Roubaix is such a unique race that the bunch is still in the process of learning how to race it I think. Like I said last week, Ronde has historically in the women's péloton had a more varied type of rider involved than on the men's side, because the shorter distance makes the climbs account for more of the race plus the fewer numbers of major climbing races means less specialisation and therefore you see people like Niewiadoma or Moolman-Pasio being threats in it in ways that their equivalent types would not be in the men's péloton. But in Roubaix, that's just not the case. Those riders (plus the likes of Uttrup and Vollering) tend to make their moves on the climbs, which is simply not an option in Roubaix. But there really aren't any established races on the calendar that could be used to give an idea of racing Roubaix the way there would be for almost any other possible race on the calendar. It's a large part of why Roubaix is so revered, in fact; it's totally unique.
Like, look at the other monuments on the men's calendar. There are literally dozens of flat to rolling one-day races that give a good chance of ending in a sprint like San Remo - it's uniqueness factor is created by the 300km length. Ronde uses the same roads as countless other classics, with the exception of the Koppenberg that is kept sacred. Elsewise, only its reputation and importance would separate it from E3, Omloop and other classics that use the same area. Liège? There are other races just like Liège, in fact it's the culmination of a week of them. And Lombardia? Well, perhaps a bit more different and its position in the autumn makes it a bit more standout, but there are other climbers' one-day races, besides there are stages of stage races that use those roads or have similar profiles. Roubaix is totally unique.
But the thing is, the men's bunch has been racing Roubaix for over a century. The women have raced it three times. They're still in the process of learning what riders are best suited to it, as the péloton is still in the process of developing specialisations due to the rapid development of the women's side of the sport in recent years. Here you had an interesting situation develop that we see in a lot of big one day races where the biggest defining factor was going to be who threw it away. The break was big enough that there were enough riders who thought they could hide their shirking their turns to be fresh for the sprint, but that entailed slowing down enough to let the bunch come back even after the crash; and then you had the bunch being close enough to the break to feel the catch was inevitable, but nobody wanted to jeopardise their final sprint by doing that last bit of work and they never actually made that sprint. Which is kind of like the group chasing Alaphilippe in Imola a couple of years ago.
It rather felt like the 2014 women's Ponferrada lead group, lacking momentum (only made up of riders for whom this could be a career day, rather than established superstars), but being chased by the 2014 men's Ponferrada lead group with too many hangers-on and nobody wanting to take the initiative. Thankfully, the run-in was a bit like a re-run of 2012 Milano-Sanremo but if Cancellara actually won this time; the one rider who showed the initiative to keep the break's chance of victory alive even if at cost to her own chances turned out to be the strongest anyway, leaving us with the most deserving rider being the one that won, no matter how unexpected it might have been that she be in that position.
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