Zabriskie is a disgrace to Americans in the international peleton

wolfix

The only way we can compare riders is thru wins... If Lance is not the greatest TDF racer, then Eddy may not be the greatest rider ever. And both are. The part about Lance tactics is the same thing always said about Eddy Merckx..... Eddy controlled everything he could. The goal of an American rider is to win the TDF. Cycling in the states in still a very obscure sport except the TDF. A local rider that wins his local crit gets more local publicity then if he had won several spring classics in Europe. I wish this was different.
Even Greg LeMond [my favorite rider ] is not a name many people recognize here in the states. And even to me, those yellow bands around everyones arm would get old "if" they were not raising so much money....... And that's a thought...... Maybe Lance is the greatest rider of all time. He has used his celebrity to benifit society. Did Eddy ?? Did Hinault ? Or did they take their winnings and run??
Lance won 6 TDF. He won more then Eddy, Big Mig, and HInault. He may even win 7. Why reasoning would there be that he is not the greatest?

mitosis

I'd say we are just going to have to agree to disagree.

tcklyde

Armstrong isn't the best TdF rider. I like Armstrong. I'm an American, of course. But national pride aside, Merckx is, still, easily, the best TdF rider. Armstrong's six wins are impressive. But if you look at winning margins, days in yellow, jerseys, and stage wins, Merckx is the champ. Armstrong will be a champion in the eyes of history. Merckx is, though, the most dominant rider in this sport's history -- by far: in the TdF and in the sport.

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Harry

MJtje

Look it's a no-no discussion..........you can't compare era's! IF armstrong raced in the 60'ies he also had to race everything. Fact is armstrong won most tours.....and probably will win a 7th! Dunno but then he beats the record by 2...........that's TDF domination! That's why I said best TDF rider, but as to overall races won I said merx, hinault, indurain, lemond, zoetemelk, coppi, and on and on. And after a longlist then comes armstrong somewhere.

Still good though

mitosis

Tour de France domination is winning all three jerseys.

Tour de France domination is winning despite your team.

I don't care if LA wins 10, unless he can dominate a tour like Merckx or Hinault he is just another great cyclist.

wolfix

Six wins is domination. And six straight wins make it total domination the last 6 years. And explain to me how Merckx and Hinault won despite their team. If I remember right , LeMond was kicking Hinaults ass and LeMond was told to wait for Hinault. Hardly dominating. Lance won many TDF TT's, the race of truth. Lance climbed with the best of them. And Eddy himself said that Lance is the greatest Tour rider.
Cycling has changed since Merckx's and Hinaults day. LeMond made the TDF the main focus of many riders...... Indurain & Ullrich being the top riders of this catogory.

musette

mitosis -- Winning all three jerseys is a red herring. That is not practicable in today's times. Also it's inappropriate to argue one has to win despite one's team -- that's effectively penalizing the best organized and smartest cyclists who are wise enough to surrounding themselves with loyal and excellent domestiques.

mitosis

Call me a traditionalist but I see, even at the club level at which I compete, a lot to be said for a cyclist winning on his merits. Sure, cyclists will form alliances to work together but when the finish line is in sight its every man (or woman) for himself.

If you wish to ignore the amazing personal feats of riders in the past to somehow boost the importance of LA's results go ahead but those past performances are there in black and white - you can't help but acknowledge them.

I agree that winning all three jerseys is not practical in today's times. To me that makes the efforts of Merckx all the more significant.

Money and medical technology have damaged most sports in one way or another. Sad isn't it.

EoinC

Nobody has totally dominated the sport of cycling the way Merckx did, regardless of whether or not cycling has changed. Whether it was Grand Tours or 6-day Track events, he was up in the front runners. Incredible diversification in domination when compared with today's specialists.

musette

Per Eurosport, Johan Bruyneel "cast a dark foreboding before the [TTT] stage". "Stylistically, he's the best in the world. But," Bruyneel told French newspaper L'Equipe, "he won't keep his yellow jersey for long, you'll very quickly see why. David has never known how to ride in a peloton.

tcklyde

Well you sure like to rain on the parade when it's not Disco.

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Harry

Crankster

That's silly. By these standards, Finnish mile runners from 1930ies like Paavo Nurmi would be considered the best all-time milers, and marathoners from 19th century Boston marathons who used to win by 20 minutes would be considered the best marathoners, better than kenyans today.

Look up times from 1896 Greece Olympics - I could beat some of those times, and time margines are incredible! Are those the best athletes of all times, based on their sheer domination of events?!

Face it, sports become more and more and more competitive every day. Days of riding every dinky race and being able to win are long gone. Peloton is extremely professional, well-organized and just wouldn't let it happen. Stuff that Coppi and Merckx and riders before WWII used to get away with, like contending all springs and staging solo breakaways will never happen again.
Lance, or anyone else in yellow, or even just a top-10 contender will NEVER EVER EVER be allowed to stage a solo breakaway on a flat stage, the way peloton let Eddy get away. NEVER. It's not because Eddy was much more gifted than any other cyclist that ever lived, the peloton wasn't as competitive and Eddy was just a bit ahead of his times. Nobody will EVER win all three jerseys in the tour, the game has changed, and if you think someone will do it, you are a delusional person.

I think it's easily arguable that Lance is the greatest TdF rider ever - dominating the best grand tour race 7 years in a row is a formidable task, that we will have to wait for a LOOOONG time to see repeated or surpassed.

I could even argue that Lance IS the greatest cyclist of all times, at least as far as the tour riders are concerned. Let's face it, Giro and Vuelta are nowhere near the profile of the Tour, and Lance was the top tour rider at the top tour in the world, facing the best tour riders at their best every year for 7 years. I am not sure you can say the same thing about Eddy.

If he won Giro or Vuelta, he'd be beating the very same people (or weaker) that he faces at the Tour. Winning a Tour is a much bigger prize than winning Vuelta or Giro. So when Lance beats Sevilla, or Heras or Beloki, or Simoni or Savoldelli at the Tour, by a HUGE margin, does anyone think: "Sure, but could he beat them at other tours? Could he beat them any other 365 days of the year? What if you wake Lance up at 3AM and put him on the bike against all of those guys, would he beat him all without a team?" This is the kind of silly questions it comes down to.

Tour de France is the World Champs and Olympics combined of grand tour cycling. You show up and you win it, and you are automatically the best tour rider in the world for that year, regardless of who wins Giro and Vuelta and Tour of Switzerland and Tour of Georgia (that last one was a joke!). Period.

Capt.Injury

Just for a counter point, eventhough Eddy had more domination, but how stiff was his competition? If you took out Armstrong from the equation, they would have easily 6-8 cyclist who most consider Top Contenders for the Yellow Jersey. I am not old enough to remember Eddy, but from what I have read he really only had 3-4 competitors that was a stiff challenge (For those of you that remember the era, you can give a better competition).

But instead of looking at all the numbers, to me the definition of greatness is the impact the person has on the sport. Eddy instituted a work ethic of constant racing and high intensity to win what ended up being a 1/3 of the races he participated in. He set the standard in terms of year round racing. Anyone chime in on other impacts for us younger guys, please add in, appreciate reading it to help define Eddy's spot more.

Armstrong has impacted the sport by completely raising the bar in terms of technology. He became a lab rat, try to find the most aerodynamic clothing, positions, bikes, possible, which took away from the time he raced. Then he set the standard on TDF training in terms to be able to win it. When they brought back TTT, he then set the standard in how to run the TTT. He completely revised the art of Teamwork. How could anyone win last year when Armstrong constant had 2-3 teammates while some of the GC contenders were falling off the back of the pace they were setting. PLus, as brought up by belgium reporters, Armstrong has help advance the drug-testing in the sport by donating tons of money to fund these tests.

Like mentioned earlier, part of Armstrong method and lack of trying to win all the jersey is due to his American routes. Most American would not have a clue what the Polka Dotted, White and Green jersey means. So what good would it be to come home and say you won those when no one knows what you really accomplished. So his training is completely set to the Yellow. Could he try and do a complete dominanace a la Eddy, Yes, but through all his time research in the wind tunnel, he found the best methods to win the Yellow is not to get caught up in the other jerseys.

So instead of debating who is the greatest TDF rider (Even Armstrong himself acknowledges on several occassion that Eddy is the Greatest All-Time), why not just acknowledge both were great, and both help changed the sport to the way it is today.

mitosis

To Captain crankster and Injury,
This discussion has been wrung out on another thread.

http://www.cyclingforums.com/t241449-.html

You sound like you've been following LeTour for a few years at the most.

Read the posts on that thread before you start dashing out your uninformed ideas because all this has shown is how little you know about cycling.