Efficiency Rankings

Alexander Kristoff finishes the season as the most efficient rider in the peloton, winning close to one in every four races he started: 20 wins for 82 race days. It’s an incredible rate when you consider he’s had a few training races and some mountain stages along the way too. Here’s a look at the win rates of the top riders, why it pays to be a sprinter and a look at those who slid down the rankings this year too.



First is the rider victory rankings for 2015 with Kristoff topping the table, chances are you’ve seen this already. But what about efficiency, the rate at which a rider wins? Let’s look at the win rates of various riders.

As the chart of the top-20 most efficient riders in the World Tour and Pro Conti ranks shows there’s no photo finish needed for Kristoff. His successes have been regular with only the Tour de France as a blank spot this year. It’s good for him but also his team who will back him time and again and the members of his sprint train will be collecting tidy bonuses this year.

Caleb Ewan is the surprise second placed finisher, 11 wins in 54 days and if some of these came in smaller races he’s a first year pro and took a stage of the Vuelta. There’s talk of Orica-Greenedge becoming a GC team but how they manage Ewan, Matthews and other sprinters alongside the Yates brothers and Estaban Chaves will be interesting to watch.

Mark Cavendish turned thirty this year and it’s been a mixed season interrupted by injuries, 14 wins from 74 race days is still very good so if he stays healthy and lucky in 2016 then MTN-Qhubeka will be racking up the wins. Next come Lotto-Soudal pairing André Greipel and Kris Boeckmans, team mates and both regular winners with Boeckmans winning sprints in Northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands and if Greipel has had a great season, he’s been more efficient in years past, a subject we’ll get to in a minute. Nacer Bouhanni had 11 from 73, proof he’s capable of striking regularly as long as he can stay upright in a season that’s perhaps been more famous for crashing than winning, especially his Tour de France exit.

Who is Astana’s most prolific winner? You’d probably think Fabio Aru or Vincenzo Nibali given the Kazakh team is built for stage racing but it’s Andrea Guardini with eight sprint successes. If you associate Astana with stage racing it’s normal and Guardini can’t even get a ride in the Giro, his home tour, such was the team’s focus on backing Fabio Aru. Instead he picks up wins around the world from Malaysia to Dubai. Another globetrotter is Wouter Wippert, the Dutchman has been riding for Drapac and taken five wins from 37 days, a percentage rate from a reduced calendar but although he did win in the World Tour with the closing criterium stage of the Tour Down Under. He’s joining Cannondale-Garmin and if he can progress should get them a few wins in 2016.

Richie Porte is the first non-sprinter on the list, with 9 wins from 69 race days, impressive given almost a third of this, the Tour de France, was spent in service of Chris Froome. Obviously a stage racer would like to win as much as possible but in reality the aim of the game is energy preservation and only striking out when it counts so wins don’t come as often for this kind of rider. Froome is near on a similar count. Valverde has had a great year and finished atop the rankings but “only” had eight wins to show from 91 days of racing so while he’s probably had his best ever season he’s still far from his days as El Imbatible, “The Invincible”.

If you think Kristoff is good the chart above is a comparison between the most efficient riders in recent years with Marcel Kittel in 2011 taking 17 wins from 52 days in his first year as a pro. Some of the results came from smaller races like the Tour of Langkawi and the Jayco Herald Sun Tour but he was also winning stages in the Tour of Poland and the Vuelta too.

Last and least?

If we’ve looked at some of the most successful riders of 2015 who were the flops? Dividing the number of race days by wins would mean Martijn Keizer, 99 race days and no wins tops the table but riding more days than anyone else means Keizer deserves a prize or at least a bonus from his team plus he managed three podium places, a tale of solidity. Similarly there were many tales of disappointment in this cruel sport for example Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara have had bad seasons but it’s not like they’ve wasted it. The same for Simon Gerrans who popped more collarbones this year than champagne corks. Even without crashing Sep Vanmarcke was very unlucky in the spring classics with several punctures at the wrong time, it’d be hard to label him as a flop because he was trying so hard. Marcel Kittel didn’t race much but was forever playing catch-up after a mystery virus. Carlos Betancur seems more like the architect of his downfall but since no pro chooses to be overweight perhaps we should be careful with the jibes too? Still he did infuriate his team by proving impossible to reach during the year and at one point reports said he was due to fly to France to resume racing and get his work visa and the team sent someone to the airport to collect him but he didn’t show up and never told anyone he hadn’t boarded the flight.

Still in a bid to quantify a few fallers here’s a hand-picked selection of those who have descended the Cycling Quotient rankings: