The Clouds Factory

Which nations are more successfull in cycling history? According to results from big races and taking in consideration the 10 best placed riders of each nations from my hall of fame  http://goo.gl/VPzCY  the results are mixed. The top countries are unsurprisingly Italy, Belgium and France. Although France seems to live on the glory of the past, as do The Netherlands. Spain's top riders are more from recent times and is firmly in 4th place. Switzerland was a bit of a surprise for me in 5th place. Luxembourg is an amazing little enclave considering the size of their population as they manage to sit proudly in 10th place. Australia and Great Britain have the best outlook for the future, although GB doesn't quite have 10 riders in the hall of fame as yet. Ireland only have 3 riders but when they did well, they did incredibly well with 6th and 49th top positions. Countries from the East and Latin America don't seem to have had a great impact as yet.

This hall of fame is compiled taking in consideration only wins, this is for two reasons. One is time, the other is that this is more about the long term legacy of single riders. I have updated this with Armstrong's downfall. It doesn't give some riders justice, namely those incredible domestiques whose effort is crucial for their captains' wins. This is simply for fun and to give some sense of worth in the broader view of the history of cycling. I have included most big races, some, like Tour of Poland and Turkey only from 2005 and 2007, when they acquired higher UCI status. For the same reason I've included the Tour of Beijing because despite being an awfully boring race, it hosts world tour teams, therefore will grow in status.