Lance Armstong is the GOAT. Change my mind.

Sweaty_try-hard wrote:

Our doped up guy beat your doped up guy. They all dope. Get over it. Yes he was a douche in how he tried to cover it up. However the initial doping was on par with all other athletes. He's was still the superior cyclist.

In other news water is wet.

May as well post Bill Burr’s whole bit since you posted half of it.

Yes, Lance is the GOAT cheat.

our doped up guy who donated a testing device to UCI that he and his team had figured out how to work around, who paid off UCI to overlook his own positive test, who had the finances behind him to dope a whole team to pull him to the last climb did beat the other doped guys.

True.

Not an even field for the reasons above., and a despicable person on top of that.

The G what OAT? Cyclist? Hardly. Merckx. Anquetil. Coppi.

I'm no Lance hater. I'm right there with you. Best grand tour racer of his era. Absolutely entertaining, which these modern boys forget is what pays their bills. Personality, Lance had it. Impossible to be on the fence about him.

But greatest of all time? No. He's not as bad as these one-trick grand tour specialists these days, for example Froome is an absolute joke of a cyclist. Lance at least was a good one-day racer before the cancer, and was world champion. But he never did well in the monuments. And he never raced on the track. Merckx, in comparison, was god. He did, and won, everything. Every discipline of cycling except that cycle-dancing wheelie stuff they do in the circus, Merckx participated and dominated. And he did it for the love, not just because it could make him rich. There will never again be any cyclist more totally dominant than Merckx was, during his era. Not even close.

Just the phrase "our doped up guy beat your doped up guy" which I'll gladly admit. Glad to see a fellow Burr fan. Kudos bro.

Sweaty_try-hard wrote:

Our doped up guy beat your doped up guy. They all dope. Get over it. Yes he was a douche in how he tried to cover it up. However the initial doping was on par with all other athletes. He's was still the superior cyclist.

Actually he was beating all the other guys before EPO. Then he was out for a while, and those guys passed him up. He got on EPO and responded well enough to start beating the other guys again. I agree he's superior.

Let Westerners and E. Asians use EPO freely like E. Africans so we can see who's the best on the track.

Lance, the greatest Tour de France racer of all time- sure, yeah. Easy. Stage racer? Not even top 3.

Merckx wrote:

There will never again be any cyclist more totally dominant than Merckx was, during his era. Not even close.

As for the Eddy Merckx thing- being the best road cyclist of all time- ok. I'll believe it, but greatest cyclist of all time during a career? Got to go with Marianne Vos. 3 time road race world champ (2nd 6 times). 7 time cyclocross world champ. Too many classics and Giro Rosa wins to count. Oly gold in the track and 2 gold at WC. When it comes to multi discipline- she is better, and yes I am taking into account Merckx's track palmares as well including the hour record, etc.

Best up and coming that COULD be the best cyclist in history: Mathieu van der Poel. CX world champ, 2nd at European road race champs, 3rd at cross-country worlds champ. 2 of the aforementioned races took place within 6 or 7 months of each other. Dude as talent up the butthole. And he is only ONLY 24. And absolutely MvdP is better across the disciplines then Peter Sagan

Only person younger and potentially more talented then him is Remco Evenepoel. Dude is a freak of nature.

It's funny both Merckx and Vos were nicknamed "The Cannibal."

I can't. You are correct!

Why should we bother? You're obviously ok with cheating in sports, whether it was Armstrong or anyone else.

Sweaty_try-hard wrote:

Our doped up guy beat your doped up guy. They all dope. Get over it. Yes he was a douche in how he tried to cover it up. However the initial doping was on par with all other athletes. He's was still the superior cyclist.

Doesn't work that way - you're forgetting his 7 Tour titles were stripped and he officially has won No Tours. Therefore, he is thrown out of the GOAT conversation.

Now let's get to some real cycling GOAT discussion. I nominate Miguel "Big Mig" Indurain. Why? Well...let's see here:

7 Grand Tours titles:

5-time Tour winner (91 - 95)

2-time Giro d'Italia winner.

2 Giro-Tour doubles (92 - 93)

Olympic Gold medalist (96 Atlanta)

World Champion TT

Big Mig has literally put Spanish cycling on the map.

Big Mig is the GOAT!

LA is the GOAT Chump! ?

Look at this crap!

https://youtu.be/6aJmYmasQhc

https://youtu.be/Zad68VOxr8g

Cheaters are never GOAT for anything. If he was clean of course I would have him as the GOAT for biking but he's not even close. My sources say that most people are not even aware of the fact that steroids gave him cancer in the first place. Subject change: It's just like I would say that a world class miler is always a better athlete compared to a work class biker? And why is this? There's a very simple explanation: Bikers use motion assisted apparatus (A bike he can rest on during the down hills or straight always--where a runner is always going against gravity with no rest periods. I even detest using treadmills because the "Tread" is assisting your stride especially if your running on a treadmill with no incline. This is also what I consider motion-assisted apparatus. If you put the treadmill at a 20 percent incline then you'll be ok.

VanHoutte wrote:

greatest cyclist of all time during a career? Got to go with Marianne Vos.

Vos is a woman. So you would have to put greatest WOMAN cyclist of all time during a career. And even then, you'd have to go through Beryl Burton first and I just don't know...

I mean not to get off on the whole woman athletes vs men thing, but if we're just calling them all cyclists, then no way Vos beats Merckx, or for that matter any man in the pro peloton of pretty much any era. Respect where it's due, and she's a great cyclist. But for one, women don't have a grand tour. The giro rosa is only ten stages. Put those girls in the Tour, Giro (the real one), or Vuelta for three weeks at race pace, I guarantee you wouldn't see a female finisher.

As for any modern young cyclist potentially approaching Merckx-style dominance, don't make me laugh. The only way you'd ever again see that type of dominance across so many genres of racing would be if 90% of the money suddenly went out of the sport and it became again just a niche activity for hobbyists. As long as the money stays in, all you're going to see from here on out is more refined iterations of today's grade of boring one-race specialist. The Armstrong / Froome model of training for a single race a year will trickle down to the other races. You'll have guys putting their entire year toward not only the classics in general, but, say, Milan Sanremo specifically. And ditto for the others. We'll never again see a guy winning paris roubaix who ALSO is on the podium at the tour de france. Not going to happen, the skills are too divergent, and there's too much lucre on the table now.

I Like Big Mig wrote:

Big Mig has literally put Spanish cycling on the map.

Big Mig is the GOAT!

Mig didn't put spanish cycling on the map. There were plenty of world-class spanish cyclists long before Indurain. Spain has always made good cyclists.

Also, Mig didn't win the one-days or classics. Nothing taken from Mig, he was definitely up there. But to be greatest of all time you got to win everything. In cycling that means grand tours, monuments, world championships, track championships, and hour record. I'd accept all but track success, also. But it doesn't matter because, like the Merckx advocate above asserts, Merckx won at all those disciplines, including on the track.

But Indurain is definitely the greatest spanish stage racer and time triallist ever.

OP.

Your moral codes stink.

mig didn't wrote:

I Like Big Mig wrote:

Big Mig has literally put Spanish cycling on the map.

Big Mig is the GOAT!

Mig didn't put spanish cycling on the map. There were plenty of world-class spanish cyclists long before Indurain. Spain has always made good cyclists.

Also, Mig didn't win the one-days or classics. Nothing taken from Mig, he was definitely up there. But to be greatest of all time you got to win everything. In cycling that means grand tours, monuments, world championships, track championships, and hour record. I'd accept all but track success, also. But it doesn't matter because, like the Merckx advocate above asserts, Merckx won at all those disciplines, including on the track.

But Indurain is definitely the greatest spanish stage racer and time triallist ever.

Yes he did...Big Mig brought more Global attention to Spanish cycling when he was winning those 5 consecutive Tours in the 1990s. Prior to that only 3 Spanairds won one Tour each (Federico Bahamontes/1959, Luis Ocaña/1973, Pedro Delgado, 1988). That's it - just 3 Tours in the previous 100 yrs. Then along comes Big Mig who hammers five in a row! Wow...just wow! His 5 wins ties Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault & Merckx as the riders with the most Tour titles.

I disagree with you on having to win everything in pro cycling to be considered the GOAT. When it comes to pro cycling the only thing that matters is the Tour de France (imagine that). It's the Super Bowl of cycling! (you should know that). The best of the best GC riders compete in the Tour. The TV ratings for the Tour blow any other cycling event off the charts! The Giro and Vuelta never get all the top guys. Many times the riders who win the Giro & Vuelta wouldn't make the podium of the Tour and sometimes not even make the top 5. The Tour is the ultimate & iconic cycling even and you're a pretty special rider to win it (why do think Armstrong never messed around with the Giro or Vuelta and only focused on the Tour? ?).

Nobody really cares about anything else other than the Tour (again look at the ratings). How many cycling fans could even tell you who won last year's Giro & Vuelta? (do you even know without having to look it up?).

5 consecutive Tour wins against the best of the best! Big Mig is the GOAT! ?

Mig was the best stage racer of his generation, no argument. Greatest of all time, he's not even in the conversation.

This is all pretty funny, you're obviously high and thus further argument pointless. You sound like one of those guys who gets all his info from sportscenter highlights. I suspect your definition of cycling fan is somewhat warped. I would wager that 99% of real cycling fans would dispute most of your claims. For most people who follow cycling, the TDF is pretty universally derided as the most boring tossaway race of the year. Especially these years.

Froome "won" the Giro and Yates won the Vuelta last year, no look-up. Watched both races.

But Indurain won those races in the EPO era. But we aren't allowed to question whether he doped because Miguel is Mr Nice guy, so he didn't dope right?