whos the best climber ever iyo

Eagle of Toledo.
google it.

tenzing norgay

I can just about remember Bahamontes in the early 60's.
Like all sports hard to compare stars from different eras but I would have loved to have seen him against Pantani.

impossible to compare different eras imo, I'm too young to know enough about Bahamontes, for the last 40 years I'd say (without giving an order) van Impe, Beat Breu and Pantani, but can you rule out Merckx or Ocana? What about Lucho Herrera?

contador

You couldn't rule Merckz out of anything. Was he the only rider to hold all 3 jersies at once.

True you can't compare eras...but palmarés....you can. It's a crude method..but you can only beat the people on the start line with you.

Merckx was just an alien.

Redbag have you read "The death of Marco Pantani". I found it rather sad, and yet scary, the life of the pirate. Very very complex man.

Merckx was an absolute monster. Ocana not in the same league.
Seeing Pantani destroy Armstrong was mindblowing but not achieved anything like enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Merckx. In my opinion.

Can't agree with the Pantani vote,brilliant when popped up never the same after he was found out.A mate of mine rode the tour in the late seventies says everyone was on something of their choice at that time so who can be trusted looking back.

Good point ekbalko, although in a peverse way if everyone was on drugs then surely the greatest climber would still win!

Ekbalco
Who was your mate who rode the tour?

Claudio Chiappucci for his away day to Sestriere. Not sure what he'd had on his cornflakes that morning

Rather not name bix rode for T I Raleigh the year Thaurau was in yellow,apparently he dissappeared after the race and didn't split the winnings with the team.

A northern lad I think.

Herreira from cafe de columbia was a monster as well late 80´s / early 90´s

Virenque not mentioned in this thread so far, not in the league of the best pure climbers, but his repetetive successful escapes in hard climbing stages of the tour not only earned him the polka dots but also some stage wins, who else can refer to that number of stages won in such a way?

Armstrong of the ones I've seen - not a pure climber but was unbreakable in the mountains for several years. The stage to Mont Ventoux in 2000 was incredible when he caught Pantani and destroyed his rivals.

Chris Bonnington

Lance Pharmstrong

indurain was easily the best ,he never stood up ,rode sat down all the way up,his lung copacity was 5 litres twice normal size.

great moments in sport Riis looking at Indurain and then destroying the legend its always fantastic when a former invicible is taken apart

Mark Cavendish

Riis destroying Indurain was a real comedy moment Gomozkov.Probably the most obvious enhanced effort i can remember.An average climber at best Riis didn't have the natural ability to do that,at least he admitted it eventually.

Miguel Indurain.
Pre drugs era luis herrera was very good.

Miguel Indurain the best i have seen, remeber before he won Le Tour dragging Delgados ar$e up the mountains, he could have rode away from him at will but was playing the team game, 16/1 the gfollowing year was a gift

The figures suggest Armstrong, his times for climbs being that much faster than anyone ever. His average output was around 6.7W/kg on HC climbs, as opposed to the boys climbing today, who've probably not cracked an average of 6W/kg so far. Plus he was able to maintain a 'kick' of around 10W/kg for far longer than anyone before or since in order to distance his oppos. Of course all this was before effective urine EPO testing was introduced prior to the 2003 tour.........
I'll always have a soft spot for Big Mig personally, which means that I also rate Rominger highly as a climber, in any other era he would've won a tour or three.

Pantani holds the record of the fastest ascent to Alpe d'Huez