Lance Armstrong

[Surefire]

Welcome back lance greatest Tour de France rider of all time ........greatest rider of all time not a chance that honour befalls a certain Mr Merckx.

Why not?

Just re reading this. I thought you meant not a chance the greatest rider of all time befalls Merckx, but reareading it you might be saying not a chance Lance is not the greatest rider of all time, in which case I agree.

[Lefty731PM]

Just re reading this. I thought you meant not a chance the greatest rider of all time befalls Merckx, but reareading it you might be saying not a chance Lance is not the greatest rider of all time, in which case I agree.

Still confusing. Good example of why full stops are useful!

Lance Armstrong is the greatest Tour de France rider. No argument. As far as greatest rider, period, no one would seriously claim that. Different eras. Compare the records of Merckx and Armstrong. Merckx rode year round and won everything. At the age of 19 in 1964, he won the world amateur road title. In 1967, he won the first of three world professional world titles. Armstrong has achieved the feat once, in 1993. In 1969, Merckx contested his first Tour de France where he recorded the greatest feat in the sport's history by winning the yellow jersey, the King of the Mountains jersey, the green jersey and all three time trials. Nowadays, no rider ever wins both the green and mountains jersey in the same Tour. It is a record which will likely never be matched. In other years, Merckx achieved the following: 1968 - Won Tour of Italy (also won King of Mountains jersey & green jersey) 1970 - Won Tour de France (also won King of Mountains jersey & eight stage wins) 1971 - Won Tour de France (also won green jersey) & world road championship 1972 - Won Tour de France (also won green jersey) & Tour of Italy 1973 - Didn't compete in Tour de France but won Tour of Italy (also won points jersey) & Tour of Spain 1974 - Won Tour de France, Tour of Italy & world road championship 1975 - Finished second in the Tour de France & broke the world hour record In his career, he won the Tour de France five times (won 35 stages), the Tour of Italy five times (including 25 stage wins) and the Tour of Spain once. No other rider can boast such an array of victories in the big three Tours. Aside from winning the Tour de France yellow jersey five times, Merckx also won the King of the Mountains three times and the green jersey three times. Armstrong has never won either the polka dot (mountain) or green jersey (points). In 1971, Merckx won 54 of the 120 professional races he entered. At his peak, between 1969 and 1973, he won 250 of the 650 races he contested. During his professional career, he won 445 of the 1,582 races he entered. Nowadays, a cyclist like Armstrong rarely competes outside the Tour de France as he makes it his sole focus of the year. Merckx used to race most of the year and often in most years, he contested both the Tours of France & Italy, as well as each of the one-day classics and many of the minor multi-stage events. Merckx's dominance of other major races included: Tour of Lombardy - won twice Paris-Nice - won three times Milan-San Remo - won seven times Paris Roubaix - won three times Liege-Bastogne-Liege - won five times Amstel Gold - won twice Tour of Flanders - won twice Het Volk - won twice Ghent-Wevelgem - won four times Fleche-Wallonne - won four times Tour of Switzerland - won once Paris-Brussels - won once No cyclist has ever approached his record. It is a reasonable bet that nobody ever will. (ABC)