Weekend Preview: Paris-Roubaix

Taking a look at a few past trends from the 'Hell of the North' in an attempt to make sense of who could emerge victorious over the infamous pavé

After the Itzulia Basque Country wraps up on Saturday, all eyes will turn to Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix, the one-day Monument over the treacherous cobblestones (pavé) of Northern France and one of the oldest and most spectacular races on the calendar. The race is a must-watch event—even for those outside the pro cycling niche (Paris-Roubaix for dummies)—and with it finally upon us, it’s time to sit back and take stock of the course, contenders, and keys to the race.

2025 Course Overview

Route Profile (grey sections are cobblestone sectors)

Route Map

Need-to-Know Course Info
The presence of the Napoleonic cobbled roads has meant that in the past, the race was one for the big, burly cobbled specialists. However, in recent years, the specialist trend has faded at Roubaix and now simply favors an incredibly strong rider. This mirrors the ‘merge’ trend we’ve seen across the sport and suggests that if Tadej Pogačar were racing, he would probably be considered the favorite to win.

• Even though the course features almost no hills, it is sure to strip down the peloton and produce a small group to contest the win on the boards of the Roubaix Velodrome. The race is so selective that there hasn’t been a group of 10 or more riders contesting the win since 1967.

• Predicting Paris-Roubaix is always difficult. While the strongest rider almost always wins Flanders, Roubaix can serve up wildcard winners like Johan Vansummeren in 2011 and Matt Hayman in 2016.

• One wrinkle added to the 2025 course is that instead of running straight into the brutal Arenberg Forest (the toughest sector of cobblestones in the race) at close to 60km/hr with roughly 100 kilometers remaining in the race, or navigating the awkward chicane added for 2024 in an attempt to force the peloton to scrub speed, the organizers are re-routing the race off the main road, onto a side street, and back onto the main road directly prior to the entry to Arenberg.

  

  • While this may succeed in reducing crashes on the cobblestones, the compression effect of the slowdown and then increased speed at a critical section of the race will likely cause massive splits in the peloton just before a taxing section of the course, potentially even creating the winning move, especially when we consider that the road section on the other side of the sector is always a key section of the race.

    • A major positive of this change is that a split caused by a severe speed differential compression is still somewhat merit-based (the riders who enter the chicane at the front are rewarded), and it means there is a greater chance of the top contenders fighting it out inside the final 100 kilometers, versus the lottery of the old Arenberg entry where luck decided if your bike/wheel/tires exploded upon hitting the cobblestones at such a high speed.

Three Keys to Paris-Roubaix

While this can make predictions difficult, there is a common thread among most Roubaix winners:

1) Raw Power Rules the Day: Throughout the vast majority of the professional cycling calendar, lighter riders hold an inherent advantage because the forces of gravity affect them less on climbs than their heavier counterparts (which means they don’t have to generate as many watts to produce the same climbing speed).

• However, at Roubaix, due to the unusually flat parcours and rough cobblestones, raw power is more important than the usual all-important power-to-weight ratio. Thus, smaller riders will have trouble holding the wheel of powerhouses like Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel, Filippo Ganna, and Nils Politt, who can produce 500 watts for consecutive minutes as needed over multiple rough cobbled sections.

  • Due to this tilt toward raw power over watts per kilogram, since 1960, winners' average height and weight have been far higher than those of any other world race.

2) Success at Paris-Roubaix is Heavily Linked with Success at Flanders: In seven out of the last 13 times between 2024-2010 that both Paris-Roubaix and Flanders were contested in the spring (excluding the cancellation in 2020 & the re-scheduled edition in 2021), the winner of Roubaix podiumed the week prior at Flanders. And on four occasions, the Flanders winner would go on to win at Roubaix.

• This strong correlation shows that while the two events are actually quite different, with Flanders requiring far more climbing ability, being on good enough form to podium at a race as hard as Flanders means a rider stands a very good chance of winning at the much flatter and faster Paris-Roubaix.

3) Roubaix is the Last Remaining One-Day Race Fighting the Advance of the Solo Win Movement: At least relative to the other WorldTour one-day races, recent editions of Paris-Roubaix have seen a surprising lack of recent solo winners.

• Since 2013, there have only been four solo winners (Niki Terpstra 2014, Dylan van Baarle 2022, Mathieu van der Poel 2023 and 2024).

  • The fact that solo riders have won the last three editions could mean that Roubaix has also succumbed to the solo relovution, but, the more extensive data set from the previous decade suggests there is a very good chance a rider needs to be strong enough to power through insanely difficult sectors of cobblestones in the lead group, tactically aware enough not to miss the winning move on the ensuing pavement sections, and quick enough to win a sprint finish on the velodrome.

Who Will Win & Where to Watch

With the two-time defending champion, Van der Poel, lining up against the reigning Tour, World, and Flanders champion, Tadej Pogačar, along with a phalanx of absurdly talented and fit riders suited to the flat, fast, and technical course, like Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen, Filippo Ganna, this is without a doubt one of the most star-studded editions of Paris-Roubaix we’ve had in recent memory. It is incredibly rare to have all of the top riders who could realistically contest the win present, and the fact that we have so many top riders coming into the race relatively healthy will make it harder than ever for one to come away as the winner.