Best cyclists of all time
We’ve sifted through their record of wins to select the best road cyclists ever.
With a history going back over 130 years, choosing a top ten for road cyclists is difficult; so much has changed in cycling even in the last 20 years, and the modern approach is much more scientific than in the past, when race wins were often measured in hours, not seconds.
There’s also a variety of talents to consider. Although winning a three week grand tour (of Italy, Spain or France) is a mark of superiority, there are riders like Mark Cavendish who could never win a grand tour outright, but have still racked up an impressive string of victories.
For the four riders who have won the Tour de France five times, that alone is only an indication of their dominance, and all have a string of wins in shorter stage races and one day races to their names as well, justifying their inclusion.
With all that in mind, RadioTimes.com rounds up our list of the top 10 road cyclists of all time
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10. Chris Froome (Great Britain)
Froome has won four Tours de France, two Vueltas a España and the Giro d’Italia once, at one point in 2018 being the reigning champion in all three grand tours simultaneously. A crash in 2019 just ahead of the Tour de France put him out of competition for months.
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He’s hasn't returned to peak form since and, at age 38, is reaching the end of his professional cycling career, but he’s still the most successful grand tour rider currently competing.
9. Sean Kelly (Ireland)
Kelly was the outstanding one day racer of the 1980s, winning all the major classics multiple times, bar the Tour of Flanders. He also won the Tour de France green jersey classification four times and the one week Paris-Nice stage race seven years in a row.
Kelly was a natural sprinter and exploited the tough conditions typical in the early season races, but could also climb strongly, which won him a single grand tour win at the Vuelta a España in 1988.
8. Marco Pantani (Italy)
Nicknamed The Pirate, Pantani lived up to his name, sporting a bandana, gold earrings and a goatee beard. His riding style was equally swashbuckling, with fearsome climbing and daredevil descents winning him both the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia in 1998.
His career was dogged by doping allegations and infractions, though, in an era when this was commonplace in cycling, and he was expelled from the 1999 Giro d’Italia while leading the race. He died of a cocaine overdose in 2004, aged just 34.
7. Jacques Anquetil (France)
Anquetil was the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times, in the 1950s and '60s, and also to win all three grand tours during his career. He wore the yellow jersey for the entirety of the 1961 Tour, after winning it on Stage One. His strength, like Miguel Induráin, was in the time trial stages.
His great rival was Raymond Poulidor, grandfather of current star Mathieu van der Poel. Poulidor invariably finished second to Anquetil and never won the Tour de France.
6. Miguel Induráin (Spain)
One of four five-time winners of the Tour de France and the only one to win five in a row, from 1991 to 1995, Induráin also won the Giro d’Italia twice. A taller, heavier rider, Induráin's strength was in time trials, at a time when they covered much longer distances than in more recent Tours de France.
Induráin is famed for his physical capabilities, with measurements when at his peak showing that his heart could pump twice as much blood around his body as a fit amateur, while his resting heart rate was measured at just 28bpm.
5. Mark Cavendish (Great Britain)
With 34 Tour de France stage wins to his name, Cavendish is, along with Eddy Merckx, the most successful rider of all time at the Tour de France. While Merckx was competitive across a range of terrain, Cavendish’s success comes exclusively in sprint finishes, where his power and low sprint position on the bike have given him the edge on flat stages for almost 15 years.
He’s riding his last Tour de France in 2023, before his retirement at the end of the year, and will be hoping for at least one more win, to become the most successful Tour stage winner ever.
4. Greg LeMond (USA)
LeMond was a contemporary of five-times Tour winner Bernard Hinault in the 1980s, riding for the same team. A bitter rivalry at the 1986 Tour de France saw LeMond eventually prevail and win his first Tour de France. Accidentally shot while hunting in his native California, LeMond was out of contention for two years before returning to reach a total of three Tour de France wins, including the narrowest winning margin ever - just eight seconds.
He was an innovator, who was one of the first riders to use a carbon fibre bike, time trial helmet and bar extensions, as well as wind tunnel testing and a power meter. In many ways, LeMond’s career marked the change from the old pedal, pedal, pedal approach to training espoused by Fausto Coppi to modern scientific methods.
3. Bernard Hinault (France)
Hinault won five Tours de France in the 1970s and '80s, as well as five other grand tours including two Giro doubles. An aggressive rider, he not only fought with LeMond but with other rivals for captaincy of his team, and would use his authority to control entire races.
Hinault also won a string of one day races, including Liège–Bastogne–Liège twice. In 1980, his second win at that race was by almost 10 minutes in a race beset by snowfall that saw him ride on with frostbitten fingers.
2. Fausto Coppi (Italy)
Fausto Coppi was the rider to beat in the years following the Second World War. Among his wins were five Giro d’Italia triumphs and two Tours de France, and he was the first rider to win both in the same year. A formidable climber, he won the first ever Tour stage finish in Alpe d’Huez and also broke the world hour record in the velodrome.
It was said that once Coppi had broken away from the peloton, the other riders would never see him again. He would win races by huge margins, including almost 30 minutes at the Tour.
1. Eddy Merckx (Belgium)
Eddy Merckx was the dominant rider of the 1970s, with 525 professional race victories - around a third of all the races he entered. Nicknamed The Cannibal, he has five Tours de France to his name, as well as five victories in the Giro d’Italia and wins at every other major cycle race, many of them multiple times.
Amazingly, Merckx has stated that he might have been better still, but for a crash in 1969 at the start of his career, which he blamed for persistent back problems.
Bubbling under: Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia)
It’s too early to judge Pogačar’s career, as he’s still only 24 years of age and could easily be racing for a further ten years, but he’s already being compared to Merckx for his prolific record.
He’s won two Tours de France and is equally competitive in the one day races that bookend the road cycling season, as well as winning shorter stage races.
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