Winner of Paris-Roubaix this Sunday, Mathieu Van der Poel won after the second fastest edition in history. With his time made in 2019, the year of his victory, in fairly similar conditions, Philippe Gilbert would not have finished on time in 2025.
Difficult to find more striking example of the evolution of speeds in cycling. Winner of Paris-Roubaix this Sunday for the third time in a row, Mathieu Van der Poel traveled 259.2 kilometers in 5 hours 31 minutes and 27 seconds. Six years earlier, in 2019, Philippe Gilbert won him by performing the 257 kilometers in 5 hours 58 minutes and 2 seconds.
In Paris-Roubaix, the deadlines, calculated, on the winner’s time, are 8%. Clearly, with his 2019 time, Philippe Gilbert would have failed in 2025 to go on time for four seconds. On Sunday, only five runners failed to arrive at the Vélodrome in time, including the British Joseph Pidcock who struggled so much to finish the event. By comparison, the Dutchman Mike Teunissen, who had finished eighth in 2019, finished 16th this year, being however faster for 22 minutes and 37 seconds.
Gilbert still has a speed record
If it is not a question of saying that Philippe Gilbert, with his 2019 level, would have been outside the deadlines in 2025, this anecdote testifies to the increasingly rapid means of speed, made on the classics and elsewhere. This Sunday, Mathieu Van der Poel drove on average at 46,921 km/h, less fast than his own record made on the race in 2024, in 47.802 km/h. For Gilbert, the figure falls at 43.07 km/h.
Between the two comparative editions, the route has evolved very little. The wind was blowing around 16km/h from northeast in the final in 2019, against 27km/h from the southwest this year. The conditions were therefore more favorable in 2025, with a rather favorable wind when it was unfavorable in 2019. But the main differences are mainly from a material point of view, with in particular wider tires for Dutch (32 mm) compared to the Belgian (28 mm).
In the meantime, Philippe Gilbert still has a record, made in 2019. During his victory on the 17th stage of the Tour of Spain, the former world champion had traveled the 219.6 kilometers at 50.628km/h on average. Enough to symbolically possess the “yellow ribbon”, a prize launched in 1936, rewarding the runner winning with the highest average speed on a test of more than 200 kilometers.
