🚴GOAT Rankings

The most complete rider since Merckx, Pogacar has collapsed the old boundaries between Grand Tour men and Classics hunters. As of the 2025 season he owns four Tours de France, won in 2020, 2021, 2024 and 2025, plus the 2024 Giro d'Italia and back-to-back World titles in 2024 and 2025. In 2024 he completed the Giro-Tour-Worlds Triple Crown, the first rider to do so since Stephen Roche in 1987. He also dominates the Monuments, with a run of Il Lombardia wins, multiple Liege-Bastogne-Liege victories and a first Tour of Flanders, passing 100 career wins before turning 27. His willingness to attack from enormous distances has redefined the sport's tactics, and at his age the ceiling on his numbers is not yet in sight.

The Badger was the last great patron of the peloton, a rider who ruled by force of will as much as by his legs. Hinault won 10 Grand Tours, five Tours de France, three Giri d'Italia and two Vueltas a Espana, along with the 1980 World Championship and five Monuments including Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Il Lombardia. He remains the last Frenchman to win the Tour, in 1985, a drought stretching four decades. A fierce competitor with roughly 216 professional victories, he was equally capable in the mountains, in time trials and in the cobbled Classics, and his combative leadership shaped the tactics of his era. His feud and alliance with teammate Greg LeMond at the 1985 and 1986 Tours produced one of the sport's defining rivalries.

Il Campionissimo, the champion of champions, was cycling's first modern great, a rider whose elegance and scientific approach set him apart in the post-war years. Coppi completed the first Giro-Tour double in 1949 and repeated it in 1952, won five Giri d'Italia and two Tours de France, and took the 1953 World title. His nine Monument victories included three Milan-San Remo, five Il Lombardia and a Paris-Roubaix, many won by riding away alone to finish minutes clear of the field. In 1942 he set the Hour Record at 45.798 kilometres, a mark that stood for 14 years. His rivalry with Gino Bartali divided a recovering Italy, and the image of the two sharing a bottle on a climb became an enduring symbol of the sport's romance.

Maitre Jacques was the first rider to win five Tours de France, in 1957 and from 1961 to 1964, and he did it by mastering the discipline others feared: the time trial. His position on the bike was so refined that he could gain minutes against the clock and then defend a lead in the mountains with cold calculation. Anquetil took eight Grand Tours in total, adding two Giri d'Italia and the 1963 Vuelta a Espana, and in 1964 became the first man to win the Giro and Tour in the same season since Coppi. He also dominated the Grand Prix des Nations time trial, winning it nine times. His rivalry with the popular Raymond Poulidor, the eternal runner-up, transfixed France even as Anquetil coolly beat him time and again.

Big Mig was the first rider to win five consecutive Tours de France, from 1991 to 1995, an unprecedented run built on time-trial power that few could comprehend. A tall, powerful rider with a famously low resting heart rate, Indurain would demolish his rivals against the clock, then mark them in the mountains without ever needing to attack. He won seven Grand Tours in all, adding the Giro d'Italia in 1992 and 1993 to complete Giro-Tour doubles in both years. In 1994 he set the Hour Record at 53.040 kilometres, and in 1995 he took the World time-trial title before winning Olympic time-trial gold on home-continent roads at Atlanta in 1996. His calm, understated dominance made him a national hero in Spain and ushered in a new era of specialised Grand Tour riding.

The greatest Classics rider of his generation and one of the toughest cyclists ever, Kelly won nine Monuments across a career of brutal consistency: two Milan-San Remo, two Paris-Roubaix, two Liege-Bastogne-Liege and three Il Lombardia. He also won the 1988 Vuelta a Espana, took four Tour de France green jerseys, and amassed roughly 193 professional victories. His seven consecutive Paris-Nice titles from 1982 to 1988 remain a record for that prestigious stage race, and when the UCI introduced its world rankings in 1984, Kelly was the inaugural number one, a position he held for years. A sprinter who could also survive the cobbles, climb and endure foul weather, the quiet farmer's son from Carrick-on-Suir won across every kind of one-day terrain the sport could offer.

Known as Mr. Paris-Roubaix, De Vlaeminck was the supreme Classics specialist of the Merckx era, and his 11 Monument victories rank second only to Merckx himself. He won Paris-Roubaix four times, in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1977, a feat matched only by Tom Boonen, mastering the cobbles like no one else of his generation. He added three Milan-San Remo, a Liege-Bastogne-Liege, two Il Lombardia and a Tour of Flanders, and won the 1975 cyclocross World Championship for good measure, underlining his versatility on rough terrain. With well over 250 career wins, De Vlaeminck was a rider who could sprint, endure and read a Classic perfectly, and his duels with Merckx and Freddy Maertens made Belgium the beating heart of one-day racing in the 1970s.

The rider who made cycling global, LeMond became the first non-European to win the Tour de France in 1986, breaking the sport open to America and beyond. He won three Tours, in 1986, 1989 and 1990, and two World road titles, in 1983 and 1989. His 1989 victory over Laurent Fignon by eight seconds, the closest margin in Tour history, came on the final-day time trial where he used aerodynamic bars and a teardrop helmet to overturn a 50-second deficit, a landmark in the sport's embrace of technology. Extraordinarily, he did it after nearly dying in a 1987 hunting accident that left more than thirty shotgun pellets in his body, including near his heart. LeMond raced clean through the dawning EPO era, and his career stands as both a sporting and a moral high point.

The most decorated rider in women's cycling and one of the most versatile athletes the sport has ever produced, Vos has won across road, cyclocross and track for two decades. She holds three road World titles, in 2006, 2012 and 2013, Olympic road race gold from London 2012, and an astonishing eight cyclocross World Championships, alongside multiple Giro d'Italia Women titles and dozens of Classics. Her career total exceeds 250 professional victories. Vos combines a sprinter's finish with the endurance to win on the toughest terrain, and she has been a driving force in the growth of women's racing, taking multiple stages at the relaunched Tour de France Femmes. Her dominance and longevity make her the clearest choice to represent the women's peloton among the sport's all-time greats.

The greatest sprinter in cycling history, the Manx Missile rewrote the record book at the discipline he mastered. In 2024 Cavendish won his 35th Tour de France stage, surpassing Eddy Merckx's long-standing record of 34, and across all three Grand Tours he took 55 stage victories. He won the 2011 World Championship, the 2009 Milan-San Remo, and roughly 165 professional races. His peak, built on the flawless HTC lead-out train, saw him beat every rival of his era in the bunch sprints, and his 2021 comeback to equal Merckx's record after years of illness and doubt ranks among the sport's great redemption stories. Where all-rounders are measured by Grand Tours and Monuments, Cavendish stands alone as the finest pure finisher the peloton has ever seen.

El Pistolero was the most explosive Grand Tour climber of his generation, a rider who attacked where others calculated. Contador won all three Grand Tours, a feat achieved by only a handful of riders, and his official palmares lists seven Grand Tour titles, two Tours de France, two Giri d'Italia and three Vueltas a Espana, after two further wins were annulled following a contested clenbuterol case. His signature was the sudden, dancing acceleration on a steep gradient, and his rivalries with Andy Schleck and later Chris Froome produced some of the most dramatic mountain racing of the 2000s and 2010s. Aggressive to the end, he attacked from distance even in his final Vuelta in 2017, winning atop the Angliru on the day he retired, ensuring he left the sport exactly as he had raced it.