Eddy Merckx
Alberto Contador
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Eddy Merckx leads 2 of 2 categories. Our all-time ranking places Eddy Merckx at #1 and Alberto Contador at #12.
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The case for Eddy Merckx
The Cannibal is the consensus greatest cyclist ever, and it is not close. Merckx won a scarcely believable 525 races across his career, a figure no rider has approached. He took 11 Grand Tours, five Tours de France, five Giri d'Italia and a Vuelta, three World road titles and a record 19 Monuments spanning every one-day Classic. He won 34 Tour stages while also claiming its points and mountains classifications, dominating flat sprints, mountains and time trials alike. In 1972 he set the Hour Record at 49.431 kilometres in Mexico City. His nickname came from his refusal to ease off even when a race was won, and his combination of range, longevity and win rate remains the benchmark against which every rider is measured.
The case for Alberto Contador
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.