Paris-Roubaix 2026, one day monument, April 12

[Unchained]

with this logic cycling is a sport for loosers

A bit of study, history of bike racing, it is a sport of losers by the numbers, majority of riders never win or go years in between results. That is the biggest mental crush of the competition. You win, win can't stop winning as a talented junior or elite amateur and you become pro, the best go to World Tour level and you never win again, all the praise and adulation comes to a sudden stop. People who do even a cursory investigation, see guys like Wout have 52 pro wins, rest of Visma with some exceptions have 0-4 wins over their career.
A looser would be more a descriptor of a good break dancer or drunk person at a night club.

 

[Extinction]

Exactly. Pogacar rode like an amateur and Wout was very smart. Cycling is not just about the legs so tactics play a role too and today Wout rode very well.

Well, to be fair, Pog didn't have much of a choice, not wanting MvdP to come back and with LePorte back there he had to pull.

 

[Rackham]

Van Aert's best wins until today were all his TdF stage wins (and yes I place them over MSR 2020 due to the particularity of that edition back then).

But this is absolutely his best result ever. And it's the icing on his career cake.

 

[SorelyBoy]

I don't think Pog was acting when he was stretching his back. At first, I did, but he was doing it while Wout was on the front, not looking, at least 3 times.

Yeah, but he knew the camera was on him and that the team cars have live feed. The general rule is that if you’re suffering you hide it. So it’s possible he was trying to give a false impression as just after he launched an attack on the last big cobbled section. I doubt Wout or his team paid any attention to it either way.

 

[Red Rick]

Van Aert's best wins until today were all his TdF stage wins (and yes I place them over MSR 2020 due to the particularity of that edition back then).

But this is absolutely his best result ever. And it's the icing on his career cake.

2020 Sanremo should be rated higher cause it was over 300km

 

[Libertine Seguros]

will both van Dijkes get disqualified now?

This happened in biathlon several years ago, two of the Russians took each others' bibs by mistake in an IBU Cup race and were disqualified afterward. One of them was Petr Pashchenko, I can't remember who the other one was.

 

[canina82]

I agree, but remember Wout suffered two punctures himself and at one stage was nearly half a minute down on Pogacar. He’s also been in previous editions of this race where he was the strongest and suffered terrible luck. He deserves his flowers for this win. He rode a brilliant race and his win is totally deserved.

He was 25" behind and somehow was lucky Bora helped him.

 

[Unchained]

MVDP was by far the strongest today and Pogacar second. But bad luck

Many in top @20 did bike changes..

 

[SorelyBoy]

2020 Sanremo should be rated higher cause it was over 300km

Meh. PR is just insane. No big climbs but the terrain is ridiculous. If it was a horse race they’d have you up on animal cruelty charges.

 

[Oldman]

Wout and Ted's Most Excellent Adventure! The last 20 km was a measure of ever-diminishing fuel in the tank of both riders. Some will criticize Wout for sitting on in sections that favored Tadej but his #1 job is to stay in the fight. He took turns when he could and his team car could definitely notice that Tadej needed to get out of the saddle to recover every time he took Wout's wheel in the last 10km. That boded well for Wout's sprint and, if they gave and he needed advice it would be: make Tadej lead in the low lane on the track. Tadej's track strategy was losing from the second they rolled in...Wout kicked from the higher bank in a smaller, quicker gear. The gap he got was unbridgeable by Tadej; particularly grinding that big gear. In fairness; that was the maximum rpm Tadej could turn at that point. He may play that in his head for many nights after viewing the video.
Real hero, though: RBH medical staff in Austria that put Wout back together without him losing much form. They worked wonders with Lindsey Vonn to get her Olympic ready, too.

 

[KoopaCycling]

Many in top @20 did bike changes..

Yeah but probably not many had as big a farce as MVDP bike change.

 

[tobydawq]

How major does it need to be? The man has 14 Grand Tour stages, 2 Monuments (including today) and at least 5 other Classics to his name.

And with all of his 2nds and 3rds, we have just had so many races with different rotations of the same small handful of riders that it's possible to be both bored as sin of seeing those same teams and riders there, while simultaneously happy for the guy that won because it's a race he ought to have already had on his palmarès and therefore the most palatable of the "SSDD" candidates.

Van Vleuten also won every time she put on a number, yet there was no limit to how much you appreciated that.

 

[SorelyBoy]

He was 25" behind and somehow was lucky Bora helped him.

Thanks for agreeing with me.

 

[Red Rick]

Wout and Ted's Most Excellent Adventure! The last 20 km was a measure of ever-diminishing fuel in the tank of both riders. Some will criticize Wout for sitting on in sections that favored Tadej but his #1 job is to stay in the fight. He took turns when he could and his team car could definitely notice that Tadej needed to get out of the saddle to recover every time he took Wout's wheel in the last 10km. That boded well for Wout's sprint and, if they gave and he needed advice it would be: make Tadej lead in the low lane on the track. Tadej's track strategy was losing from the second they rolled in...Wout kicked from the higher bank in a smaller, quicker gear. The gap he got was unbridgeable by Tadej; particularly grinding that big gear. In fairness; that was the maximum rpm Tadej could turn at that point. He may play that in his head for many nights after viewing the video.
Real hero, though: RBH medical staff in Austria that put Wout back together without him losing much form. They worked wonders with Lindsey Vonn to get her Olympic ready, too.

The canary in the coal mine for Pogacar being gassed was when he tried to attack on Carrefour and gained only 3 seconds on the chasing group

 

[Sciatic]

I posted earlier, but such class by Mathieu to congratulate Wout. I believe he was the first rider there to congratulate him.

That was great to see—respect.

 

[Oldman]

The canary in the coal mine for Pogacar being gassed was when he tried to attack on Carrefour and gained only 3 seconds on the chasing group

and Wout had to start sitting on to stay in.

 

[dobrien]

Our species does not have words adequate to convey my joy in Wout Van Aert winning this bike race. For me it is just so career defining for him, such a massive monkey off his back, and done in the finest way, slaying Godzilla in the arena mano a mano. Definitely teary-eyed with this one.

What. A. Race.

 

[Danskebjerge]

We're not seeing many cases of a leading group being caught in the last 10-15 kilometers (at least in the big races). A shame. It used to be one of the characteristics of cycling, and as a viewer, you knew that the suspense would increase towards the end.

Now, the motorbikes keep the speed up and reduce factors like the wind and the drag. It's not that costly to be sitting out in front.

I know some say the motorbikes have always been there, sure - but the races are also different these years. The top 5 riders are much stronger than the second best. They don't need help to be dominating.

It would be great if there was more focus on removing the mentioned external factors. We have great ways of filming the riders nowadays, with drones supplementing the helicopters well. The front view shots from motorbikes are no longer as important to the understanding of the races. I also doubt that the world really needs dozens of still photographers on the road in a race.

In any case, fairness should be prioritised above media access. My suggestion is introducing a 3 second rule as the default minimum distance between motorbikes and riders.

(And yes, I was happy to see Van Aert take the win today instead of the usual suspect, but it doesn't change my view on the tendency.)

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Van Vleuten also won every time she put on a number, yet there was no limit to how much you appreciated that.

To be honest I got pretty fed up of that too, but I got more fed up of the constant dismissing of women's cycling as a whole because of her dominance, admittedly I would therefore defend her to the hilt against that.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Conditions were absolutely perfect today, tailwind and very dry cobbles, 139 finishers inside the time limit and Alastair Mackellar outside the cut, few crashes as well

 

[Berniece]

What a beautiful race with an amazing winner. The irony of one of the most unlucky riders finally winning a cobbled monument by defeating one of the luckiest riders alive makes it even better.

 

[canina82]

I didn't see a thread this long since Froome decided to run on Ventoux

 

[onefortheroad]

Van Aert's best wins until today were all his TdF stage wins (and yes I place them over MSR 2020 due to the particularity of that edition back then).

But this is absolutely his best result ever. And it's the icing on his career cake.

What a spectacular epic!
To endure it all so stoically, dragging Pogi all the way to the velodrome to crush him in the sprint...pure bliss!

Watching WVA look back, crossing the line with his arm high and finger to the sky, while Pogi sat there prostrated, tasting the bitterness of yet another failed attempt at the five monuments. PR was the one he wanted most, obsession. But once again, he fall short. Beautiful!

For WVA, every bit of bad luck, every past mistake, every run of misfortune and heartbreaking defeat has been repaid in full with this victory of a lifetime.
I honestly didn't expect this win from him (I was dying for it to be MVDP's fourth in a row) especially after MVDP's punctures. It was still fantastic to see how, even "dead", MVDP almost made it back to fight for the win.

 

[Sciatic]

It’s was so nice to see and typical of Mathieu. The respect he and Wout have for each other is immense.

Whether they like each other or not, MVDP knows better than anyone what an an achievement this was for Van Aert and how much it meant to him.

 

[meat puppet]

Yeah, maybe I should have watched this. Oh well.

Dunno which is better, Wva winning or pogi losing, but the combination is golden (per k-pop demon hunters).