I’m gonna go:

1 Beryl Burton.
2 Bradley Wiggins.
3 Mark Cavendish.

If the criteria is Olympic success then Wiggo is the best, and also did some other things…

That would be Hoy, no? 1 more gold medal and same number total on the track. He also had something like 11 world championships in different disciplines.

How you can even try and name the best cyclist when comparing different events across different times I don’t know. Things are so different it makes it impossible to compare imo.

When I saw the thread title the first name that came to mind was Beryl Burton.

Absolutely amazing person.

Next to mind was Graeme Obree.

Got to be Beryl for me too. Riding a hundred miles to races because the car broke down then smashing an international field is one particular highlight.

Beryl and Tommy all the others so far mentioned don’t come anywhere their accomplishments

Steve peat who up until a month ago shared the most world cup wins in dh. Represented GB 20 times at the world Champs.
T-Mo won everything thing in dh, raced world cup xc before the London Olympics to help team GB get the points to get a decent number of entries
Taken enduro by storm.
Wiggins for being adaptable and transferring from the boards to the road and back again.

A cyclist that has held world records since 1939/1940 for the most miles cycled in a year and the quickest to a 100,000 miles. Somehow I don’t think any of the other names mentioned come anywhere close, look at that figure again 100,000 miles in 500 days!

See its subjective achievements in a competitive field also count.

We could add a special category of who is the greatest British cyclist that has cycled 100,000 miles in 500 days.

The British cyclists of the 50s, 60s and 70s really had a job on to make it on the international stage

Barry Hoban for his achievements over 18 pro years, which is a longer pro career than many

Which didn’t seem as impressive as some of the more recent men’s and women’s road and track cycling achievements.

The only reason that BB didn’t do more internationally is the fact that there just weren’t the races available for women back then.

One of the more recent GB cyclists who alwaygs gets overlooked is Helen Wyman, twice european and 9 times British cyclo-cross champion. She totally dominated womens cx racing in the UK. http://www.helenwyman.com/

The Beeb have had a slightly odd stab at it, too – Nicole Cooke ahead of Beryl? Cav at number two, Sir Chris at number seven for being one dimensional?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/33663653

Tough choice between Elbry and GW, very similar.

Wiggins, the results speak for themselves. I have no idea how good Burton’s competition was but Wiggins is/was competing at the peak of competitive cycling. With the professionalism of modern cycling, I’d argue that its harder now to be so dominant.

So the beeb are excluding mountain biking or do the wins at the pinnacle of the sport not count for anything?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCI_Mountain_Bike_%26_Trials_World_Championships_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_downhill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCI_Mountain_Bike_%26_Trials_World_Championships_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_downhill
Brits seem to be half decent on bikes…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCI_Mountain_Bike_World_Cup#Downhill

Richie McCoy

The Beeb have had a slightly odd stab at it, too – Nicole Cooke ahead of Beryl? Cav at number two, Sir Chris at number seven for being one dimensional?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/33663653

Slight odd, not sure I’d of had Trott on there quite yet, especially given the lack of any mountain bikers. After his preamble about beer, ice cream and pizza the author also would of been better not numbering them. Less ridiculous arguments that way.

Reg Harris isn’t even on the beeb list, the clueless ****.

Elbry.

Please tell me this Sandland. If so I add my vote 😆

A total lack of love for Wiggo on here?!?! 😕

Anyway… What makes a “great” cyclist? Is it the ability to dominate at one thing, or the ability to win at pretty much anything you decide to turn your hand to?

I have every confidence right now that Froome has more Tour wins left in him, but right now, impressive as his palmares is, there’s only two people that have won at the highest level at whichever discipline they have turned to. Beryl Burton and Bradley Wiggins… Being from different era’s its very hard to draw parallels, but I’d say that Wiggo has repeatedly beaten large numbers of the best riders in the world, not taking away from Beryl’s acheivements but I think Brad has still got it for now…

I’m going to chuck Wilko in for good measure. Both him and Jill are a lovely modest couple.

Beryls book is a good read and puts the difference between now and when she was competing into perspective. Not only did she have to beat her peers in the UK and the world at events, she and her husband funded themselves pretty much all the time. She was tough and worthy of many accolades.
One of her biggest obstacles was the obstructive sexism of the UK cycling governing body of the time. They often would not pass invitations to race abroad to her because she was successful and they hated it (and she’d have earned money that she needed).

There has been a play on in Leeds about her (also on Radio 4), with luck they’ll make it into a film.

It’s good to read others views on who or who isn’t worthy of “The Best” title, some of those listed would themselves not want to be put above BB.

She died out on a bike ride.

I think when you have to resort to analysis you’re getting away from who is the greatest, and going for the “most winningest” which isn’t necessarily the same thing.

With Beryl Burton it’s the nature of her wins rather than the volume which makes her great in my eyes. Beating men’s records isn’t something we’re seeing being done these days, especially by “part-timers”.

The nature of the achievement is also why Obree comes to my mind for the men’s side.

Design, build, and self train for the world hour record? Who else has done that? Just think, if he had being willing to take the “special vitamins” he could have been our first TdF winner. Instead he was spat out of the professional scene very quickly.

That’s not taking anything away from the wins of our current crop. They have done very well and elevated cycling in this country to a new level.

All GWs KOM are on hold until his mysterious early season illness is cleared up and testing on the pubs pies are complete. A lot of dubious KOM coming out of that pubs gym.

Just to offset all of this road bias (c’mon this is an MTB forum not a roadie one?) I’m going to nominate Jamie Bestwick, 9 straight X games gold medals, still competing at the very top of his sport aged 43 when all his original competitors bowed out 10+ years ago.

http://xgames.espn.go.com/xgames/athletes/3012905/jamie-bestwick

There has been a play on in Leeds about her (also on Radio 4), with luck they’ll make it into a film.

Maxine Peake’s play ‘Beryl’ is on tour, got tickets to see it in Salford in November.

mikewsmith – Member
Steve peat who up until a month ago shared the most world cup wins in dh. Represented GB 20 times at the world Champs

Weird on an MTB site to see loads of people nominating people who are the best as fitness, rather than the best at cycling

*runs off, laughing*

Beryl 1st
Berwick 2nd

Happy that you might have those two in a different order.

Everyone else in whatever order you fancy, some way back.

Russell96 – Member
A cyclist that has held world records since 1939/1940 for the most miles cycled in a year and the quickest to a 100,000 miles. Somehow I don’t think any of the other names mentioned come anywhere close, look at that figure again 100,000 miles in 500 days!

Impressive feet but he’s only really held the record for so long as no one has been able to contest it as support was withdrawn on health grounds*?

So someone could beat it but he’d still hold the record.

*I think

I’m for Beryl too as Epicyclo says not for her results but the conditions in which she dominated even the mens races.

And being in the same team as her daughter.

And refusing to shake her daughters hand when beaten across the finish line 😀

It has to be Eddy Merckx for me. I’ve no doubt that if we were to look back into his family tree, far enough.
That we’d find some way to make him British.

Even if he isn’t in agreement.

[/thread]
😆

Beryl Burton +1 Look at her results, the kit she rode, the inequality with male riders that she beat

“Maxine Peake’s play ‘Beryl’ is on tour, got tickets to see it in Salford in November.”

That’s the one. It’s worth seeing.

Shouldn’t Mike Hall be in the top 10??

Personally I think Wiggins should be up there at the top, simply because he managed to reach the top across multiple disciplines.

I guess the thing about greatness being measured by results shouldn’t always apply. So I’m going for Martyn Ashton.
A great trials rider that I saw at quite a few events and chatted to a few times. Then Road Bike Party made him a “youtube sensation”, whilst filming RBP2 he suffered the horrific injury that has left him paralysed from the waist down.
The most recent video of him back on the bike is just brilliant and shows you can’t keep a great man down.

Until recently it was between Tom Simpson and Robert Millar, but now they are surpassed by Cav and Wiggins with Wiggo as No 1.

I think an honorable mention should go to Tim Gould for his medal at the mtb worlds and World Cup wins. Plus a fair few 3 Peaks Wins.

It can’t be Beryl Burton for me as she never had the same level of competition to beat.

dragon – Member
…It can’t be Beryl Burton for me as she never had the same level of competition to beat.

Tom SImpson never figured in my thinking. Just another drug death.

I’m not sure what you mean by Beryl not having the same level of competition to beat when she was beating the best of the men in the country.

Tommy Godwin, and then daylight. He set the annual mileage record in 1939 of over 75,000 miles. That means averaging over 200 miles per day for an entire year.

ransos – Member
Tommy Godwin, and then daylight. He set the annual mileage record in 1939 of over 75,000 miles. That means averaging over 200 miles per day for an entire year.

He’s in a whole different category which is why I didn’t include him. That stands apart from the normal competition stuff IMO.

But yes, daylight.

He set the annual mileage record in 1939 of over 75,000 miles.

But barely anyone has ever even tried to beat it because frankly it’s a bit of a freak effort, it’s impressive but as records go its more like bouncing up the burj khalifa on a pogo stick than winning world championships or TdFs.

not sure I completely agree with Dragon about Beryl, she was repeatedly awesome, and won World Champs for both road race (twice) and track pursuit about 7 times