The men’s Paris-Roubaix features no fewer than 30 cobbled sectors, making up just shy of 55km of the 258km-long route. Each section of pavé is ranked from one to five stars based on its length and difficulty, with some of the cobblestones in much better condition than others.
However, for this 2026 edition of Paris-Roubaix, the men’s route will include a pavé sector that is not just testing due to the terrain, but also an added element of elevation.
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The 800m, three-star stretch of pavé has an average elevation of 3.4%. While that isn’t likely to put too many riders in trouble on its own, the sector’s position in the route, shortly after the opening four pavé stretches that come thick and fast, may add an extra edge.
“It’s not the worst sector, and those before it are harder, but this goes slightly up. The condition of the sector before [Viesly à Briastre] is much worse; this one is okay,” long-serving Soudal-QuickStep sports director Tom Steels explained at the end of the sector.
“It’s already the fourth sector, so riders can be eliminated, but it depends on the two sectors before. It’s not an easy one, and there’s a big gap between this and the next sector, he added.
In both 2023 and 2024, Mathieu van der Poel’s Alpecin-Premier Tech squad set an infernal pace in the opening kilometres of pavé, decimating the bunch in the process. With the added complexity of this small rise to also contend with, there could be early action again this time around.
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Pete Trifunovic
Running adjacent to a small cattle farm, the addition…
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