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Paris - Roubaix overview, tech and blunders.
🕑 Added 2023-04-09 16:23:56 +0000 UTCThis blog post may form the base of a new video regarding Paris - Roubaix and the bike tech (lack of).
I believe the brutality of the cobbled classic Paris - Roubaix, at least in the modern age, is only still relevant because of the bike tech, or lack thereof. That said, small iterations of tech and tyre pressure optimisations see race editions getting faster, year on year. This years race averaged 46.8kmh. At what point does this race just become a flat stage? Well, it will stay relevant because the bike industry naively ignores the fundamentals of vehicle dynamics and thinks it can solve everything with tyre pressure.
In what other performance vehicle do we use rigid truss structures and try to optimize rolling resistance, comfort, suspension, cornering and handling using tyre pressure alone? Literally none. Imagine telling Max Verstappen, “next year we can only adjust tyre pressure, because this black tarmac stuff looks pretty smooth on the whole…”
On that smooth tarmac, of which the cobbled classic Paris – Roubaix is 80%, lower tyre pressures are directly proportional to going slower. At 3.5 – 4.5 Bar, riders are losing up to 30W at 50kmh just to be able to survive the cobbled sections. And its worse than aero drag, it doesn’t go away in the draft. It is always present. Does this sound absurd yet? The irony is, if such a bike were to be developed so it was optimised for both conditions, the race would no longer be brutal, no longer The Hell of the North, it would just be a flat stage in France. Such a bike would also likely be overweight and overcomplicated for the rest season.
Anyway, rant over (nearly), let’s look at some of the tech highlights and blunders in the race.
1. Vittoria Corsa Pro. This unreleased pro-issue only tyre suffered many more punctures than the Conti TRs. The race was decided on this, with WVA clearly up for a ding-dong with VDP in the closing stage puncturing with around 15km to go. The race was decided on a puncture – this wouldn’t happen SO often if the bikes didn’t need to mitigate the suspension losses so much by dropping to such low pressures.
2. 15k Euro Bianchi superbike goes to noob bars and stem. From what I saw, all Arkea-Samsic riders were riding back-complaint issue flipped-up Alu stems and traditional round bars, due to the Bianchi bars snapping in rough conditions. What an absolute joke this industry is. Such an expensive bike with aero marketing drivel, must change its entire front end to mitigate the worry of snappages. Ridiculous!
3. MTB SPD pedals. Why are they not used? At least 2 riders (names TBC) were dropped from their perspective groups because after unclipping they struggled to clip back in on the bumpy cobbles. Looking down, trying to turn the pedal over whilst being rattled on your pelvis by Satan’s washing machine, they lost just enough seconds to be detached from their groups. And it was Au-Revoir for them with no A Bien Tot. A mtb SPD. Stamp on it, any side, and go. The race is flat, weight is not important.
4. Canyon finally admit the Aeroad seatpost design was f4cked, and they didn’t have the skill to make it work. For a few weeks now, VDP has been riding a re-worked Aeroad with a completely rigid seat clamp interface at the top tube. Gone is the deflection, the rubbing, the clicking and the erosion of the “simply supported beam” arrangement of the lower down clamp. They spent a lot of time in the marketing blurb praising the Aeroad for its highly compliant seatpost giving a lot more comfort. That’s gone now, so we are back to somewhere worse than the previous Aeroad that had a very comfy skinny seatpost. Yay, development.
5. On the fly tyre pressure adjustment. I am surprised these systems (used by DSM and Jumbo) were not more popular. They go a long way to fixing some of the tyre pressure compromises set out above, but at what drag cost of recharging the compressors? Apparently, the pump can be disengaged via a clutch from the wheel so there is zero-power loss when not recharging. If the road scene wasn’t so stuck in their ways when it comes to tech, I think a lot more riders would be using this and proving its worth.
6. Im sure there are more things I have forgot to mention from this race, let me know down below! On a tactical note, I think it was clever from Jumbo to attempt to decoy-bridge Laporte across to the WVA group. n my opinion it was never meant to work, but it absolutely killed the Peleton.
6. Im sure there are more things I have forgot to mention from this race, let me know down below! On a tactical note, I think it was clever from Jumbo to attempt to decoy-bridge Laporte across to the WVA group, in my opinion it was never meant to work, but it absolutely killed the Peleton.
n my opinion it was never meant to work, but it absolutely killed the Peleton.n my opinion it was never meant to work, but it absolutely killed the Peleton.
Comments
Yes you've hit the nail on the head. They won't make a bike just for Roubaix - to iron it out and take out the 'unlucky' element of puncturing or not. 2 years on the trot for WVA. If i was racing life and limb, I'd be pretty pissed off at that.
Very interesting optimization problem. If you save 30 W while riding in the bunch does it matter? What’s 30 W when you’re only doing 180 W? If your going to have suspension then it needs to be aero because if you end up alone like MvdP did going 45kph you don’t want any aero pentalty. Maybe the rise of flat gravel races will mean aero gravel bikes with suspension become more popular and then manufacturers can justify making a bike that is used for more than one race a year.
