This is exactly what my “let’s all mess around with statistical analysis” gambit was meant to encourage. I’d add, the average placing number is too easily warped in the bad-luck years. But the podium rate: surely this means something. Quite a lot, I’d say, especially in a race like PR where top placings are always earned.

Man, Museeuw was a beast.

I had the most amazing time ever. Wow.

Guesdon’s win isn’t even recognized and doesn’t affect his average. Museeuw raced P-R before 2000 and won once before than too, so his final numbers would be different. Van Petey has similar circumstances to Museeuw.

I understand that going back further can become a vicious cycle because where do we stop? But at least for the guys on your spreadsheet, all the data should be there or its skewed.

I love “podiums per finish” as a stat

Nothing changed that much, except Van Pete is not as awesome as we may have all thought. His podiums/finish and Top 10’s/finish dropped.

Servais Knaven finished every race he started except for one year, that’s 14 completed P-R’s.

George is still good but it took him a while to figure out the game.

Museeuw’s results shocked the hell out of me. He completed the race 14 times with 10 top 10’s and 6 podiums. The first time he raced it he got 12th. He was definitely made to race cobbles. If he says we should ride flax bikes I think we should listen to him

As we all know, Boonen is set to become the next Mr. Paris-Roubaix, because he’s clearly the Lion of Flanders already. If he continues on this trend, he’ll have more podiums and top 10’s then Museeuw recorded.

I might go back and include De Vlaeminck’s numbers just to give us a reference point.

From Etoille de Bessage to Lombardia and not many of them were specializing and ramping up the fitness for one certain event in which we see today.

To answer a few questions:
The last guy to win PR and LBL in the SAME year was Sean Kelly…he is also the last rider to do it all together…The last rider before him to win both in the same year was Merckx…The last rider to win both in different years was Hinault (P-R in 1981 and LBL ’77 and ’80)

The last rider to win PR and a grand tour(not the same year) was Kelly (vuelta 88’ and P-R in 84 and 86)…Last rider to podium in P-R and had won a grand tour was Fignon when he scored 3rd in P-R in ’88….Last rider to Win a GT and P-R in the same season was Hinault in 1981 when he won the Tour de France….Moser also won a GT and P-R when he won the Giro in 1984 and P-R three times from 78-80.
Also Kelly is the last rider to win Liege and Roubaix in the Same season and then go onto win a Grand Tour. Hinault was the last rider to win both Liege and Roubaix and win the Tour.
Also the last rider to podium at both P-R and Liege was Dirk de Wolf. He was second in Roubaix in 1989 and won Liege in 1992.

Looking at the startlist, only one rider in the whole race has podiumed at a grand tour, Popovych, from when he podiumed the 2002 giro with Landbouwkredit. He is also the only man on the starting list to get a top 10 in a grand tour and start P-R this year.

So unless a New Merckx or Hinault comes along and starts to race Spring Classics and GT and win them…not many of the guys you see up front in July will be hitting the cobbles.