The problem with these rating games is the undue bias shownin favor of the most recent competitors. Anyone who doesn't choose Eddie has little or no sense of history.

excellant

No weak points; dominated the sport from 1967 until 1975; each season active & succesfull during the entire season

No one else comes close. If you check out a major race and the odds are better that Eddy won it more than anyone else than that he did not win it! Lance coming close is a Joke. Just looking at the TDF, the one race Lance pointed for and where almost all his significant results are and he still may fall short of Eddy. Wins Lance 7 Eddy 5, yes Lance wins that. But Eddy has more days in yellow and more stage wins. Eddy also has one second and a 6th or so. Lance has other rides in the TDF but nothing else top 10 or even close. In Lances first TDF he did not finish. In Eddy's he Won the G.C., Points and KOM (Only Hinault has all 3 for a career). Eddy Also won the most agressive rider award, rare for the G.C. winner, his team won the team championship and Eddy won the final stage. Eddy won hte TDF the Frist 5 times he rode it. They are not 'in a row' becasue one year he rode the Vuelta and Giro, winning the G.C. and Points in both of those races. Eddy also picked up two more points jerseys and a KOM in the TDF, all won while winning the G.C. Eddy is tied for most stage wins in a single tour with 8. Eddy did this twice and the other two riders who matched that 8 were not in G.C. contention when they did it. Oh and the first 6 times Eddy rode the TDF he finished in the top 3 of all 3 major competitions, something Lance never did and something that aside from Eddy only Hinautl did more than once. (Though Coppi and Bartoli rode befoer there was a Points Jersey and almost surely would have matched this if it had existed). Eddy also won the Giro 5 times and the Vuelta once (he only rode it once). In His second Giro he won all 3 Jerseys, no one else has matched that for a career. He would also pick up two more points Jerseys. In his one Vuelta he won the G.C. and Points while finishing second in the KOM. In the 15 Grand tours he entered he had 11 wins and a total of 20 major jerseys. On the classics side there are 5 of the historically huge races called the 5 monuments. Eddy has a total of 19 wins in these. Roger De Vlaeminick is next with 11. He is the only person with even half as many wins and Eddy. If you add in the Worlds championship where Eddy has 3 wins then Eddy totals 22. De Vlaeminick and Ric Van Looy are next with 11 each for exactly half of Eddys total. But these men are both classics riders. Between them they have 0 Grand tour wins. Eddy also set the Hour Record which lasted over a decade and was broken only after significant equipment advances. The Only Major tour jersey Eddy did not win was the Vuelta KOM. The on;y race of note during his time that Eddy did not win that I know of was Paris-Tours

The best by some way without doubt he won two of the grand tours several times together and won over 500 pro races (yes Lance fans there is more than the Tour de France). Won the Tour de France five times and should have won six except he was punched in the kidney by a crazy fan. Won the vuleta de espania once (i think) and the Giro d'Italia 4 or five times. He won just about every big race and was world champion 3 times (I think). READ THE FACTS.

Simply the greatest for a full breakdown see the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_Merckx Read and weep at the great mans feats!!!

He is the best. Nothing else needs to be said. For anyone who thinks different, you either have a different and uncommon view of "best" (which is fine, as long as you express that), or you are just uninformed.

Eddie is still the best though Lance comes close

The Animal dominated the Tour like nobody else until Armstrong came along.