Paris-Roubaix Results; Continuing Danger from Roadside Fans; Tariffs Begin to Cast a Cloud Over the Industry; Sea Otter; Maryland Classic Announces 2025 Teams ...
Key Takeaways:
● MvdP Dominates for Roubaix Win#3 …
● Pogačar Also Impressive in Second Place
● And Ferrand-Prévot Triumphantly Returns
● A Dark Cloud Forms Over the Bicycle Industry
● Maryland Cycling Classic Announces 2025 Teams
Across the famous cobblestones of northern France on Sunday, Mathieu van der Poel’s blistering pace and incessant attacks pared down and ultimately dispatched the elite front group, allowing him to win his third consecutive Paris-Roubaix. The race produced a dramatic showdown between two of the sport’s all-time greats, Van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar, and was ultimately decided when Pogačar overcooked a corner on a cobbled sector and ended up in a roadside ditch – losing precious seconds which he was never able to make up. Pogačar showed that perhaps he is (almost) human after all, though he still finished a strong second – despite this being his first attempt at Roubaix. The outcome underlined again the extent to which men’s cycling is being dominated by these two, despite the presence of other super-talents like Mads Pedersen and Wout van Aert. It seemed just a hot minute ago there was a “Big Six” (Primož Roglič, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, and Wout van Aert in addition to Pogačar and Van der Poel), but that has now essentially distilled down to these two: in the last ten WorldTour one-day races Van der Poel and Pogačar have finished together, seven have landed in their palmares. And as we have pointed out regularly, even though Pogačar has been on a Merckxian-level run, Van der Poel is right there with him, with five wins spread across just his last eight Monument starts, and closing in on the all-time win records at races like Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders at a faster clip than anyone in the history of the sport.
Van der Poel’s impressive solo victory could have come close to falling apart when a spectator threw a full water bottle at him, hitting him directly in the face as he held a slim gap over the hard-chasing Pogačar. The incident could have easily cost Van der Poel the race or seriously injured him, once again highlighting how vulnerable professional riders are while out on course, mere inches from fans, for hours on end. However, the vast and open course lengths offer no easy ways to improve protection – other than over-advertising to fans that this behavior is unacceptable by prosecuting and making examples of violent perpetrators. Van der Poel has been the target of several acts of harassment, having had beer thrown at him during races on the road and in cyclocross, and most recently a spectator spat at him on his way to victory in the E3 Saxo Classic. He had a cap tossed into his front wheel while he was soloing to the win at last year’s edition of Roubaix - meaning that twice in two years the eventual winner was nearly taken out by an unruly spectator.
In the very recent past, it would have been unthinkable for a serial grand tour winner like Pogačar to show up and be a dominant force in a race like Paris-Roubaix – putting the established classics and one-day riders on their back foot and on their own turf, no less. The primary reason for Pogačar’s success (as we’ve stated before) is the statistical shift to long-distance breakaways and solo winners. Pogačar’s team has the ability to make the race as hard as possible to set up his knockout attacks, usually on a strategic climb that favors riders of his smaller build. Equipment changes like wider tires with lower pressures provide riders like him (and many in the women’s peloton) with a smoother ride over the cobblestones, which reduces the traditional advantage held by heavier, more powerful riders. Finally, the transition to relentless line-to-line all-out racing among all the top teams makes the outcomes so selective that only the strongest rider with the best watts per kilogram ratio can contend for victory. Van der Poel’s Roubaix #3 may have at least been partially decided by luck and skill but, at least for the men, top-end finishing sprint speed, typically generated by raw power and size, isn’t nearly as important as it was for the classics just a few short years ago and it probably won’t be again until Pogačar retires.
While Pogačar and Van Der Poel punched it out over the cobbled classics, the entirety of the women’s peloton punched above its weight to deliver two of the best races of the season thus far. Last weekend, Lotte Kopecky (SDWorx-Protime) joined the race-defining break over the Oude Kwaremont and used her expected sprinting superiority to lead out and earn her third Ronde van Vlaanderen victory. The reigning world champion beat Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon), Lianne Lippert (Movistar) and the recently-returned-to-road racing, former 2014 road world champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-LAB). Statistically, Kopecky’s Ronde win was never in doubt due to the breakaway’s composition, but the same could be said for Ferrand-Prévot’s dominant solo win this Saturday at the women’s Paris-Roubaix. The Visma rider proved she is still among the best in every cycling discipline by recovering from a late race crash, using her superlative cyclocross/mountain bike/gravel bike handling skills to get back to the front, and chase down Emma Norsgaard (Lidl-Trek) to launch her winning move. The French star’s popular win was a triumphant return to the top of the road racing world and has immediately upended the sport’s upper echelon: many thought Anna van der Breggen’s return would shake things up, but Ferrand-Prévot might be the brilliant wildcard.
From a distance, this year’s Sea Otter Classic week of bike races and industry gatherings looked like business as usual; there were tens of thousands of attendees, all sorts of bike races from road to gravel to MTB to BMX, hundreds of booths and displays from bike and outdoor brands and many community events. Upon closer inspection, however, there was a black cloud visible over the entire bike industry gathered at the event – the on again-off again trade tariffs that have targeted international manufacturing. Most of the biggest bike brands in the world rely on production lines in China, Vietnam and Cambodia. For dozens of leaders of bike brands large and small, there was universal frustration not just with the tariffs but the haphazard and random manner in which they’re taking effect. Although the bicycle industry is hardly different from most of the rest of American industry, one challenge is that it’s very difficult to plan for 2026 and beyond until there is a little more certainty about the international trade landscape. With customer confidence going over a cliff and product pricing on the way up due to tariffs, executives are uncertain what demand will look like in the years ahead.
Some brands are trying to delay receiving new stock to avoid the exorbitant duties and harm to their cash flow, but other brands have indicated they could become casualties. Showers Pass, one of the most popular and respected rain gear brands based in the U.S. but with an aforementioned Chinese fabric supplier and finisher, neatly encapsulated the rock and hard place: too expensive to pay the import tariffs and pass the 100% or more price increase to their consumers, but unable to re-home the manufacturing continuity back to the U.S. due to the expensive multi-year ramp-up necessary for the capability. There may be more cautionary tales like this soon, given that bicycles don’t have the same priority as high-demand electronics imports. Bluntly speaking, three years into one of its three worst historic recessions, and the cycling industry is potentially about to get worse with layoffs and tighter budgets, and the certainty of negative consequences for sponsorship of cycling teams and bike races. While it’s too early to understand exactly where all of this is headed, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where bike racing teams and events are healthier in 2026. We’ll continue to analyze the potential recovery paths as the trade war evolves.
The first event of the Grand Prix gravel series took place on Thursday at the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey. While the men’s race was won by Keegan Swenson, and the women’s winner was Olympic Games MTB silver medalist Hayley Batten. Most of the competitors were very positive about the race, which is new to the Grand Prix. In addition, many pro athletes commented that the speed and fitness on display were impressive for an early season event. As is happening in European road racing, people seem to show up to the first races fitter and fitter each successive season. “Racing your way into shape” is no longer a viable competitive strategy, and in any cycling discipline in 2025 – road, MTB, gravel – the fitness levels are exceptional, the fields are deep and the racing is very fast from the gun. The next event in the series is Unbound Gravel, the world’s most important gravel race.
The Maryland Cycling Classic, America’s highest ranking UCI race, announced that at least three WorldTour teams will take part in the event later this year. Lidl-Trek, EF Education-EasyPost and Jayco-AlUla have confirmed for the event, along with several lower-tier teams. This relatively new event was cancelled in both 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID pandemic, ran in 2023 and 2024, and then was cancelled again last year as a result of the Baltimore harbor bridge collapse disrupting the city’s ability to host the event. The event will feature both a men’s and a women’s race for the first time this year, and race organizers said they were negotiating with additional top-level teams to participate as well. The one-day race will be held in Baltimore on September 6 and we look forward to this bright moment – a pro men’s and women’s race with WT-level stars on U.S. roads.