Cycling records have gotten complicated with all the arguments about equipment standards and doping eras flying around. As someone who has obsessed over cycling stats since discovering Eddy Merckx highlight reels in my teens, I learned everything there is to know about which records will probably stand forever. Today, I will share it all with you.
Some numbers in cycling feel untouchable—not because athletes today are worse, but because the sport itself has fundamentally changed. The calendar is different. Training philosophy is different. Team economics are different. These records are time capsules from eras that won’t return.
Eddy Merckx: 525 Professional Victories
Five hundred and twenty-five professional race wins. That number is absurd. Stage races, one-day races, Grand Tour stages, time trials, criteriums—Merckx won everything, constantly, for over a decade.
Modern riders don’t race enough to approach this total. Merckx competed in 150+ race days per year; today’s Grand Tour contenders race maybe 60-70 days. The calendar contracted, recovery became sacred, and teams started protecting their leaders from unnecessary efforts.
That’s what makes this record endearing to us cycling historians—it represents a totally different philosophy of racing. Merckx didn’t pick his spots. He just raced, and he just won.
Even if a modern rider matched Merckx’s win rate (they wouldn’t), they’d need to race twice as often to approach his total. Current team economics make that impossible.
Why it won’t fall: Racing calendars don’t support this volume. Team strategies prioritize peak performances over omnivorous winning. The economic incentives all point toward specialization.
Merckx Again: 34 Tour de France Stage Wins
Mark Cavendish equaled this record in 2024 after years of chasing it. But Cavendish needed exceptional circumstances—an extended career, perfect team support, and stages designed for pure sprinters.
The record stood for over 40 years because Merckx won mountain stages, time trials, AND sprint stages. He wasn’t a specialist collecting one type of victory. He dominated every terrain the Tour threw at him.
Modern GC contenders sacrifice stage wins for overall classification. Modern sprinters can’t survive mountains. Only a rider combining Merckx’s climbing, time trialing, and sprinting could accumulate stages across all terrains—and that rider simply doesn’t exist.
Probably should have led with this section, honestly. It’s the clearest example of how Merckx was essentially three elite riders in one body.
Why it won’t fall (again): Cavendish’s equaling required unusually favorable circumstances. Future sprinters face shorter peak windows and won’t contest as many Tours.
The Hour Record: A Peculiar Case
The Hour Record—how far you can ride in 60 minutes on a velodrome—has a weird history. Multiple versions existed depending on equipment rules. Filippo Ganna’s current mark (56.792km from 2022) will probably fall as track aerodynamics improve.
But the Merckx-era Hour Record (51.151km in 1972 on equipment similar to road bikes) remains almost mythical. When subsequent champions attempted it under Merckx’s equipment restrictions, most failed to approach his distance.
Will it fall?: The modern equipment record will keep improving. But the “pure” hour record under historical restrictions? Probably unreachable with today’s road-focused athletes who rarely train specifically for the track.
Grand Tour Doubles: The Giro-Tour Challenge
Winning both the Giro and Tour de France in the same year has happened seven times total, most recently with Pogacar in 2024. Rare but not impossible.
What seems impossible: Anquetil’s 1964 approach where he literally raced the Giro, took a brief rest, then won the Tour. Modern training science says this should destroy the body. Modern racing calendars wouldn’t permit the attempt anyway.
The truly unbreakable version: racing all three Grand Tours and winning at least two hasn’t happened since Roche in 1987. The physical demands of three consecutive Grand Tours in modern racing—with deeper fields and higher average speeds—make this almost unthinkable.
Consecutive Grand Tour Victories
Indurain’s five consecutive Tour victories (1991-1995) remains the longest streak. Froome won four consecutive (technically—2015-2017, then 2019 after being awarded 2018 via DQ). Pogacar and Vingegaard keep trading recent victories, preventing either from building a streak.
Why it’s difficult now: The depth of GC talent makes consecutive dominance harder. In Indurain’s era, he was clearly the strongest; no one could match his time trialing. Today, several riders have genuine Grand Tour-winning capability. Year-over-year dominance by one person seems unlikely.
Single Stage Winning Margins
Historic Grand Tour stages saw winners crossing the line 10, 15, even 20+ minutes ahead of the field. Modern racing—with team radios, real-time data, and aggressive chasing—compresses time gaps.
Stages where lone breakaway riders simply rode away from the peloton and were never seen again are functionally impossible now. Teams have too much information to let that happen.
The specific record: Fausto Coppi won a 1952 Tour stage by nearly 20 minutes. That gap will never happen again under modern racing conditions.
Career Duration Records
Davide Rebellin raced professionally until age 51. Jens Voigt competed until 43. These extended careers become rarer as teams prioritize younger riders and training intensity increases injury risk.
Why modern careers are shorter: Racing at 6 W/kg on mountains destroys bodies faster than the slower racing of previous eras. Recovery is harder. Contracts favor youth. Economics push riders out earlier.
What These Records Really Mean
Most records fall eventually. But these represent achievements dependent on racing conditions, calendar structures, and physical approaches that simply don’t exist anymore. They’re not better or worse than modern achievements—they’re just from a different sport wearing the same name.
They’re permanent monuments to what cycling once was. And honestly? That makes them more interesting than records that keep getting broken.
