Paris-Roubaix favourite Mathieu van der Poel avoids recon rides

PARIS – Paris-Roubaix is known as the “Hell of the North” for a reason – even the best professional cobbled classic specialists in the world find it bone-jarringly tough.

So tough, in fact, that they even try to avoid practising on the race’s notorious cobbled sections.

Reigning champion Mathieu van der Poel says that he trains on them once a year, relying mostly on his experience from other cobbled races to prepare him for the “Queen of the Classics”.

“During the race it’s fun, of course, but in training... I don’t think many professionals just go and train on cobbles,” the 31-year-old Dutchman said this week.

“We try to avoid bad roads, especially the cobbles – you stay away from them.”

Some of the cobbles are so big and the gaps between them so vast that it is almost akin to riding over thousands of kerbs.

The 258.3km race has 30 cobbled sections ranging in difficulty and in length – from just 300m to 3.7km.

In total, there will be 54.8km of cobbles in the April 12 race.

Pre-race favourite van der Poel, who has won the last three editions, has a remarkable record in cobbled classics.

He is aiming on April 12 to become only the third man to win Paris-Roubaix four times, achieved by Belgians Roger de Vlaeminck and Tom Boonen.

He is also a joint-record three-time winner of the Tour of Flanders, has won E3 Saxo Classic three times, Dwars door Vlaanderen twice and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad once.

As for what makes someone good at riding cobbles, van der Poel said: “I think it’s just a bit of a mix between power and just being able to handle a bike well.”

There is another competitor that everyone fears on April 12 – Tadej Pogacar.

The world champion is seeking to make history of his own.

Should he win, he would become only the fourth man to win all five fabled Monument classics – Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour of Lombardy.

He is on a run of winning four consecutive Monuments dating back to Roubaix in 2025, when he finished second to van der Poel on his debut.

If he wins on April 12, he would be odds-on to win all five Monuments in the same season – no one has yet won more than three.

“Last year I gave it a shot first time and I saw that I can go for the victory as well in that race,” Pogacar said last week.

The 27-year-old added that it was “one of the hardest” races “because it’s just so demanding on the body and you need to have “big, big endurance”.

He and his UAE Team Emirates XRG were out on the cobbles on April 9 for a reconnaissance ride.

Having ticked off Milan-San Remo in March – finally winning that race at the sixth attempt – Pogacar said that Roubaix remains the “toughest challenge of them all” for him, not least since he is much smaller than cobbled classics specialists such as van der Poel, meaning that every judder feels worse for him.

For once, he will not be the overwhelming favourite at a race – unlike last weekend in Flanders.

“I think you have a bit more favourites than in a Tour of Flanders,” said van der Poel.

“I said it before Flanders, because if you just look at the previous years that Pogacar was there, it was quite clear he was stronger than the rest.

“But I think – or at least I hope – in Roubaix it will be a bit of a different story.”

Paris-Roubaix is one of the most unpredictable races on the calendar, not least if it rains – which it might on April 12.

But even so, it is hard to look past van der Poel or Pogacar winning it, even with the likes of 2019 world champion Mads Pedersen of Denmark and Belgian stars Wout van Aert and Jasper Philipsen on the start line. AFP