Gerrit Stolte wrote:

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 17:28:47 -0400, Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
wrote:



Jbenkert111 wrote:

Impossible, as in all sports records and best of "all time" nominations,
comparisons cannot be made with any degree of accuracy.

True, still...

Different era,
different caliber riders. For instance, Merckx, won all those races against
riders that were also doing all those races and were probably just as tired as
he, and also, the talent pool is much larger and stronger these days.

You think?

Factual evidence. It has become a professional sport, with all the
consequences.

In Europe cycling has always been a professinal sport, that in the past was
even bigger than it is now. In the 50s cycling used to attract the kind of
crowds that only soccer attracts now. People like Coppi, Bobet, Van
Steenbergen, Kubler were by far the most popular sportsmen of their own
countries.
In some aspects - ie the capacity of building hugely acclaimed legends -
cycling is less professional than it once was.