(wheel spins and horn honks)
- Welcome along to the very special edition
of Ask GCN Anything.
In line with our Cobbled Classics theme
running up to Paris-Roubaix,
we thought we'd do a special edition of this show.
Now, you've been sending in your questions
all about the cobbles,
and we're going to crack straight on with them now.
Starting with this one from Gary Skinner.
"How hard is it?
"I'm doing Flanders for the first time.
"Are those cobbles and climbs as brutal as they look?"
- That is a very good question,
and, in a word, yes, they are.
But without just-- - Moving on.
- Well, without just saying even more.
I'm going to say I actually found them
harder than they looked, because 'cause I must confess
that when I used to watch Tour of Flanders
and similar races on TV,
I didn't think that the cobbles looked that bad.
The riders were on effectively normal road bikes,
and they were going so fast.
And then I got the shock of my life
when I actually first rode them, because they're brutal.
But the good news is that actually you can take
much the sting out of the Flandering cobbles anyway,
with just running bigger tyres.
If you can squeeze 28mm tyres into your road bike,
you'll float right over them.
- Yeah, does make a huge difference.
As I alluded to, professional sportsmen and women
they just make things look far easier than they actually are
so be prepared for it to be hard before you head over there.
As you probably well know,
Matt and I were over in Flanders and indeed Roubaix
last week, and it did bring home once again
just how hard the cobbles are.
But also, what I noticed going from climb to climb
is the disparity between how good or bad the cobbles are.
So on the Paterberg, for instance,
which is only 400 metres long,
they're very evenly spaced, well-set,
and they're all quite even in terms of their shape as well.
- Whereas on the Koppenberg-- - Easy cobbles.
- Yeah, on the Koppenberg, they're all different sizes,
there's massive gaps between them.
It's super seem to get wet and slippery as well.
So even between the cobbled climbs
there is quite a difference.
- For my money, Oude Kwaremont was the roughest,
and there's one particular cobble that,
every time I rode up it, I seemed to hit.
And it's an absolute giant, so watch out for that one
if you ride the Oude Kwaremont, there's a giant cobble.
- There's also a big hole you need to watch out for.
Look at this picture from Matt Stevens,
our colleague on Twitter.
"We found that they were repairing the Kwaremont.
"Hopefully, they'll have repaired it completely
"before you head out there."
- A big bunny-hop, that, you need to do, isn't it?
- Yeah, just look into equipment, as Si says.
Biggest tyres that you can put on your frame set
is the best thing to do.
There are a host of other things that you can also look out
on your bike, and if you'd like to watch this next video,
we've got all our tips in one place there.
- The most important equipment choice
when riding the Cobbles are tyres.
They provide the contact point with the road,
cushioning, and grip.
- Yeah, basically the bigger the tyre
that you can fit in your bike, the better.
- Okay, and we've got another equipment themed question now,
this question sent in by Chris Naude.
"How bad is doing something like the cobbles
"on a carbon frame?
"I guess if I was a sponsored cyclist,
"I wouldn't give it two thoughts,
"but being a working class citizen,
"and being fortunate enough to own a super bike,
"I'm not so sure."
Good question that, Dan.
- Yeah, short answer to that particular question once again
is yes, it's absolutely fine to use your top-end super bike
with a carbon frame.
I mean, the proof's in the pudding with the pro riders.
Admittedly they get given their bikes for free
and replace are free if they crash them,
but they're absolutely fine
to go over all the cobbled stretches,
and they put them through their paces more than most people,
I think you will agree.
- Yeah, also interesting point actually,
the whole debate around frame material,
as we try to address this in a few videos in the past.
And one of the enduring myths of carbon
is that it is somehow fragile.
And actually, any frame material can be fragile.
The difference between them is actually
comes down purely to the engineering.
So you could make a bomb-proof carbon frame,
you can make incredibly weak carbon frame,
but equally, you could make an incredibly weak steel frame,
or an incredibly weak strong frame.
So actually, it doesn't really matter what material
your bike is made from, it's more who's designed it
and made it in the first place.
So, I don't know what super-bike you have,
but, like Dan said,
I'm sure it's going to be absolutely fine.
- Yeah, and all good cycling manufacturers now
have got to the point where they can make these light frames
because they're strong in the direction they need to be
and not where they're not.
But what that does mean is that if you do crash
a top-end carbon frame and the bars hit the top tube,
because it's not strong, when you pincer it like that,
you can then crack it.
So I guess the answer to your question
as to whether you want to use your super-bike,
is how confident you are of staying rubber side down.
- Yeah, there is actually another point here, though.
And I always think it's good to be able to ride equipment
that you actually feel confident
in really pushing through its paces.
Because, you know, having an amazing bike is great,
but if you are worried about trashing it,
then you're not going to be able to enjoy
the experience of riding cobbles quite as much, perhaps,
than if you were on a bike that you were in a better place
to afford to replace.
So that is worth bearing in mind, actually.
You might simply enjoy riding cobbles more
if you're on something that you perhaps were quite,
not quite so invested in.
See what I mean?
- Yeah, clear as mud. - Sorry.
- Right, next up from Simon Rasmussen.
"How important is rider weight on these routes?
"Is it deciding?"
Or "Is it race deciding?"
No, is the answer to that one.
In fact, it's been a long time
since a very light-weight rider has won something
like the Tour of Flanders.
I think the last guy was probably Mick Haley Bartley,
who was kind of mid-60 kilogrammes, roughly.
Vincenzo Nibali, incidentally, who's just won Milan-San Remo
and has won all three of the grand tours,
is doing the Tour of Flanders this year,
so it'll be very interesting to see how he gets on.
But in general, whereas in the grand tours on the climbs,
it's all about power-to-weight ratio
over quite a long period of time,
the Cobbled Classics, it's kind of about
power-to-weight ratio but over a very short period of times.
None of the climbs really are longer
than about two minutes in duration.
And it generally is the big brutes,
relatively speaking as cyclists,
who can really put the power down, 6, 7, 800 watts
for a minute or two, that do best at this type of race.
- Presumably as well, it comes down to resilience.
So it's the repeated efforts,
and it's also about fighting for position
which, I guess you're the one who's raced it there, not I,
but you know, that often comes on the flatter roads
where wind plays a part as well.
So it is going to favour a bigger, stronger rider
isn't it, I guess.
- Yeah, the early stages of Tour of Flanders for example,
as Si says, are much more about getting into position
before the climb than they are about going super-hard
on the climb itself.
So if you manage to get yourself into the top 20,
you can actually ride up then reasonably easy.
And it's when the group which was done later
what the big attacks come on the climbs,
and that was where I was always shot off the back.
(laughs) - I was waiting for that bit.
- Next up, we have a question from Jakob Mikael Espersen.
Ess-per-son, sorry.
"What is more effective in terms of speed:
"to stay on the cobbles or to ride the dirt
"or the gutter beside them?"
- Well, it depends I guess,
on the sector you're talking about,
but in most cases, it's probably quicker
to ride on the dirt beside it, isn't it?
I mean, they are, the dirt is generally smooth,
and as long as it's dry,
which it has been for a long time now,
every Classics season, hasn't it?
For the last, are we up to like every 10 years now
of dry Classics racing?
More than that, in fact, 13 years or something.
So yeah, the dirt beside it is better,
but you have to watch out.
Like Peter Sagan found out to his cost last year.
If you ride too close to the edge
you may end up getting some fan's jacket
wrapped around your under-bars, and then your race is over.
- Yeah, not something you need to worry about
as a cyclo-tourist.
But this is actually something we're going to talk about
on a video which will be released
over the next ten days or so.
How to ride on the cobblestones.
In it, I talk about the fact
that you can definitely ride on the dirt or the gutter,
because it's smoother and therefore faster.
But the problem can come in trying to get back onto
the cobblestones themselves, because there's often a lip,
and the dirt might get a bit deeper on the side of the road.
And in order to illustrate that,
Matt and myself both ride on the gutter.
- And Matt fell off, did he?
- Yeah, so you should see that video now.
(upbeat guitar music)
- Ah, poor old Matt.
That's another one to add to the archive, isn't it?
- It was such a great point for him to do that, though,
because we were just in the middle of explaining
that it can be quite hard to get back onto the cobbles, so.
- Right, took one for the team, I guess, didn't he?
- He did, yeah.
- Right, anyway, let's move on, shall we?
I've got this question from Michael Burke,
another equipment one, actually.
"How well do carbon fibre wheels cope with the cobbles,
"compared to aluminium ones?"
- That's an interesting question,
because for a long time they definitely couldn't cope
with the cobbles.
So you would always see teams up until 2010
rolling out their Cobbled Classics specialist wheels,
which were box-section rims of a whole host of spokes,
normally 36.
So in the 90s, and into the early year 2000s,
most teams would have those Ambrosio Nemesis wheels.
I'm not sure not sure if you remember them.
- Yeah, I remember those.
- Gold insert over the valve hole, and 36 spokes,
and titan-soldered spokes as well,
to make them even stronger.
- And to be fair, they almost always stood out
because they had those green tinted
Vittoria pave tyres as well,
that you could spot them a mile off, couldn't you?
It's like, it was the Classics combo.
- Yeah. - Great.
- They're bullet-proof.
And actually they make great training wheels to this day,
doesn't it, because it just never break.
- Bet there's a load sloshing around on eBay.
- Probably are.
Anyway, they were perfect for the Cobbled Classics.
And, of course, no team was at any disadvantage
because they're rolled on fairly standard box-section rims.
- Yeah, but the important point here
is that carbon technology moved on, didn't it?
And you mentioned 2010 as a reference point.
2010 was indeed the year.
So Zipp being used by Fabian Cancellara
ended up winning Paris-Roubaix that year.
And I don't think that the race has been won
on anything other than carbon wheels since that point.
So I guess carbon manufacture got to a point,
and particularly carbon,
like the resin used in the manufacture,
became so hard, they're actually,
they were able to withstand the pounding from the cobbles.
And if you're going to get a flat,
and then end up riding your wheel on the cobbles anyway,
it's kind of irrelevant whether your wheel stands up or not
'cause you're going to get a new one from your team car
or your teammate.
- Yeah, it's amazing how quickly carbon technology
has moved on.
You forget, don't you?
But only ten years ago, the bikes looked very different
just because they were all on those super-shallow rims.
But even in the last couple of years,
it's moved on even further,
because Mat Hayman, of course, in that famous victory
where he was training on Zwift for Paris-Roubaix,
went on to win it.
Not only did he win it, but did so on an aero bike.
It's got aero Foil, didn't he?
- Yeah, he did.
You know, it begs a question, doesn't it?
About during those transition years
when particularly Cancellara was running Zipp 3A3s,
and Boonen was still running the box-sections,
how much of an advantage did Cancellara have
in running those wheels?
- Very true, yeah.
- If I was going to guess, right,
I'd say significant advantage on the tarmac.
But I wonder, and we should maybe do some science
one day, Dan.
Actually-- - Full stop, yeah.
- But we should maybe do some science.
- We could do a descents experiments on ya.
- No, but actually testing
whether or not their aluminium rims,
because they're a little bit more forgiving,
they've got a bit more flex than the carbon ones,
whether actually they are still, to this day,
faster on the cobbled sections,
but then they just have that handicap on the other bits.
- Mm, anyway, it's time now for our last question
for this special episode of Ask GCN Anything.
Don't forget, it you've got a question on any other subject
you can go onto social media and use the hashtag Torqueback
and we potentially will answer your question next week.
Anyway, the last one is from David Culshaw.
"Why don't they do it on mountain bikes?
"Or does it have to be ridden on a road bike?
"Just think of the advantage
"that mountain bikers would have."
- Oh, good question.
One we asked ourselves, in fact, last year.
The first part actually is that yes,
it does have to be ridden on a road bike.
The UCI, who's the governing body that oversees
professional cycling, stipulate that road races
have to be ridden on road bikes,
and there's a gazillion different regulations
that mean that the bikes look the way they do.
But actually, is a mountain bike faster on the cobbles?
Yes, it is, quite significantly.
So Matt and I put a road bike, a cross bike,
and a mountain bike to the test
on one of the gnarliest sections of cobbles
at Paris-Roubaix.
And we were significantly faster on the mountain bike.
Weirdly, it felt slower.
It felt easy, we weren't getting bounced around.
But boy, was it fast.
- Hmm, one thing that you do need to take into consideration
here with Paris-Roubaix
is that whilst there are around 55 kilometres
of cobbled stretches, which is a lot,
the whole race is 260 kilometres plus.
So it's actually still a fairly small percentage
of around 20%.
And they need to think about their aerodynamics
and their rolling resistance on the roads
between the cobbles, almost as much as they need to think
about their comfort and speed over the cobbles.
If you're going to choose yourself to go over
and do the Paris-Roubaix Sportive,
that would be quite a tough one, I think,
because as I said, it's far more comfortable and faster
on the cobbles on a mountain bike with bigger wheels.
Depends how much you want to kind of get to the reality
of what the riders face in the race.
Whereas if you want to cruise along
the Paris-Roubaix Sportive
and be as comfortable as possible,
or if you want to experience something like the racers do.
- There's a simple answer, Dan.
The gravel bike.
- Yeah, something in between.
- Surely, you got your drop handlebars.
You can have an aggressive position,
but you have wider tyres, you cruise along.
There you go. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - Problem solved.
- Yeah, but going back to that point, actually,
about only 54k is on cobbles, the rest on road.
We're seeing now people racing, and indeed winning,
courtesy Mat Hayman, who you mentioned a moment ago,
on aero road bikes.
And there is a trend, isn't there?
Peter Sagan I think started it,
by actually starting the race on his aero road bike,
doing the first 100ks of tarmac,
then swapping onto his more cobbles-specific bike
to then carry on and do the last 160k.
Which, I don't know, I would never have had the guts
to actually jump off a bike, swap onto another one,
just before a gnarly section of cobbles, you know.
But, he's Peter Sagan, he can do what he likes.
- It makes sense to do that, doesn't it?
Purely because the first 100ks, like you said,
there aren't any cobbles,
and then you can gauge the tyre pressure perfectly.
Because as things stand, they gauge the pressure
that they need for the cobbles,
and then they reverse back to what it's going to be
at the start, because of course with the cheaper tyres,
they've got latex inner tubes, which gradually let air out.
So if you want to have four and a half bar for the cobbles,
put in at your start with 5.2.
And there's quite an equation to that.
So it's an interesting subject, but as Si points out,
you never know when the race is going to be on
and when it's not, so it's quite risk to change over
to a cobbled bike when the race might be full gas.
- Yeah, but if it is Pete's again, that's stuck
on his specialised Venge ViAS,
I fancy him riding through Hamburg in, you know,
pretty good shape, really, on that thing.
- Yeah, of everyone he'd probably get away with it,
wouldn't he?
- Doing a wheelie whilst he does it, you know.
One-footed, one-handed. - Yeah.
- He can do what he likes, can't he?
- Right, well, that's it for this special edition
of Ask GCN Anything.
We are very excited about the Cobbled Classics this year,
it has to be said. - Oh, yeah.
Hence, why we're doing a special Cobbled Classics fortnight.
In fact, it's more than a fortnight, isn't it?
Plenty more videos to come, as we go through again.
We have Gueram E3 prize, the Tour of Flanders
and ultimately, Paris-Roubaix.
But the first video is already out,
and that is Max explaining exactly what the Cobbled Classics
are all about.
You can find that just down here.