Roman, this is a really cool interview. I got to sit down with Ben Oliver from Modern Adventure Pro Cycling. He's just back from Paris-Roubaix and we dive in and we talk exactly about tires he used, what power it takes to get through the cobble sectors, the chaos of the fight into the cobble sectors, what it's like to be around Pogacar, how much better Van der Poel and Wout are around corners. If you love the Roubaix, you're going to love this unique insight. Ben, welcome to the Roman podcast. Thanks for having me. Uh Roubaix, Roubaix, Roubaix, it's all anyone can talk about this week. You're going to help us break down what it's actually like to be inside I think it's safe to say the best one-day race on the calendar. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Yeah, it's quite the experience. What's it like from inside versus outside? Is it like the fans, the chaos before the start? Do you have to tune that out or are you still like kid going, "Oh my god, I'm at Roubaix, I'm at Roubaix." Uh it's weird. I guess I'm a somewhat new to road cycling in my career path, but also in somewhat like it's as big as you think it's going to be, but it's still pretty relaxed at the start. There's people cheering, but you've got to keep through the neutral and then uh then they say go, but definitely when you get to the sectors when you're road racing isn't the easiest thing to spectate and then when you have spectators lining the road 160k out from the finish, you're like, "These guys are passionate." And yeah, half the time you're avoiding riders and avoiding spectators, so yeah, it's pretty pretty insane once you're out there. What's the It's one of the most contested early breakaways of the season and I think for good reason because it's historically, you know, we all remember Ma Hamer, but it's historically a break that if you are in the break you actually do have a chance of going quite deep into the race. Now, it didn't really pan out that way, but there still must have been a chaotic fight to try and get in the break. Yeah, I think the first hour and a half even 2 hours was pretty crazy and it was I mean everyone probably every team wanted someone in the break probably, but our team almost more than the or more than most because yeah, first year doing it and we kind of knew the chance of getting someone up the road they could get quite deep into the race and even going in as one of the team leaders, it was like I was still kind of look at keeping an eye out for it as well, so we certainly know sitting at an elite level and along for the first hour and a half, so followed a few moves, but you could tell pretty early on that nothing was going to get a substantial lead heading into the cobble sectors. And why was that? Was the race was just so fast with the tailwind or was our team controlling it? Uh it was just messy. I think like no one was ever happy with the groups that got away and everyone was motivated to get up the road and no teams wanted to give them much room room up there, so yeah, and I think it was just because it was so fast that yeah, I don't know what our average speed was for the first hour and a half, maybe like 54k an hour or something crazy, so it's like good luck trying to get up the road cuz the road never got blocked and the roads are quite wide to start with, so there's no there's no area that a team can sit on the front and block it, so it's just non-stop attacking. Yeah, and like when the speed is that high, I think we can talk and we're going to jump into some of your power figures later, but you can talk about power all day long. But bikes don't just go that fast, you know, like if the bunch is doing 54k an hour, you can't just ride away at 64 average like but we don't go that fast on bikes. No, even if you've got a motivated eight guys, like what can you do if the peloton doesn't sit up? They just don't sit up, so yeah, a lot of the riders in our team had a good good go at it and I think the most you ever get is like eight seconds and then it would just come back together, so yeah, there wasn't much luck out there. And what's that doing what's that doing to the legs of the boys who are going in those moves? Are they Are you able to recover in such a big bunch early on or is that your day over when you follow those early moves? I think the sacrificial lamb old Shawn, he attacked off the bumper and I think he regretted that pretty quickly. But you just never know unless you try, so yeah, cuz the benefit is we were all somewhat trying to get in the break, so you could share the load a bit.
I haven't looked too much exactly what the cobbles are, but not as it feels like you're doing a lot of power on the cobbles, but honestly, most of the time it's like say 600 watts for 20-30 seconds at the start of them or even more and then you you start to once your momentum's up, you can kind of hold it fairly good. At least there's like a little gradient in it, which as soon as the cobbles go slightly uphill, there's no free pedaling, but quite often you could even coast a little bit if you're like right on the wheel and in the draft, so it's real punchy. You'll be doing a lot of power then not much power and then if you have to step on out of a corner, then it gets hard. And like I suppose the some of the new analytics features in TrainingPeaks are getting really easy to break this down, so it'd be it'd be really interesting to see like how many of those efforts that how many efforts you actually had to put out over 600 watts for, you know, I guess anything over 20 seconds at 600 watts starts to get pretty significant in terms of reservoirs later in the race. Yeah, yeah, it is definitely some good tools on there and I'll leave that up to the coach more so than myself. Sometimes just play around just for fun, but I think for sure the the longest amount of time I spent in any range was like from 475 and above was 50 minutes. So any Yeah, 50. 50? Over 470? Over 475 to 650 or something, so even probably more if you count over 650. So, it's just What? Maybe you do 600 for 20 seconds and then you only do 300 for 40, but then you just keep doing that cuz you then you'll step out, try to pass someone, jump back in, sit on the wheel a wee bit. So, it's quite surprising when you get to the end of the race like you've never been on the pedals for consistently hard for a long period of time, but none of the other zones even came close. I think the next highest number was like 28 minutes at like tempo. Yeah. And so, what when you're looking back at the race and maybe you're going into it next year, hopefully you guys get an invite again next year. Like you had a super ride this year. Were you 30th 30-something? Like which is unbelievable. I ended up in a pretty good group. The guy that won my group was 27th, but I ended up we had like a 30-man group and I think I was 47th across the line. And then I was somewhat happy with the ride, but also wish I did better as well. No, look, that's a really good ride, mate. Like I was chatting to George. I think I'll be the week before two days before. And you could just It was almost what he wasn't saying. He was so nervous about you guys going in there. Because he was saying he was almost going to turn the invite down because he just didn't feel like he was ready. And then he's like, "Oh, who am I to steal this opportunity from these lads to go and do Roubaix?" So, like he must be so proud of that ride you put in. Yeah, yeah. He was pretty He was pretty stoked, happy with the whole team to get five finishers out of the team in the first year and only one of the riders Riley had ever done Roubaix before. And then yeah, having George in the car giving you instructions all day was pretty epic, but yeah, there's had a few dramas out there. Everyone kind of does, so if yeah, I don't think anyone ever has a perfect Roubaix, but you just wonder what could have happened if you did. But yeah, there's definitely It was a roller coaster of a day where you was chasing on early after a flat on the road and then dropped a chain on one of the cobble sectors when I finally made it to the front, chased back on and then even after the Arenberg, I was kind of fighting for a top 25 top 20 placing. And then probably nursed the last 35 K with pretty low pressure in the tires, so instead of kind of racing, you're kind of nursing your bike home. Which isn't the best feeling when you're trying to chase a result, but got to the velodrome. But I remember having my homie on the podcast and he said Roubaix is unique because you just need to keep riding. Because everyone's going to have mechanicals. So, you could feel like you're out of the race and you just keep riding and you come back into the race. And you could feel like you're in a dominant position. Next minute, people you didn't think were in the race are back in the race. He said, "It's just you have to keep riding through Roubaix." Do you think that's a fair tactical assessment? Yeah, that pretty much summed up my day as well. Like I said, kind of a roller coaster where you're off the back, you think your race is done.
You catch up to like the second group on the road. Next sector it splits and your group is like catching the guys in front and then all of a sudden like the top guys get a issue and then they just like motor past you with 10 people on their wheel. And then you either choose to try to stay with them or they just go on before you even have made a decision, so yeah, there was a a lot of backwards and forwards between groups and then the later you got in it like people were getting popped off the back of the group if they were getting tired or had issues and then you'd get a extra bit of motivation when you see a group in front of you and you're like, "There's only 20 seconds and that's another 15 places you could make up." Yeah. What was the hardest sector? The hardest sector? Arenberg interestingly was actually one of the easier sectors cuz that was when a Shimano car and another team car were parked up in the middle and just creating a bit of a blockage, so I think I went in there like fifth wheel in my group, maybe the second or third group on the road. And it was a snail's pace through there. We had to get or go on the grass around the cars. And then once you lose your momentum, no one really wanted to pick it back up again. But yeah, later in the race, Carrefour's yeah, I mean how twisty it is and that late in the race to have a hard sectors for sure. Hard on the legs, but any sector that had a slight rise in it where you don't get any pedaling for free. The second half of Carrefour is quite draggy, isn't it? Yeah, there's a few moments in there where you lose all your speed in the corner and you have to pick it back up and there wasn't much wind at all on the day, but even the littlest bit of crosswind doesn't give you a free ride on the wheel, so you had to try and be pretty careful where you place yourself in the group. What do the cobbles actually look If you went to a building site and brick layers built his truck and then you put a bit of dirt in between them and just rode over them. They're pretty They're pretty gnarly like yeah, I knew You hear stories about I actually managed to ride a couple of the sectors last year when I just happened to be close by over in Belgium, but and um yeah, it is insane that any road bike would ever make it over there and I don't know how they did it back in the day with the equipment they had. Excuse the brief folks. This episode is brought to you by Bikmo cycle insurance. That's right. The folks who make sure your ridiculously expensive hobby doesn't bankrupt you if things go sideways. Let's be real. Your bike is probably worth more than your sofa, maybe even more than your car if we're totally honest. And if it gets nicked, dented, or accidentally reversed over, it's only money. That phrase is just not going to cut it. So, enter Bikmo. Bikmo protects you and your bike. And yes, your borderline obsessive attachment to it from theft, accidental damage, race day disasters, and even baggage claim shenanigans. Your helmet, GPS, and other kit, they're all covered, too. And if you've got more than one bike, of course you do, you get 50% off each extra bike on the same policy. Covered, replaced, back riding. So, whether you're smashing sprints, you're grinding climbs, or you're just enjoying a Saturday spin with the lads, ride safe. Bikmo's got your back. Protect your ride before it's too late. Head to bikmo.com and get covered. That's policies, cancel anytime, check the terms in your policy docs. Does it help if you're going faster? Like this is at least a meter trying to tell myself in my head like if I ride them, I'm like, "Oh, they're hard." But I tell you at race pace, they're a lot easier. Like Is that true? Is there any truth to that? Yeah, definitely. It's like the faster you go, the smoother it feels and the faster it's over to be fair, so honest The recon we did was like maybe the hardest day we did. Cuz you're going over this over it and you're like, "I don't know how we're going to survive 30 sectors at a race day." But once you once you get in the rhythm of the race and time just absolutely flow. There's always something to think about and you just take the sectors off one by one and yeah, once you get to the next one, you focus on or once you get through one, you focus on the next one, so yeah, definitely it takes a toll on your body, but just in a race environment, you manage to do it. I don't think you'd want to sign up to a stage race with cobble sectors, but one day race. get how people want to go and do like a sportive on that.
Like that just looks miserable, that. No, that would be that would be brutal, but the speed that we hit them they're slightly more comfortable if you can say that. What hurts the most when you're on them? Because I seen pictures from the women's race from Maggie Coles Lester's hands after it. Just absolutely cut to pieces. Yeah, definitely just like really your wrist. My hands didn't get a blister or anything, but it's kind of just like shaking of the wrist and then you had a few like hard divots in the in the cobbles where they're missing or there's like a pothole. And then your whole body just gets shaken shaken to pieces, so it gets hard to put the power out. Your feet get a bit sore and your ass definitely. Do you have any weird hacks? Like I know some of the EF guys were putting Vaseline on under their gloves and then putting the gloves on over it. No, nothing too special. Just double wrapped the bar tape and then wore some like the equal leather gloves that we had, which is kind of just It actually worked really well. A few of the other boys did that, too. Just so you're a bit more supported and it seemed to yeah, take up some of the vibrations a bit and then yeah, just the bikes we had are so tuned for the cobbles that like inserts in the tires and all that stuff. Like if you rode a normal road bike over it with no no inserts and harder pressures, it'd be way worse off. So, what was the tire pressure insert combo you guys were on? I think we were running for me like 46 and 48 PSI. So crazy. And then yeah, at the end of the race like 20 when I was nursing it up. So, yeah, you definitely What What were tires and what brand tires were you on? I was on the Michelins. They're making some new tires for our team, so few prototype options and yeah, so 32s with inserts and without inserts, there's no way you could run that lower pressures. Yeah. So, they yeah, it's pretty crazy what you can hit and get through. Like there's obviously still a lot of punches out there, but it would be a rough time with like 60 PSI on your tires. But look, what's going on with the punctures? I've never seen a Roubaix with that like the text better than ever. I've never seen Roubaix with that many punctures. I think it still is it's fast to have that low pressure, but I think it's still fairly risky for punctures. Like if you put 60 PSI on your tires, you're probably not going to puncture as much. Just like the risk of burping or losing a bit of pressure and hitting your rim and like if the if you like slice your tire on a rock or something, you're probably not going to do that as much with more pressure, but to get through the whole race, you have to take a bit of a risk and run at a lower pressure. I'm just Everybody doing It seems like anyone I talked to was kind of sub 50 PSI. Yeah. Is that feeling everyone was that low? Yeah, I can't imagine anyone having too much more than that. Depending on like what tires and brand and width and if you are running inserts, but to get through Yeah, to get through that day, I think. The amount of research that goes into it these days, like the pressures were recommended from Michelin from the testing that that done. And from the recon and stuff we did, we figured out pretty quick that between the other races that had some cobbles in that we're running our normal Austria or the factor one bike to go on the monster that we're using and ride those cobble sectors, it just felt like butter. Like it was Yeah, as soon as you get on the cobbles, you know it's the right bike. But it's almost like How many times did you puncture? The first one was I'm not going to count it as a Roubaix puncture cuz it was on the road. So, who knows what happened What happened there? And then I didn't actually get a full puncture, but just at the end of the day I had maybe 20 PSI on the front tire. So, either that was just slow leak or Yeah, I'm not sure if the mechanics checked to see exactly what type of puncture it was, but Yeah, I got I told them on the radio that my tires are pretty flat and when I might need a bike change. But I had that custom painted bike and I really wanted to get that into the velodrome, so didn't want to turn up on the white one. Like I get that everyone's saying they're faster at the lower pressures, but you're not testing over the full race course. If you take your average rider, like Van der Poel obviously has a very different day at higher pressure if he doesn't puncture than if he's out the back chasing from a puncture all day. So, like it's almost like is the test in a big enough sample size?
If they're testing it going, "Okay, this is cool over 10k, this is faster." But over full race distance, if you're picking up two punctures, is it still net faster? Yeah. I guess every Well, the riders that are going all in for the win, you kind of just have to take a bit of the risk. Cuz if Yeah. If someone attacks you and they have their bike set up on the cobbles and they go on the cobbles and you just have a real rough set up and you have to do more power and can't control the bike, then good luck keeping up with them, but you can kind of sacrifice the on the road sections that it's might be a little bit slower and if you get a puncture, those top guys seem to get their way through the field pretty quickly to get back in it, but unless barring disaster at the wrong time. George mentioned some of you guys especially the debutants use a little bit of TrainingPeaks virtual to get ready putting in GPX files to kind of see what the cobble section's like. Does it help knowing a little bit like the length of the cobbles? Cuz I know for me going into, you know, from racing I love to know what the length of the climb If it's a crosswind section, I love to know when it's easing off a little bit. Is it nice having access to those kind of tools now where maybe back in George's day they didn't have that type of Yeah, the team gave us a lot of useful information and and yeah, you could see on TrainingPeaks virtual and stuff, but I think the length of the cobbles mattered almost the most especially later in the race because you just needed to know how long to hold on for to get through to get a to get another breath of fresh air at the end of it and maybe a bottle from the feed zone. So, as soon as you hit the cobbles, you started to be like, "Okay, if it's 1 to 2 km, I can kind of hang on." You know, you're not going to get dropped. As soon as you hear like 2 and 1/2 to 3 or above, you're like, "Well, this one I'm going to have to buckle up for this one." Yeah. Yeah, it's it's brutal, man. Did you get to see up close cuz you could see on the TV? Obviously, you guys are all the best bike riders in the world and to get there it's the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, but then there's even layers within that. So, it was really interesting to watch on TV when you're watching, you know, Van der Poel Well, especially the cyclocross guys, when they're going through a corner, they're taking sometimes two three bike lengths out of the rider behind them. And I started to explain to my fiance who was watching it was like, "It's not like they're taking two three bike lengths out of a schmuck. Like the dude behind's also one of the best bike riders in the world and they're still taking two three bike lengths out of them." And then you see the effect of that and I'm sure if we analyze your TrainingPeaks file, if you were getting gapped, you'd see the effect of those spikes all the time. How good are those lads up close and personal at carrying speed through those corners? Yeah, definitely good, but also I think they're just going a bit full risk and there's something If you're at the front of the group, you can see where you're going and you can rail a corner or the person at the front of the group is usually motivated to keep the pace high where the guys third to 20th on a cobble sector, you're just trying to hold the wheel in front of you and you literally have no vision of what's coming up. So, I think there's still a lot of good bike riders and the top guys stand out, but handling wise, it's more so what you can see in front of you. And then it's just that effect that when someone goes around a corner, if the next person brakes a little bit more and then it just like ricochets down the pack and then all of a sudden you have to do a ridiculous amount of power to get back up to speed and chase them and you look up and they're 20 30 m ahead of you before you know it if you're fifth wheel. So, I think they're just those front guys are so motivated that they're like racing racing the cobbles and then there's a lot of guys out there that are kind of just trying to survive. I think there's also something to like they're that much fresher because they're operating at you know, 50% of their capacity rather than 98% of their capacity. Like I like to think I'm a pretty good bike handler when I'm fresh. Put me at max heart rate and stick me around a corner, it's like all of a sudden I can't corner for [ __ ] and it's like that's the reality.