They\u2019ll be looking to make their mark with stage wins and in the points and king of the mountain competitions over the three weeks of the race, or just to show their team\u2019s colours in a breakaway.<\/p>\n
A select few will be aiming to wear the race leader\u2019s yellow jersey and maybe win the race overall when it arrives in Paris.<\/p>\n
Ranking the top road cyclists in the world is a tough task given the variety of events and style differences between some of the best around.<\/p>\n
Not all will ride the Tour de France. Some are specialists in the early-season one-day races, while others like Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d, who won the Giro d\u2019Italia in May, will skip the Tour so that they\u2019re in peak form for later-season races such as the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, which starts in August. A three week grand tour takes a lot out of the riders.<\/p>\n
RadioTimes.com<\/a> brings you our ranking of the 10 best cyclists in the world right now.<\/p> Winner of the Tour de France in 2022, Vingegaard is a superb climber and also won the King of the Mountains classification and two individual mountain stages during the race.<\/p>\n Concentrating on stage races, he\u2019s been low-key so far in 2023, but has won all the races he\u2019s started with the exception of Paris-Nice in March, including domination of the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 in early June \u2013 a traditional test for riders ahead of the Tour de France.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar had won two Tours de France before age 23, also taking the King of the Mountains and Best Young Rider prizes on both occasions. He\u2019ll be looking for revenge at this year\u2019s Tour, having been bested by Vingegaard last year.<\/p>\n He\u2019s a fearsome competitor, taking a string of one-day race wins in early 2023, before crashing and breaking his wrist in the Li\u00e8ge\u2013Bastogne\u2013Li\u00e8ge classic in April. Since then, he\u2019s largely been out of competition and will be an unknown quantity at this year\u2019s Tour.<\/p>\n Rogli\u010d started his career as a ski jumper before switching to cycling. He\u2019s won the overall general classification in the 2023 Giro d\u2019Italia, and three times at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. He also has a string of wins in shorter stage races and one-day races to his name.<\/p>\n He\u2019s been unlucky at the Tour over the years, losing the race lead to Poga\u010dar in the final stage time trial in 2020 and abandoning the race in 2021 and 2022. He\u2019s skipping this year\u2019s Tour, but is likely to take to the start of the Vuelta in August, aiming to add a fourth victory.<\/p>\n Evenepoel may only be at the start of his pro cycling career, but he\u2019s already made his mark, winning the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a and the World Championships in 2022 and the first and ninth stage time trials at the 2023 Giro d\u2019Italia.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also won both the Li\u00e8ge\u2013Bastogne\u2013Li\u00e8ge and Cl\u00e1sica San Sebasti\u00e1n one-day races twice, as well as a string of shorter stage races. He looks to be getting back into form after retiring from the Giro with Covid, but will not ride the Tour.<\/p>\n A third talent in the Jumbo-Visma team, van Aert has won sprint stages, mountain stages and time trials at the Tour de France. He won two stages on his debut Tour de France in 2020. In 2022, he held the yellow jersey for four stages and was the overall winner of the green jersey competition by a wide margin.<\/p>\n He\u2019s won a range of one-day races, including Milan-San Remo and Strade Bianche in 2020. Van Aert also races cyclocross and was three-time world champion in that discipline before turning to road racing.<\/p>\n A contemporary and rival to van Aert, van der Poel also first raced cyclocross before turning to road racing and is a five-time winner of the cyclocross world championship. He also competes in cross-country mountain biking.<\/p>\n Van der Poel comes from a cycling family, with his father Adri and grandfather Raymond Poulidor both top racers, while his brother also races professionally.<\/p>\n He\u2019s won a string of prestigious one-day races including the Tour of Flanders twice and Milan-San Remo in 2023. He wore the Tour de France yellow jersey for six stages in 2021, although he\u2019s yet to finish the race.<\/p>\n World Champion in 2020 and 2021, Alaphilippe has a string of one-day road races to his name, as well as the Tour of California and the Tour of Britain. He wore the Tour de France yellow jersey for 14 stages in 2019, before losing it to the eventual winner overall, Egan Bernal.<\/p>\n He\u2019s a powerful rider, who excels at punchy climbs and short uphill finishes. A series of crashes and injuries have meant that Alaphilippe hasn\u2019t been at his best in 2023, but he\u2019ll want to prove himself at the Tour.<\/p>\n A superb young talent, Pidcock has put in some impressive performances for his team, including winning the Tour de France queen stage to the iconic Alpe d\u2019Huez in 2022. He\u2019s a demon descender as well as a powerful climber. He\u2019s won the prestigious Strade Bianche and has had top-five finishes in two other one-day races in 2023.<\/p>\n Like van der Poel, he\u2019s another rider who competes across disciplines, winning the gold medal in cross-country mountain biking at the Tokyo Olympic Games and the cyclocross world championships in 2022.<\/p>\n Mark Cavendish has won 34 stages of the Tour de France over his career, equalling the record set in the 1970s by Eddy Merckx. In this, his final year before retirement, he will be hoping to add at least one more win to his tally.<\/p>\n Cavendish is the master of the sprint finish, with his teams building powerful lead-out trains to deliver him to the finishing straight on flatter stages. Cavendish has then been outstandingly successful at putting in the final burst to reach the line first.<\/p>\n As well as his Tour stage record, Cavendish has won a string of other races, including Milan-San Remo in 2009, the world championships in 2011 and the points classification at all three grand tours.<\/p>\n Another specialist who\u2019ll likely never win a Tour de France, Filippo Ganna excels at individual time trials against the clock. He\u2019s also the current world hour record holder, having covered 56.792km in an hour in a Swiss velodrome in October 2022. That bested the previous record by over a kilometre \u2013 an incredible feat when previous records had often been broken by tens of metres.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also won two time trial world championships and track world championship and Olympic gold medals. Bernal won the Tour de France in 2019 and the Giro d\u2019Italia in 2021. In early 2022, he suffered a life-threatening crash while training in his native Colombia, which put him out of competition for the whole of that year. In 2023, he\u2019s sustained a knee injury and another crash, which have marred his early-season racing.<\/p>\n A return to peak form could see him challenging for the overall or at least a high placing at this year\u2019s Tour.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking for something else to watch, check out our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a> or\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/b><\/a>, or visit our Sport<\/a> hub for all the latest news.<\/strong><\/p>\n Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only \u00a31 with delivery to your home \u2013 subscribe now<\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Our round-up of the best road cyclists in the world right now in 2023. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":34370,"template":"","categories":[1,7,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/best-cyclists-in-the-world-2023-scaled.jpg",2560,1706,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/best-cyclists-in-the-world-2023-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/best-cyclists-in-the-world-2023-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/best-cyclists-in-the-world-2023-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/best-cyclists-in-the-world-2023-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/best-cyclists-in-the-world-2023-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/best-cyclists-in-the-world-2023-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Our round-up of the best road cyclists in the world right now in 2023.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/34369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark) Jumbo-Visma<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\""Jonas\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1497653772-832d471.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"75th\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>2. Tadej Poga\u010dar (Slovenia) UAE Team Emirates<\/strong><\/h2>\n
3. Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d (Slovenia) Jumbo-Visma<\/strong><\/h2>\n
4. Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) Soudal-QuickStep<\/strong><\/h2>\n
5. Wout van Aert (Belgium) Jumbo-Visma<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\""Wout\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1503987981-8caf25a.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"110th\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>6. Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) Alpecin-Deceuninck<\/strong><\/h2>\n
7. Julian Alaphilippe (France) Soudal-QuickStep<\/strong><\/h2>\n
8. Tom Pidcock (UK) Ineos Grenadiers<\/strong><\/h2>\n
9. Mark Cavendish (UK) Astana-Qazakhstan<\/strong><\/h2>\n
10. Filippo Ganna (Italy) Ineos Grenadiers<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\""Filippo\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1499435466-29be6bf.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"47th\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Honourable mention: Egan Bernal (Colombia) Ineos Grenadiers<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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