Mathieu van der Poel and the issue dividing the peloton at Paris-Roubaix
It remains cycling’s great adventure in self-flagellation, a race so outlandish that, were it proposed now, would surely not pass muster. This weekend, the hardiest men and women in the peloton will hurl themselves through the northern French countryside, making the annual pilgrimage over the pockmarked, perverted pavé to the holy velodrome of Roubaix.
One’s fate in the “Hell of the North” is at the whim of Beelzebub below. A rider’s season can be ended in a twist of tyres, tossed aside by an upturned cobble or a clump of mud. Only the fittest and most fortunate will make it to the finishing circuit.
