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Before we kick off the 2021 edition of the PCS Favorite500, we look back at the 2020 edition with 5 interesting statistics.

Riders per decade

In the Favorite500 you can choose any rider you want, from any period in the history of cycling. Let's look in what decade the riders from the top 500 were active. Figure 1 shows the number of riders per decade from the top 500. Note that the total number is higher than 500, as cyclists can be active in more than one decade.

Figure 1. Riders from Favorite500 active in decade.

For example, 186 riders were active in the period 1990-1999. If we take out the 1980-1995 segment, we see which riders from that period received the most votes (Table 1). Interestingly, the top 5 riders active in that period of time all won (originally) at least one Grand Tour. The top 5 cyclists active between 2010 and 2020 (Table 2) only has one Grand Tour winner: Alberto Contador.

Table 1. Most votes for riders active between 1980 and 1995.

Table 2. Most votes for riders active between 2010 and 2020.

ranking excluding rider nation votes

ProCyclingStats has a very international visitor base, and we thank you for that. Still, there will always be some bias as visitors tend to vote for riders from their own country. Table 3 shows the top 20 of the ranking if we exclude the votes for a rider from that rider's country.

Table 3. Ranking excluding votes from the rider's country.

Computing the ranking this way, Mathieu van der Poel drops from fifth to twelfth position, as 35.8% of his votes came from the Netherlands. Of the original top 20, only Tom Dumoulin (dropped from 20 to 21) had a higher percentage of votes from his own country (52% of Dutch voters included Dumoulin in their lists). Besides the Dutch, all three Spanish riders dropped at least one position. Miguel Indurain, the rider with the most votes from Spain, dropped three places.

Most international voters base

Table 4 gives an indication of which riders have the most international voters base. The chart shows the number of nations from which a rider received at least ten votes. For example, Peter Sagan received at least ten votes from thirty different countries. Of these twenty riders, Michał Kwiatkowski has the lowest position in the original ranking: 31st.

Table 4. Number of nations a rider received at least ten votes from.

Voters per age

When grouping the age of voters into buckets, general trends appear. Older, retired riders often score higher in the 41-50 and 51+ age buckets, whereas the younger, recently-turned-pro riders receive a higher percentage of votes from the younger generations. Peter Sagan, as winner of the Favorite500, is a great example of exception to the trend. In Figure 2 you can see that the Slovakian is, roughly, equally popular among all age groups. Almost 50% of all voters between the ages of 31 and 40 have voted for Sagan, just like 41.8% of all voters above the age of 50. The same statistics for Marco Pantani (Figure 3) show a very steep difference between voters above the age of 30 and below. A now-30-year-old would have been 8 years old at the time of Il Pirata's biggest successes in 1998 and 14 when he passed away. Younger generations have possibly not seen any footage, which could explain the drop in votes. On the other end, there is for example Tadej Pogacar (Figure 4). The two-time Tour de France winner is relatively popular among the younger voters, but is often left our of the lists of voters above the age of 30.

Figure 2. Percentage of total voters per age bucket for Peter Sagan.

Figure 3. Percentage of total voters per age bucket for Marco Pantani.

Figure 4. Percentage of total voters per age bucket for Tadej Pogacar.

Most favorite riders by team

Winning races is the main goal for most teams. However, having popular riders in your team can be important for marketing and merchandising. Tabel 5 shows which teams have the most riders from the 2020 Favorite500 in their 2021 roster. Deceuninck - Quick Step leads the ranking with seventeen of their riders. Out of 31 female cyclists in the ranking, both SD Worx and Trek-Segafredo Women had four riders in their team the past year.

Table 5. Number of riders per team in the Favorite500.

Comparing Table 5 to the 2021 PCS Team Ranking, we immediately noticed EF Education - Nippo. Despite having twelve riders voted into the Favorite500 in their team, the American formation led by Jonathan Vaughters can be found on the eighteenth place in the PCS Team Ranking, ahead of only three UCI WorldTeams. Obviously, popularity does not guarantee success in the form of PCS points, but might work wonders for sponsors.

Final word

We have a lot more statistics lined up for you for the coming weeks. Do you have an idea for a interesting statistic? Let us know through the contact form, Twitter or Facebook. Starting Friday December 10 8:00 PM (CET) you can vote for this year's Favorite500.