Greatest Climber of the last 15 years?

redddraggon
redddraggon Posts: 10,862
edited December 2008 in Pro race
Pantani?

Or does he not count because he was a bit dirty?

Discuss......
I like bikes...

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Comments

  • redddraggon
    redddraggon Posts: 10,862
    Dare I say it - what about Evil Lance? Has he not won on nearly all of the great Tour climbs?
    I like bikes...

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  • brownbosh
    brownbosh Posts: 602
    Well i think lance is the only 'great' climber you will find without a doping conviction!
  • DaveyL
    DaveyL Posts: 5,167
    Darling Ree-chard?

    Just kidding.
    Le Blaireau (1)
  • disgruntledgoat
    disgruntledgoat Posts: 8,957
    I'm electing a baseball like starring system for dopers, you can't disentangle them from the rest of the sport and vice versa...

    1. Pantani*
    2. Virenque*
    3. Simoni*
    4. Heras*
    5. Rasmussen*

    That made depressing reading, non?

    Edited due to Simoni's very, very strange Peruvian Lozenge incident.
    "In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"

    @gietvangent
  • meagain
    meagain Posts: 2,331
    Pantani. The man. Just lovely to watch climbing. Don't give a tuppenny damn what he was on.
    d.j.
    "Cancel my subscription to the resurrection."
  • 6288
    6288 Posts: 131
    not very fair on simoni ... even if he did take something ... it was recreational and if anything would hinder his performance/training ...

    i loved the way he came back the next year and didn't let anyone win a stage if he coudl help it .. just to teach them a lesson for getting him chucked out the previous year ...

    saying that .. he got his back with bells on the next year from cungeo ...
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,730
    Pantani, unquestionably. Simoni in his prime and old Peepollee the other top eyetaliens.
    Heras not really in Pantani's league, but my Spanish fly.

    Julio Alberto Perez Guapio......by far the best Mexican climber!
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    Heras, Simoni, Rasmussen... all great climbers on their day. Strange that they'd all have one great race per year and then spend the rest of the season coming home 40 minutes down next to McEwen in the grupetto. Very odd.

    Piepoli is a strange one too. He only really became a pure mountain goat in the last four or five years. He was a decent climber, but didn't have the ability to jump away and take stage wins at will like he does now.

    Ricco? :twisted:
  • FCE2007
    FCE2007 Posts: 962
    RIP Marco :(
    Powered by Haribo.
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    Pantani of course. Next I would put Jose Jiminez. Sadly both are dead.
  • victorponf
    victorponf Posts: 1,187
    Great Marco,of course

    After god others like, Gibo, Jiménez, Contador, Heras, Tonkov...
    If you like Flandes, Roubaix or Eroica, you would like GP Canal de Castilla, www.gpcanaldecastilla.com
  • sicrow
    sicrow Posts: 791
    yep dirty sadly, but as great climbers it would have to be Pantani followed by Virenque
    http://www.action.org.uk/sponsor/simoncrowther
  • edhornby
    edhornby Posts: 1,741
    Does Robert Millar come in the 15yrr cutoff ????

    he was a dude
    "I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, how good is that"
    --Jens Voight
  • dennisn
    dennisn Posts: 10,601
    redddraggon wrote:
    Dare I say it - what about Evil Lance? Has he not won on nearly all of the great Tour climbs?

    I don't recall his getting dropped very often. Always there when it really counted.

    Dennis Noward
  • ms_tree
    ms_tree Posts: 1,405
    Pantani per sempre
    also Jimenez
    :cry:

    Remember when Le Tour was on Channel 4? At the beginning and end of each ad break they'd have a rider introducing themselves. I have some recordings from '98 and during one mountain stage the first rider was Pantani and the second was Jimenez. Weird!

    Also, talking of karma and all that.
    2005 (was it?) at Courcheval when Valverde won. Watched the whole stage on TV - lots of lightning about * - everyone was saying Armstrong would win but I knew he wouldn't. Why you say? The time before that Le Tour had been there was 2000:
    1st Pantani
    2nd Jimenez
    *The spirits were strong that day.
    'Google can bring back a hundred thousand answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.'
    Neil Gaiman
  • JC.152
    JC.152 Posts: 645
    in the time i've been watchin cycling it'd be Contador...

    ...but lookiing at videos of marco like this one http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=66iXTQio7wk show how good he was
  • JC.152
    JC.152 Posts: 645
    in the time i've been watchin cycling it'd be Contador...

    ...but lookiing at videos of marco like this one http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=66iXTQio7wk show how good he was
  • Brian B
    Brian B Posts: 2,071
    What about Ullrich in his prime. He was great to watch as he decimated 'climbers' due to his brute strength.
    Brian B.
  • timoid.
    timoid. Posts: 3,133
    Putting aside Pantani as the obvious (if flawed candidate), I'd nominate Gibo and Armstrong.

    Contador potentially, but he needs to stay at the top for a bit longer.

    All the other climbers have been proven dirty (Basso, Rassmussen, Virenque, Heras)
    It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.
  • SCR Pedro
    SCR Pedro Posts: 912
    Hey there,

    Sella was unbelievable in this years Giro. The opposition didn't stand a chance. Then we found out why. I'm relatively new to the sport, so I was in awe of the performance, and didn't think to question it. Now I know better.

    All that business aside though, I agree Armstrong has been one of the most exciting climbers along with Pantani.

    Pedro
    Giant TCR Advanced II - Reviewed on my homepage
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  • Schmidthouse
    Schmidthouse Posts: 134
    To watch - Pantani. On his record - L.A. Sadly here in Aus we never got to see much of Jiménez.
    There's no time for hesitating.
    Pain is ready, pain is waiting.
    Primed to do it's educating.
  • shockedsoshocked
    shockedsoshocked Posts: 4,021
    Brian B wrote:
    What about Ullrich in his prime. He was great to watch as he decimated 'climbers' due to his brute strength.

    Yes. Him taking the yellow jersey in Andorra is one of my favourite moments to watch.
    "A cyclist has nothing to lose but his chain"

    PTP Runner Up 2015
  • singlespeedexplosif
    singlespeedexplosif Posts: 1,564
    Yes. Him taking the yellow jersey in Andorra is one of my favourite moments to watch.
    agreed, not seen anything quite like that for years. Truly breathtaking attack. I'd still go for Pantani, but Jan's Arcalis attack is right up there with il Piratas on les Deux Alpes :)
  • disgruntledgoat
    disgruntledgoat Posts: 8,957
    singlespeedexplosif wrote:
    Yes. Him taking the yellow jersey in Andorra is one of my favourite moments to watch.
    agreed, not seen anything quite like that for years. Truly breathtaking attack. I'd still go for Pantani, but Jan's Arcalis attack is right up there with il Piratas on les Deux Alpes :)

    Pedant Alert... His attack was on the Galibier. The youtube of it is absolutely spectacular, if you've ever ridden the last 3 km of the climb watching the way he dances up there is just amazing.
    "In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"

    @gietvangent
  • singlespeedexplosif
    singlespeedexplosif Posts: 1,564
    pedant alert...his attack was on the Galibier, indeed. But I wasn't talking about his attack on the Galibier...or I would have said the Galibier :)
    I was talking about the soaking wet little figure dancing through the mist on les Deux Alpes to the finish line, putting minutes into everyone else ;)
  • disgruntledgoat
    disgruntledgoat Posts: 8,957
    singlespeedexplosif wrote:
    pedant alert...his attack was on the Galibier, indeed. But I wasn't talking about his attack on the Galibier...or I would have said the Galibier :)
    I was talking about the soaking wet little figure dancing through the mist on les Deux Alpes to the finish line, putting minutes into everyone else ;)

    Fair Do's. :oops:

    I have the photo of that scanned and printed from the Tour Centenery book up on my wall.
    "In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"

    @gietvangent
  • cswebbo
    cswebbo Posts: 220
    This is a 'nightmare scenario' debate....
    Look at the 'winners' of the King of the Mountains jersey in the tours.
    Virtually all are dopers at some point in their career.

    IF we are to eliminate these from 'best climber' , and we should as they have cheated, then that brings the list down to those who 'might have doped but got away with it' list.

    Therefore it has to be between Contador and Armstrong. One is an explosive ''pure' climber, and the other is capable of very high tempo over a longer distance.

    It would be great to see them go 'head to head' next year like LeMond/Hinault but 'team orders' will stop this?

    Personally, my favorates WERE Rominger and then Pantani, but i think Michele Ferrari had a lot more to do with their 'climbing ability'.
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    cswebbo wrote:

    Personally, my favorates WERE Rominger and then Pantani, but i think Michele Ferrari had a lot more to do with their 'climbing ability'.

    Pantani wasn't ever trained by Ferrari AFAIK.

    He's more of the Cecchini / Fuentes school.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,730
    cswebbo wrote:
    Therefore it has to be between Contador and Armstrong. One is an explosive ''pure' climber, and the other is capable of very high tempo over a longer distance.

    Personally, my favorates WERE Rominger and then Pantani, but i think Michele Ferrari had a lot more to do with their 'climbing ability'.

    As Iain has pointed out, wrong "Doc" for Pantani.......however, right "Doc" for Armstrong. :wink:

    On the subject of climbing, Armstrong himself gave a good pointer, only yesterday:-
    "If you go up L'Alpe d'Huez faster than anyone else then it's a case of clearly you've cheated. Another example - 1999 my climbing bike weighed 21 pounds. 2005 - 14 pounds. They make so much of the average speed."

    Apart from the fact that he admits to cheating in 2005, :oops: it shows that Pantani's record is spectacular.

    My "Cadel Evans" climbing award of the 90's goes to Fernando Escartin. :D
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • DaveyL
    DaveyL Posts: 5,167
    Armstrong is really saying that his climbing bike in 1999 weighted 9.5 kilos?

    I'm not a bike geek but intuitively I find that hard to believe.
    Le Blaireau (1)

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