Mathieu van der Poel suffers double mechanical in Forest of Arenberg, forced to walk back against traffic after pedal issues

A puncture forced Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) off and running along the decisive Trouée d’Arenberg with 94km to go, while his rivals Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) and World Champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) left him behind at Paris-Roubaix.

Van der Poel appeared to puncture along the gnarly cobblestone sector and quickly dismounted his bike at the side of the road. His teammate Jasper Philipsen offered his own bike, but Van der Poel couldn’t seem to clip into the pedals.

Philipsen ran alongside Van der Poel, pushing his teammate while the Dutchman struggled to clip in to the pedals, before he ultimately dismounted and handed the bike back to Philipsen.

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Meanwhile, Tibor del Grosso, who was in a following group, pulled over to the side of the road and calmly swapped his front wheel into Van der Poel’s now-abandoned bike.

In the process, with an air of composure, Van der Poel walked back against the flow of traffic, to get to his own bike.

With a new front wheel, Van der Poel got going again, but had lost valuable time to the front group.

Luck not on his side for this Paris-Roubaix, Van der Poel was forced to stop a second time with 91km to go, still on the Arenberg, with a second puncture. Now, over two minutes behind, it appeared his race was over.

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Van der Poel ultimately got back up and running again and settled into a third group on the road, 2:11 behind the lead group led by Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).

With Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) in the group with Van der Poel, the small chase group pushed on, and by the time they reached 55km to go, they were just 25 seconds behind Pogačar’s and Van Aert’s lead group, and back in the race.

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