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The PCS all time ranking is designed to come up with a list of the best riders of all time. The points for retired riders remain unchanged, but the active riders are able to climb up in the ranks and place themselves among the legends of the sport. In this article we take a look at the major changes in 2023. 

First let us review the point scale used to compute the ranking. Only level 1 races and higher are considered in the ranking. Next, only the top-10 of the final GC or a one day race is included, of stage results the top-3. This is done for two reasons: First, we only want to consider top results for the ranking and second, historical results are sometimes limited to only the top-10. After this, we take the PCS points for each result and divide this by the result. This way top results are way more important than lower results. For example, winning the Tour de France is worth 500 PCS points, finishing 10th yields 200 PCS points. After dividing by the result, winning the Tour is still worth 500 points, finishing 10th is worth 20 points. Finally, we divide all points by a factor 10 to keep the numbers manageable. In conclusion, finishing 10th in the Tour de France yields 2 points for the all time ranking, winning the Tour de France yields 50 points.

Who then is leading the all time ranking? No surprise there, Eddy Merckx is leading the ranking with a major advantage on runner-up Sean Kelly. 

Figure 1. The alltime ranking.

What were the changes in 2023? The following table lists the 20 highest ranked active riders in the all time ranking and the positions they gained compared to the previous season. 

Figure 2. Position changes this season for active riders in the all time ranking.

Mark Cavendish has scored 14 alltime ranking points this year, but he didn't gain any positions with that. Primož Roglič and Tadej Pogačar are moving up significantly with respectively 14 and 33 positions up. Another big change is that both riders passed 4-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome on the ranking, who in turn drops two places. 

Figure 3. Point growth per age for set of riders.

How did the point growth proceed for the top 5 active riders in the all time ranking? From the above chart we see that Pogačar at age 25 is already on the same level as Froome at age 32. Furthermore it seems that Roglič and Froome started at the same age to accumulate points. One could only guess, how Froome's line would have run, if not for that crash.

Figure 4. Biggest climbers in the all time ranking compared to the previous year.

Another interesting statistics is a list of the biggest risers. A rider needs at least 50 points to be included in the ranking. At the end of 2022 there were 2076 riders in the ranking, this year there are 2104. That means 28 riders debuted in the ranking. Mattias Skjelmose entered directly into the top-1000. Arnaud De Lie climbed 899 positions and is the highest riser that had already a notation in the 2022.