Inspiration, Sources and Help
Creating the rankings on this site has been the result of thousands of hours going through results, calculating and recalculating and finishing and starting all over again. But however much time and effort we have put into it our selves, it wouldn't have been possible without the invaluable information from friends, books and websites. And the help of people that are much more knowledgeable in some areas than we can ever be. On this page we want to give them the credit they deserve.
Our Library
Velo 1956 - 1988
Wielerjaarboek 1985 - 2003
Le Cyclisme 1 - Supplement 11
+ Race specific books on a.o. Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, Vuelta a España, Tour de Luxembourg, Tour of Poland, The Peace Race, Paris - Roubaix, etc.
+ Lots of Biographies (from as early as Charles Terront and Maurice Garin to nowadays)
and a range of other cycling books on the culture around and the politics and sociology of the sport.
Specialized Websites
Cyclists in the Great War and Cyclists in WWII - Marc Holderbeke's amazing work to pay hommage to all the riders that went off to serve in the army of their respective countries during World War I. Many of them never came back, but Marc's site keeps the memory of these young men alive by telling the story of their cycling career and their wanderings during the conflict. Marc has been (and still is) helping us a lot in completing rider data in the early years of our ranking.
De Wielersite - Enormous source of hard to find results, probably the most extensive results database around.
Memoire du Cyclisme - Ever since the late 1990s the work of the team of Dominique Magnier has been invaluable in completing results that were only partly available in the literature that was accesible for us at the time. Especially the size of its French and Belgian race archive is incredible.
CQ Ranking - Very well curated site on current results and rankings.
ProCyclingStats - The most complete source on current results.
Museo del Ciclismo - Very complete information on riders from the 1870s to nowadays, especially good on Italian cycling.
Newspaper Archives
Trove - Archive of the National Library of Australia
Papers Past - Archive of the National Library of New Zealand
Gazet van Antwerpen - Belgian newspaper archive with a lot of cycling results
Gallica - Historic archive of the Bibliotheque National de France with complete archives of emblemetic newspapers like l'Auto
El Mundo Deportivo - Hemeroteca of El Mundo Deportivo, Spain's oldest Sports Newspaper.
Smithsonian Libraries at the Internet Archive - offers a lot of 19th century magazines about cycling in the US (The Wheel, Wheelman's Gazette, Bicycling World, etc.), UK (The Wheel World, LBC Gazette) and Canada (Canadian Wheelman).
Sporting Life at the LA84 Library - Archive of the American Sports Newspaper from 1883 - 1916
and many more...
Other ranking sites
Classements Coureurs Cyclistes - French historical ranking site by Jean-Marie Coutoux.