his bike out if it was damaged and help him to the hospital…I carried my bike 10 blocks home with my good arm and then went to the hospital.
I lost my Livestrong wristband…
ThomasA – I am more than aware there are more races than the ‘Le Tour’: BUT, Le Tour is the biggest, the hardest, the longest and creates the greatest attrition among riders and teams.
GREAT riders are generally determined by the amount of Tours they win – or not Or consecutively – whether they can gain a yellow jersey during its course – or a green jersey for the time-trial section winners.
Does ‘A’ stand for ‘ass’ or ‘*****’?? or possibly ‘acerebral’
50. Shagrat : No, *good* riders are generally determined by their Tour performances. Great road cyclists however must perform on more than one stage. Le Tour is a different race to the Giro – although I don’t know whether I would rate the Vuelta nearly as highly – and should be waited accordingly.
LOL Sean Keally nº 4.
I’m glad you didn’t put Armstrong any higher. Even #9 was probably a gift. While he might have captured the average American’s praises, most U.S. cyclists have little respect for the guy. Minus the hunting accident in the prime of his career, I think there’s no doubt Greg Lemond would have been able to make this list.
I’m always suspicious of people who don’t acknowledge that Armstrong is the greatest cyclist to ever live. Not one time has he ever been caught with any illegal substance. Though the Frenchies tried hard to make people think he was guilty of consuming those substances.
Accusation is all one has to do to force people to believe someone is guilty.
Oh well.
53. Toobey : The fella holds the record for the most consecutive victories in the biggest road cycling event in the world, No.1 was adequate.
It always makes me a little bit disappointed when people who don’t follow cycling at all trumpet Armstrong as the best ever. Yes, winning the Tour de France that many times was a great achievement, but I do believe it is somewhat tarnished by the fact that it is the only race he seriously attempted. It would be like Roger Federer not even competing in the French, U.S or Australian Open, but winning Wimbledon a bunch of times – can you imagine the criticism he’d get?
Besides, the idea that any cyclist could ever be better than Merckx is just ludicrous to anyone who follows cycling for more than just one race a year, and who has paid attention for more than the last decade.
Or other comparisons:
- Michael Schumacher only ever competing at Monaco
- Tiger Woods only ever competing in the Masters
- Australia only competing in The Ashes
The list could go on.
57. ChrisS : “…Australia only competing in The Ashes…”
…
Gino Bartali “rode smoothly on mountains but every now and then freewheeled, always with his right foot lowered with his weight on it. Then a second or two later he would start pedaling again”.
This sound remarkably like indurain in the mountains, usually on a hairpin, but unlike Bartali he was considerably heavier!!
he rarely danced on the pedals and often stayed in the saddle throughout a 15km climb
This totally amaze me. I cant even sit down to pedal up hill for 1 kilometer :X