News & Racing
Paris-Roubaix does not reward the best rider. It rewards the one the road breaks least.
Kristof Ramon and Gruber Images
There are bike races, and then there are days like Sunday.
The 123rd Paris-Roubaix ran 258 kilometres from Compiègne to the velodrome, dry and brutal, no breakaway, no relief, UAE pulling the peloton into the cobbles at a pace that made the early sectors feel like a Grand Tour lead-out.
The defending champion lost two minutes in the Arenberg forest. The world champion rode three different bikes and a neutral service machine that fit him like a rented suit. Filippo Ganna, who 10 days ago won Dwars door Vlaanderen and looked like one of the race’s genuine threats, punctured three times and crashed, every watt of his utterly extraordinary engine spent just trying to stay in the race rather than race it. Mads Pedersen, eight weeks removed from breaking his wrist and collarbone on opposite sides of his body, rode himself into the front group and out of it and still finished in the top 10. Remarkable, even before we get to Wout van Aert.
By the time Van Aert and Tadej Pogačar entered the velodrome together, they had each survived a day that had in some way broken everyone else, and had tried to break them too. When van Aert launched his sprint with 200 metres to go, Pogačar reacted and was not close. The crowd went up as one.
On the infield, Van Aert’s head dropped forward onto his handlebars. He stayed there, bent double, until he could straighten up again. His parents ran toward him.
You never stopped believing, the interviewer said. Van Aert corrected him. “I did, I did stop believing,” he said. “But then the next day I woke up and fought for it again.”
There is a rhythm to Roubaix, and it is the rhythm of Van Aert’s career. Fortunes rise, fortunes fall. The thing that matters is what you do in the moments between the two. On the cobbles on this Sunday in April, every rider lives a compressed version of the same story. Ups and downs, constantly. Van Aert has been living the extended edition for eight years. That it was Van Aert who won – specifically, exactly, this rider on this day – is a story that takes some telling.
Roubaix is democratic in its cruelty, breaking some small piece off every rider who starts it, refusing to be bowed by pure talent or even by skill. Sunday’s edition applied that pressure with enthusiasm.
Mathieu van der Poel arrived as defending champion, thrice. He finished the day just off the podium. The distance between the two (a chasm, in his eyes) can be explained primarily in the Arenberg Forest. Front flat, then rear. He reached for Jasper Philipsen’s bike, but couldn’t clip in through some combination of bad luck, bad planning, and incompatible setup.
Did these pedals cost Mathieu van der Poel his shot at victory in Paris-Roubaix?
A new pedal from Shimano on the perfectly wrong teammate’s bike might have contributed to the three-time winner’s failure to add a fourth-straight victory.
Tibor Del Grosso stepped up and played mechanic with a wheel swap. Then, still on the Arenberg cobbles, still in the forest, Van der Poel punctured again. By the time he emerged from the trees, he was two minutes down, leading a chase group that contained none of his strongest teammates.
He pulled that group anyway, picking up and shedding partners as he went. It grew and shrank, but no matter its size, Van der Poel rarely left the front. Sector after sector at full gas, towing riders who had little to offer, or no reason to offer it, in return. The gap fell, from two minutes to 90 seconds to 45 seconds. On pure watts he may have produced the most impressive ride of the day. It earned him fourth place, which felt like both an injustice and a testament.
Pogačar, too, punctured early. I was standing on Haveluy, about 10 minutes of racing before the Arenberg, and counted 12 seconds between him and the front group. He came through looking determined but not worried. Later, another mechanical. Two different team bikes, and briefly a neutral service machine. If he had won, would he have been the first to do so after riding one of the blue, ill-fitting Shimano neutral bikes? Possibly. Probably.
This post is for paying subscribers only
Subscribe now
Already have an account? Sign in
Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope
