CYCLING/Tour de France: Eddy Merckx rolls down the quay on Riccione's sea-front to the applause of the fans. Each of them is bedecked in cycling gear, eagerly awaiting the chance to meet "The Cannibal", but Merckx is clearly in grin-and-bear-it mode. Others may live for the adulation; Merckx seems slightly uncomfortable with all the fuss.

He looks fit, three or four stones lighter than he was 14 months ago. Years of high living had ballooned his frame. Yet now he looks in excellent shape. In spring 2004 he had a stomach operation, correcting a problem with his oesophagus. Some weight came off after going under the knife, then he continued the kilo-shedding by getting back on the bike and watching his diet.

Merckx has racked up a few thousand kilometres this year, and this morning he will add to that total. He's in Italy to promote his links with the Riccione Bike Hotels chain of training camps, and has agreed to go on a ride with the hundred-odd awestruck fans gathered. It's a special moment for them. This morning the greatest cyclist who ever lived will trade pedal strokes for 40-50kms with his fans, each desperate to ride alongside him for a couple of minutes.

Merckx accepts the claps, the compliments, the deference while all the time looking a tad uncomfortable. It was the same the previous night, when he held court at the team presentations prior to the start of the Settimana Ciclista Internazionle race. The riders there had the same slightly-awestruck look about them; the difference was they are successful professionals. But he's The Cannibal, after all. The best there was. And, in all likelihood, the best there will ever be.

Looking at his results, it is hard to believe some (mainly American) commentators suggested last summer Lance Armstrong was now the world's greatest-ever cyclist. The Texan had just won his sixth Tour de France, thus moving ahead of the five Tours won by Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. Granted, Armstrong's Tour run was mighty impressive. But his career, with 88 pro wins, still doesn't stand up to proper comparisons.

Over the course of a 14-year pro career, Merckx amassed an astounding 445 victories. These included five Tours of Italy, one Tour of Spain, three pro World Championships, seven Milan-San Remo Classics, five Liège- Bastogne-Liège races, three editions of Paris Roubaix, two each of the Tour of Belgium and the Tour of Lombardy, one Tour of Switzerland and, on the track, 17 six-day races plus the world hour record. Staggering stuff.

Then, of course, there were his Tour de France rides. Merckx scooped 34 stage wins and a phenomenal total of 96 yellow jerseys; Armstrong, on the other hand, has amassed "just" 23 stage victories and 66 maillots jaunes to date. Merckx twice equalled the record of eight stage wins in a single Tour, in 1970 and 1974. He won the yellow, green and polka-dot jerseys in 1969, a trifecta unequalled in the sport. In 1970 he took both the yellow and polka-dot jerseys to Paris. The following two years he doubled up again, winning the overall victory plus the point classification.

Even more impressive was his overall winning margin in 1969, that of 17 minutes and 54 seconds over France's Roger Pingeon. He may not have won as many Tours as Armstrong, but when he was in top form, his domination was absolute. And when you consider how many other races he also won in those years, it is clear Merckx was a truly formidable athlete.

"My parents gave me something more than the other riders had," he explains, sitting in the lobby of his hotel in Riccione. "They gave me a lot of natural ability. But in addition to that, I trained very well, working hard on the bike and always doing what I could to improve. I think that is why I became such a good rider. You can have as much talent as you like, but it is not enough on its own."

Merckx got his first bike when he was three and became known as "Tour de France" in his locality, always battling imaginary competitors. His first racing bike followed at eight, then at 12 he lined out in proper competition. Success took a while to come but once it did, the floodgates opened; he took 100 victories as an amateur, including the World Road Race Championships in Sallanches in 1964. A pro contract followed for 1965 and then, one year later, Merckx began his unstoppable rise with victories in the Milan-San Remo Classic, the Baracchi Trophy and the Montjuic hill-climb.

By 1967, at just 22, he was professional world champion. In his first Tour of Italy in 1968 he dominated and, one year later, he crushed all rivals in his debut Tour de France. Merckx went into that race fuming, having been ejected from the Italian tour after a positive dope test. To this day he maintains it was a set-up, claiming he had been offered - and refused to take - bribes to throw the race.

"They dropped me from Tour of Italy in 1969 when I was very strong," he says. "I was very mad with what happened to me in that race. I was more motivated than ever. So I went to the Tour de France and passed the doping tests every day. I won that race by 17 minutes and 52 seconds. For me, it was important showing.

"Also, it was also 30 years since a Belgian rider had won the Tour de France. So it was a dream, a gift. The yellow jersey was magic. To win the Tour after all that was the most beautiful thing in my career. Afterwards, it was very special. When I arrived in Paris for the end of that Tour, there were 25,000 people crying 'Eddy, Eddy'. It gave me goosebumps. Then, the day after that, I was received by the King in Belgium. It was fantastic."

That debut Tour win was arguably the most dominant ever. Again, that haul: six stage wins, the yellow jersey, the points and mountains classifications, a winning margin of almost 18 minutes. For a 24-year-old, it was a stellar performance, no more so than on the Pyrenean mountain stage to Mourenx-Ville-Nouvelle. Merckx attacked on the climb of the Tourmalet, 130kms from the end of the stage and, defying instructions from his team manager to ease back, powered on alone to reach the finish line eight minutes clear of the next rider.

Given Armstrong's biggest-ever winning margin for the whole Tour is seven minutes, 37 seconds, in 1999, the Belgian's feat was astounding. A colossus had been born. Merckx went on to take four more Tours, but he was never quite as dominant again. The reason was an appalling accident on the velodrome in Blois on September 9th of that year. He was taking part in a high-speed race behind Derny motorbikes when tragedy struck, badly wounding Merckx and killing his pacer, Fernand Wambst.

"The Derny in front of us broke a pedal during the race and the driver crashed," he remembers. "We were going about 60 kilometres an hour at the time. We piled into him on the bend, and went right over. My trainer was killed, immediately, but I was lucky. I was still alive. I was badly hurt by the crash and my hips were twisted. I had to stay in bed for six weeks, and then start all over again. There was not the same level of physiotherapy at that time, so I started again with my hips completely wrong.

"It made things very hard after that, because I wasn't as good as before. Especially in the mountains. I was suffering more because I always had problems with my back from that point on."

Merckx became obsessive with his bike position after that, constantly trying different positions in order to gain some relief. He would bring several different bikes to the Tour, switching between them on different days, and also stopped during stages to make adjustments to his saddle height and handlebar position. That he was able to continue on and dominate the sport shows much about his talent, his determination and his need to win.

Merckx has often been described as a father figure to Armstrong, filling that void in the Texan's background. When asked about the American champion he says they have much in common. "We are similar. We are both winners. That is what drives him, the need to be first." So how does he feel about the comparisons between their careers? "I think you cannot compare different eras," he answers. "I think the most important thing is to be the best in the era when you are riding. I think I was the best when I was competing."

By that standard, Armstrong is the closest equivalent of the modern era. Even if everything is built towards one three-week period in the year, his laser targeting of the Tour the antithesis of Merckx's scattergun, win-everything approach.

"Times have changed," the Belgian says. "I never based my career solely around the Tour de France. I tried to win as many races as was possible, Classics and everything. Back then, it was impossible to pick and choose. The sponsor wouldn't accept a rider only doing the Tour de France, anyway.

"Nowadays, the Tour has become much bigger than in my time. For example, there are more journalists at the start of the Tour de France now than ever before. You can't compare the two eras. Maybe if I was riding now I would also do things differently. Fewer races, for sure."

The modern era is a period of specialisation, a time when one-day specialists will peak for world championships and classics, and stage race riders will aim everything at the Tour. It's a risky strategy but one which, when it pays off, boosts the odds of setting new records for specific events. Armstrong's tunnel-vision approach to the Tour enabled him to exceed the previous record of five wins. Similarly, Spanish rider Oscar Freire will this year aim to set an all-time standard of four World Professional Road Race Championship titles.

"Things are certainly different now," he says. "In my time, the top riders rode all the races. So there was big competition. It was not the case that you had only riders for the Classics and riders for the Tour de France. Perhaps only one, Lucien van Impe, was focusing solely on the Tour de France. But all the rest were doing the Classics, the Tours, everything. You had all the big guns at the start line, so it made it much, much harder to win."

In that light, the reverence with which Merckx is treated by fans and pro riders alike is not surprising. Armstrong's earned their respect but it's hard to imagine him being regarded with such awe in 30 years' time. No matter what he achieves in this year's Tour, even if he manages to further extend his record to seven wins, he won't equal what Merckx has done. Champions come and go. But there is only one Cannibal.