Widely regarded as the greatest ever, there is not a lot The Cannibal didn’t achieve during his dominance of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Five Tour de France titles, five Giro d’Italia victories and a Vuelta a Espana win – with a combined 64 stage wins in the process – are just the tip of the iceberg on a stunning palmares.

Merckx also won all five Monument one-day races and was the first man to achieve the Triple Crown – the Giro, Tour and World Championship – when he won all three in 1974.

Two years earlier, the Belgian had also conquered the hour record – in the same year he won the Tour, Giro and four Classics.

Riding at high altitude in Mexico City, Merckx rode 49.431km to set a record which stood for 12 years before Francesco Moser broke the 50km barrier in 1984.

When Moser’s record and subsequent attempts by Graeme Obree, Chris Boardman, Miguel Indurain and Tony Rominger were reclassified as ‘Best Human Efforts’ by the UCI, Merckx was restored as UCI Hour Record holder until Boardman conquered the record again in 2000.