Mathieu van der Poel punctured in the Trouée d'Arenberg at Paris-Roubaix on Sunday, leaving him almost two minutes behind the front of the race leaving the first five-star sector of the race.
The Alpecin-Premier Tech rider briefly tried to use Jasper Philipsen's bike, before abandoning that plan, as it seemed too small, he then walked back to his original frame, which lay at the side of the road. Another Alpecin rider, Tibor del Grosso, then changed his wheel with an Allen key, before the Dutchman punctured again before the end of the sector.
The incident came with 94km to go after Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) had put the power down heading into the Arenberg, with Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) among the riders able to follow.
The lead group consisted of that pair, along with Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike), Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon CMA CGM), Jasper Stuyven (Soudal Quick-Step) and Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe). A bigger group Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) was around 20 seconds behind at this point in the race.
The drama came a few dozen kilometres after Pogačar was briefly forced to use a neutral service bike after puncturing on the Quérénaing à Maing sector, away from a team car. The Slovenian world champion was on the blue Shimano model for around 4km before he was able to change onto his preferred Colnago Y1RS, complete with mismatched tyres front and back.
The gap was briefly around 30 seconds, before Pogačar used his UAE teammates to close the gap before the peloton hit the Arenberg sector.
The opening 170km of the race were completed at over 50km/h, with a 20km/h tailwind helping push the riders along.
More to follow...
