Cav's TdF record

[No Ta Doctor]

By my reckoning there have been 41 winners of the Tour since WW2 (including Armstrong). Here they all are, grouped according to the number of editions they needed to score their first wins. Rather like snow in March, a debut win isn't particularly unusual:

View attachment 783493

See, this is the sort of thing we need, actual facts

 

[mjr]

By my reckoning there have been 41 winners of the Tour since WW2 (including Armstrong).

Armstrong has no wins.

 

[Dogtrousers]

By my reckoning there have been 41 winners of the Tour since WW2 (including Armstrong). Here they all are, grouped according to the number of editions they needed to score their first wins. Rather like snow in March, a debut win isn't particularly unusual:

View attachment 783493

Where's Landis? He should be alongside Armstrong as a winner on his 5th tour.

#Justice4Floyd

 

[No Ta Doctor]

There are some interesting outliers there.
You can see a clear correlation between multiple Tour winners and winning at an early attempt, but Big Mig sticks out like a sore thumb. Indurain though won his five Tours in a row - a record of its own. Bobet was also a late first winner, and his three were also in a row. Obviously if you want to win it loads of times it's best to get started early or you'll run out of time, unless you can line them up like ducks and not miss each year. Armstrong also in the later start but never missed category.
Coppi "only" won twice but won at his first attempt, though he'd already won two Giros by then and would double up with the third Giro that year. The war may have interfered just a tiny bit there as well...
That it took Lemond three attempts to get a win isn't particularly surprising when you know who his teammate was and the story of the '85 and '86 Tours

Next graph please - scatter plot of age at first win x number of wins 😁
Number of wins x age at last win could also be interesting, I'm thinking that might be quite flat

 

[Aravis]

Generally speaking I feel this sort of analysis should look at what happened on the road rather than any rewriting of history. The difference in the handling of the Armstrong and Landis disqualifications makes it harder to be fully consistent, but I think it's possible to keep everyone happy:

PS Good points @Dogtrousers. I'm heading out shortly for an afternoon in the hills, so I'll respond properly later.

 

[Aravis]

I meant good points @No Ta Doctor

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Seems to have veered off Cav’s TDF record somewhat

 

[Dogtrousers]

Seems to have veered off Cav’s TDF record somewhat

35

 

[mjr]

35

And Cav's first stage was in his second tour. Both Merckx and Pogačar won stages in their first tours. I've not time to look up the rest of the stage-win leaderboard right now.

 

[Dogtrousers]

And Cav's first stage was in his second tour. Both Merckx and Pogačar won stages in their first tours. I've not time to look up the rest of the stage-win leaderboard right now.

Next up, André Leducq (25 stages). Won stage 6 of his first tour (1927), and went on to take 3 that year, aged 23

 

[Dogtrousers]

I meant good points @No Ta Doctor

Quite right too. I was a bit shocked that you were saying I'd made good points, when all I'd been doing was posting fatuous rubbish about Floyd Landis.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

I think Cavs record is safe for at least another year

 

[Sunny Portrush]

Just received my edition of "The Cav Book" by Ian Cleverly which details every one of Cav's 165 career wins - sadly I wasn't off the mark (see what I did there!) quick enough to get a signed copy