“Your bike is important for every race, but just a little more for Paris-Roubaix”

On the central square of the northern French hamlet of Pierrefonds, next to the stately hotel deville and against the local charcuterie, a racing bike with a value of about 12,000 euros is standing against a cast iron gate. It is one of the Swiss brand Scott, type Foil, sprayed in black and blue colours. In the cautious spring sun, the paint sparkles as if stars have been applied to the frame.

The owner of the bike is sitting inside, in the local café, drinking a cappuccino. He doesn’t realize that the bike, and six similar ones next to it, attract a lot of attention outside. Cycling tourists arrive from all directions and get off for a photo. The butcher steps out especially for it, and studies the steering wheel in his white work suit. He is a big cycling fan and cycles a round every week, he says. Can someone tell him whose bike this is?

Then the owner steps out. John Degenkolb is one of the faces of Team DSM. The 34-year-old German won two of the five cycling monuments and stages in each of the three Grand Tours in his career. He is the leader of the Dutch team for Paris-Roubaix, the race scheduled for the next day. Smiling, Degenkolb poses with the butcher and anyone who wants to be photographed. Then he lifts his bike and fiddles with the brake disc of his front wheel. He gives it a spin and after a few revolutions concludes: now it runs well. Degenkolb steps up. „Let’s go.”

There are few races in the year in which the bicycle plays such an important role as the ‘Hell of the North’, the cycling classic that leads from Compiègne to the famous vélodrome in Roubaix, sending the peloton over 24 strips of cobblestones. Piet Rooijakkers, the research & development expert of Team DSM, calls it a material battle. “In no other competition can you make the difference so easily with your material. You only have to puncture once, and that just takes you thirty to forty seconds.” Degenkolb himself says: “Your bike is important for every race, but just a little more for Paris-Roubaix.”

The German should know: he won the monument in 2015. He hung the bicycle from that time unwashed on the wall in his house. In 2018 he also won the cobbled stage in the Tour de France. The course even has a cobblestone section named after him; a winding stretch of granite boulders between the villages of Hornaing and Wandignies with a length of 3.7 kilometers, the longest stretch on the course.

A rider and his bike are more than just an athlete and his equipment, says Degenkolb. “It’s a comrade-in-arms. You have to be able to trust it blindly, you need each other.” Your bike should be a good friend, says Rooijakkers, otherwise you won’t be able to get the most out of it. “You have to know each other very well, know exactly what you can and cannot do. Look at someone like Tom Pidcock. How it descends, at more than 80 kilometers per hour through the bends, that is only possible if you are one with your bike.”

Easter egg

A few hours after the coffee ride of Degenkolb and his teammates, his bicycle is dismantled in the parking lot of a hotel in Compiègne. The frame is screwed into ‘the trestle’, as mechanic Maarten ter Heijden calls the standard, which can rotate 360 ​​degrees so that it can reach everything. The wheels are off, the chain dangles loose. Ter Heijden removes the sand and dirt with a high-pressure hose.

Ter Heijden and his colleagues spend the entire afternoon working on the final adjustments. Each Team DSM rider has three racing bikes that, if all goes well, are perfect copies of each other. They also have an identical training bike and two time trial bikes. The bikes are after one bike fitting at the beginning of the year, tailored to each rider’s figure and posture. Ter Heijden shows the Excel file on his phone in which all measurements are included: for example, how high the saddles should be, under how many degrees, and whether the riders want extra wireless switches on their handlebars.

In the past, a special frame was sometimes used for a race like Paris-Roubaix; on such a bike, Degenkolb won in 2015. But nowadays the frames built at the beginning of the season suffice. The difference is now made by adjustments to the other components.

The team already started material preparations for Paris-Roubaix months ago. In the autumn Degenkolb tested different tires and tire pressures, as an experienced rider he is one of the first to get the chance to do so. He then found the setup he will be riding this Sunday: with 32mm wide tubeless tires, much wider than the normal 26mm tires. That should provide more grip on the cobblestones. Thanks to the tubeless tire (without an inner tube), the rolling resistance on the flats is less.

Last Monday, the bicycles left Deventer by truck, where Team DSM’s head office is located. “Normally the bicycles only arrive a day in advance, but now we have sent them earlier so that the mechanics have more time to prepare the bicycles,” says operational manager Kim Bekhuis.

On Thursday, the day after the Scheldeprijs, where Team DSM also competed, the mechanics got to work. The bikes have been given a special, more flexible seat post, which should provide more comfort. The bottle cages are made of metal instead of carbon, so they are less likely to break. They can be bent slightly, so that the water bottles are more firmly in place. And a double layer of ribbon goes around the handlebars. Degenkolb tapes his wrists extra tightly to protect his joints and wears gloves. “Otherwise I get blisters,” he says.

After the reconnaissance on Friday and the last ride the following morning, the final details will be fine-tuned on Saturday. Ter Heijden checks the brake discs again just to be sure, and because a tailwind is expected, Degenkolb uses a larger chainring. Some extra cushioning goes under his handlebar tape, Ter Heijden sticks a colored paper Easter egg on the frame. “From his children.” A tradition, says Degenkolb. His family will be waiting for him at the finish, just like the previous ten editions he participated in. “It gives me some extra motivation.”

Mental game

The next morning, the Team DSM bus is right next to the golden entrance gate of Chateau de Compiègne. Ter Heijden attaches the competition numbers under the saddles with 3D-printed holders. He then puts the tires under the correct pressure, between 3.5 and 4.0 bar for each of the riders, and 3.7 bar for Degenkolb – much less than normal. When Degenkolb gets off the bus, he bounces a few times with the front wheel on the ground. He squeezes his back wheel, nods approvingly and then drives towards the start.

During the course, your bike seems to change, says Degenkolb. “It begins to squeak and creak. No oil in the world stays put all day. It is a mental game not to lose your confidence. The bike is still the same.” That is not entirely true, says Rooijakkers, who was also a runner himself. “During a day like that over the cobblestones, everything changes slowly. Your wheels become square, gears wear out. I sometimes got off thinking everything was the same. When I wanted to get on again a week later, it turned out that my saddle had sunk 15 degrees.”

Team DSM has had little trouble with mechanical breakdowns in this classic for a number of years now; one flat tire in three years, says Rooijakkers. And also in this edition, his bike does not let Degenkolb down. He is attentive when the Belgian Wout van Aert attacks at 101 kilometers from the finish, and is thus the instigator of the leading group that is still on course to determine who will be the winner 80 kilometers away.

The leading group rides on one of the toughest cobblestone sections, Carrefour de l’Arbre, when the Belgian Jasper Philipsen and Degenkolb are at the front. There is a gap between them, Mathieu van der Poel sees his chance. But then Philipsen suddenly swerves to the right, Van der Poel has to swerve and he hits Degenkolb, whose bicycle catches on it with a spectator. The German flies over the suddenly stopped bicycle. Gone are the chances of a new, dusty bike on the wall. Moments later, Van der Poel sends solo onto the vélodrome and wins his second monument of the year.

Degenkolb is still seventh, at 2 minutes and 35 seconds. His bike is missing the competition number – he was given a spare bike after his fall just in case. Exhausted, he lays on his side for minutes. “Everything was right today, my form, my material, my bike. It was one of those days when something special could have happened,” he says as a tear rolls down his nose. “I am very disappointed that more has not come out.” Then Degenkolb turns around, he has to go to the doctor for some check-ups and his left shoulder is bothering him a lot.

At the bus, the atmosphere is printed. “It could have been such a beautiful day,” says Ter Heijden, who has pulled himself into rain pants and is now spraying the bikes clean. Because he was behind the leading group, he was soon at the finish line and John’s bike was the first to be cleaned. It now hangs vertically in the truck, with the front wheel removed. It is now a matter of cleaning and oiling, says Ter Heijden, after which the team has two days off. “We will thoroughly check in Deventer on Wednesday whether nothing is broken.”

Rinsed clean and the frame of the Scott Foil shines again as if nothing happened. Another memory remains of this disastrously ended day: the Easter egg is still on the frame.