- In this video we are going to go through
some of the best climbers of all time.
Riders with immense power to weight ratios
who specialise in soaring up mountains
at breathtaking speeds.
(booming)
We have endeavoured to come up with a list
of the seven greatest climbers of all time.
But as you can well imagine
it's quite difficult to whittle it down to that number.
So before we start I've got a disclaimer,
which I'm going to read out right now.
For a start, there have been over 100 years
of fantastic racing, exceptional feats of endurance
and athletic panache.
To limit ourselves to seven riders
will inevitably leave some great riders out.
Furthermore, cross-generational comparisons are a minefield.
It's impossible to know how Chris Froome
would fare against Eddy Merckx
or if Pantani would put away Coppi.
The equipment's changed, the racing's changed,
the roads have changed and the surfaces are often
much better now than the gravel tracks of 1920s.
Also for a large portion of sports history
there was no drugs testing.
Right with the disclaimer done,
we shall begin.
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Number one on our list is Marco Pantani.
One of the most extraordinary climbers of his generation.
Now Italians have a word for climber
and that is scallatore.
But they have a different term for climbers like Pantani
which is scatista.
This is a term given to climbers who are able to
repeatedly accelerate even on the
steepest slopes and basically decimate their rivals.
Now Pantani was always instantly recognisable
with the bald head or the bandanna,
the earring in one ear and that goatee beard
and it was a look which earned him a nickname,
el pirata, or the pirate.
He was also very recognisable for his climbing style,
almost always out the saddle and in the drops.
However it wasn't his look or his
climbing style which made him great
it was the fact that he could go up mountains
like something off a shovel.
And it was this ability which enabled
him to achieve that rare feat of winning
the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia
in the very same year, back in 1998.
The following year in 99
he was again dominating the Giro d'Italia,
he won four stays and he was in the race lead,
but then after a blood doping trial returned,
his hematocrit was too high
and he was ejected from the race.
Pantani was never quite the same rider again
and very sadly he died in 2004 of acute cocaine poisoning.
(upbeat music)
In the modern era it is Chris Froome
who's been dominating the Grand Tours.
So far he's won the Tour de France four times
he won the Giro d'italia in 2018
and he won the Vuelta a Espana,
well now twice in fact.
As soon as the road starts to go uphill
Chris Froome seems to be an advantage.
It was in Kenya where Froome first learned
about his climbing talent.
It's said that he spent lots of time
in the Nairobi Mountains.
On occasion he used to camp up there too.
But his commitment and stubbornness
wasn't just evident on the bike but also off it.
Apparently at one point he used the
Kenyan Cycling Association's hotmail account
to email the sports governing body, the UCI,
to inform them that Kenya would be sending an under-23 team
to the World Championships.
Now I think I'm safe in saying that
Froome's climbing style is not particularly elegant,
with his head down and his elbows out.
But it sure is effective.
That first came to prominence
at the Vuelta a España in 2011
where he initially finished second,
but then he's recently been promoted
to the winner of that race.
The following year he helped Bradley Wiggins
to the Tour de France title in 2012
bagging himself second in the process
but it was in 2013 that he really made a name for himself.
He just couldn't stop winning
from the start of the year at the tour of Oman.
He was at the the critérium international,
the tour de Rome and did the Critérium du Dauphiné
and of course the Tour de France.
And in fact if you take Lance Armstrong out of the equation
he became the first rider the following year
to successfully defend his title
since Miguel Indurain back in 1995.
Since then he's gone to win a further two tours of France,
and last year he became the first rider
to hold all three of the Grand Tour titles at the same time
since Bernardino in 1983.
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Couldn't possibly have a list of the
world's greatest climbers without including this man.
Federico Bahamontes.
He became the first rider in history
to achieve the career triple
in that he won the King of the Mountains competition
and all three of the Grand Tours.
He won the Tour de France in 1959
of course winning the King of the Mountains in the process,
and actually he won the overall prize
of King of the Mountains
no fewer than six times at the Tour de France alone.
He had a nickname, and that was the eagle of Toledo.
Toledo being the small province
in central Spain where he comes from,
an eagle because every time the road went uphill,
he would take flight, like an eagle.
There is also a monument of Bahamontes in Toledo
donated by the Fundacion Sulest
to represent and honour
everything that he achieved on the bike.
And rather fittingly it's on an upward slope
so he's still going uphill to this very day.
What an absolute climbing legend.
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Only two riders in the history of cycling
have won the King of the Mountains
classification at all three of the Grand Tours,
so it would make a lot of sense to have them both in here.
Step forward, Luis Lucho Herrera.
He could out-climb some of the greats of the time,
including the likes of Sean Kelly,
Bernardino and Laurent Fignon.
And in 1984 he took what was almost undoubtedly
the most important win for Colombian cycling.
It was his first ever Tour de France,
it was stage 17, and it finished up Alp d'Huez.
Which is where he attacked,
dropping some of the greats of the time.
Vignon, Ena and also Robert Miller,
and basically they never ever saw him again.
However, it was in 1987 that he
firmly cemented his status as legendary climber,
in becoming the first South American to win a Grand Tour,
that Grand Tour being the Vuelta.
Despite having lost three minutes
to Sean Kelly in an individual time trial.
However, as soon as the road tilted upwards,
he would never look back,
attacking his rivals at almost every single opportunity,
including in fact on stage 11
which finished up Lagos de Covadonga.
There he attacked his rivals again,
won the stage and also took enough time on them
to become the first Colombian rider
to go into the lead of a Grand Tour.
Really difficult actually to overstate
just how important Herrera has been for Colombian cycling,
in essence the current crop of Colombian climbing talent,
are walking the path
that he trod for them back in the 1980s.
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This man could make a good case
of being the best Spanish cyclist of all time,
but it's not for his victories at the Tour de France in 1973
or at the Vuelta in 1970,
that Ocana makes our list.
Rather for his exploits when he attacked
with Jose Manuel Fuente,
over the Col du Galibier and Col du Télégraphe
putting seven minutes into their closest rivals.
Although for me it was 1971
where he cemented his status as climbing legend.
It was a race actually where he ended up
having to pull out whilst in the yellow jersey.
But his exploits really began on stage eight
which finished up the Puy de Dôme.
There he sensed something
that most other riders rarely ever got to see,
that Eddy Merckx was vulnerable.
He attacked and went on the Windsor stage,
and although he only put 15 seconds into Merckx
that was basically a sign of things to come.
It was on a stage 11 though
where he really showed his class.
A short 134 kilometre mountain stage.
He followed an attack on the very first climb of the day,
by Joaquim Agostinho.
Amazingly, they were able to drop Eddy Merckx
almost immediately.
But a Ocana was not satisfied with just doing that,
he attacked again and went solo
60 kilometres from the finish.
By the time he got to the top of the penultimate
climb of the day, his lead over the next rider on the road
was four minutes and that had grown to six
by the time they got to the finish.
Three-time Tour de France winner Louison Bobet
claimed that his exploits on that stage
we're just as good as any a Fausto Coppi's
legendary solo raids.
Now that is a decent climber.
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In my opinion, any rider that earns the nickname
the Angel of the Mountains,
thoroughly deserves a place on this list.
Charly Gaul was a cyclist from Luxembourg,
who first raced in the mountains in 1950
at the Tour of Austria.
He was only 17,
but he won a stage up the Grossglockner pass.
It's fair to say though that his first few outings
at the Tour de France didn't really go to plan,
he abandoned most of them, but it was 1955
where he really set the cat amongst the pigeons.
He wasn't great on the flat,
that was partly down to a fairly weak team,
but once he hit the mountains and the Alps,
he really came into his own.
There was one stage which went over the Galibier
and the Col Du Télégraphe
and there he put 14 minutes and 47 seconds
into all his rivals.
That launched him from 37th on GC
right up to third.
And when the race hit the Pyrenees
he started attacking again,
winning stage 17 ahead of eventual overall race winner
Louison Bobet.
Those exploits earned him the over all in
the King of the Mountains competition
and the third step of the podium,
and really that was just one example of how
when he hit the mountains
Charly Gaul would make a big comeback.
He also in 1958,
set the record for the ascent of Mont Ventoux,
one hour two minutes and nine seconds,
and when you consider the surface wasn't great at the time
it's pretty incredible to think
it was 31 years until Jonathan Vaughters broke that time.
(upbeat music)
And finally we have a rider
who won the mountains classification
three times at the Gira Rosa
and also won the Grand Booke
and is easily the fastest GCN presenter ever.
Of course I am talking about Emma Pooley.
Now one of her most impressive climbing exploits
came back at the 2014 Giro Rosa.
There were three mountainous stages that year
including back-to-back summit finishes
on stages eight and nine,
and Emma won all of them.
She's also twice won the Taiwan KOM challenge
which finishes at 3,275 metres above sea level
on the Wuling pass.
And in 2017 in fact she put 16 minutes
into her closest rival
and 20 minutes into Si' Richardson as well
although that doesn't necessarily
make you a fantastic climber.
Not content though with just being a great climber
on the bike, she's also pretty damn good
off the bike as well.
She regularly competes in mountainous triathlons
and has won the Alpe d'Huez long course event in the past
and also competes in mountains running events.
Now as we said in the disclaimer at the start of this video
it is very hard to compile a list
of the seven best climbers of all time.
I'm sure we've left some of your favourites out
and if we have feel free to let us know
in the comment section below.
But it's just very difficult to compare
riders from different eras.
That said we have GPS data now.
In 50 years time we probably can compare
all the riders for the next 50 years which would be nice.
Alright if you like the style of this
spanish-inspired sweatshirt that I'm wearing right now
you can pre-order them now over at
shop.globalcyclingnetwork.com
There's a link to that in the
description just below this video
and if you would like to learn how to become a
much better climb yourself
you can learn from Emma Pooley!
Her video is just down here.