“We Pushed Hard on the Cobblestones” — Kopecky and Wiebes Lead SD Worx-Protime Roubaix Recon
Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes were at the sharp end of a full SD Worx-Protime reconnaissance ride across the key sectors of Paris-Roubaix Femmes on Monday, as the Dutch-Belgian superteam fine-tuned their cobblestone preparations with less than a week until the Monument showdown in Roubaix.
Kopecky was joined by Wiebes, Elena Cecchini, Blanka Vas and Barbara Guarischi for a focused session that took in the decisive sectors of Mons-en-Pévèle, Camphin-en-Pévèle and the fearsome Carrefour de l’Arbre before finishing at the iconic Vélodrome in Roubaix. The team pushed the pace hard on the pavé itself while keeping the tarmac sections easy — a deliberate strategy to test race intensity on the cobbles without overloading legs still recovering from the Tour of Flanders.
“We pushed hard on the cobblestones, but because the Tour of Flanders is still fresh in our legs, we took it easy on the intermediate sections,” an SD Worx-Protime manager told HLN. The approach mirrors the team’s meticulous preparation that delivered Kopecky’s dominant Paris-Roubaix Femmes victory in 2024, when the Belgian rode away from the field to win solo at the Vélodrome.
The stakes are enormous. Kopecky is bidding to become the first woman to win Paris-Roubaix Femmes twice, and this year’s edition presents an even greater challenge. ASO has added three new cobbled sectors and 4.5 kilometres of additional pavé, bringing the total to 33.7 kilometres of cobblestones — comfortably the toughest route in the race’s six-year history. The new sector at Haveluy à Wallers, measuring 2.5 kilometres with a four-star difficulty rating, could prove decisive.
Wiebes’s presence on the recon underlines her growing importance to SD Worx-Protime’s cobblestone ambitions. The Dutch sprinter finished sixth at Milan-San Remo and won Gent-Wevelgem earlier this spring, demonstrating that her devastating kick can survive the hardest one-day races. On the narrower, more technical pavé of Roubaix, Wiebes offers the team a second card to play if the race comes back together after the crucial sectors.
The reconnaissance also served as a first look at the new opening sectors near Haussy and Saulzoir, which replace the traditional approach to the pavé and could catch riders off guard on race day. SD Worx-Protime used the session to establish positioning strategies for these unfamiliar roads, with Kopecky testing multiple lines through each sector.
With defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and a resurgent Puck Pieterse expected to provide the fiercest opposition, and Demi Vollering confirmed absent, Kopecky arrives as the overwhelming favourite. But as the Belgian knows better than anyone, the cobbles of northern France have a habit of rewriting the script.