Christoph Roodhooft accepts blame after Van der Poel pedal incident: "Very stupid of me"

Sunday was not the Paris-Roubaix Mathieu van der Poel had hoped for. The Alpecin-Premier Tech rider punctured in the Arenberg Forest, and an extraordinary effort was ultimately not enough to challenge for the victory. Afterwards, team manager Christoph Roodhooft gave a detailed account to IDL Pro Cycling, among others.

"There was a small crash at the entrance to the Forest. An NSN rider went down, the team car stopped, and the doctor got out. We were stood still for over a minute. Behind us, the peloton came through and was able to pass. So the peloton was back between us and the lead group at that point."

"At that moment, Del Grosso punctured behind, but okay… then I see in the distance that Mathieu also has a flat — his front wheel. He tries to deal with it. Mathieu eventually takes Jasper's bike, but it had different pedals on it. If that car hadn't been blocking everyone at the entrance to the Forest, I think nothing would have been lost."

"Yes, in hindsight you obviously can't say otherwise. Mathieu rode on them briefly before. They are prototype pedals. I had agreed for them to also be tested in competition. But of course, today it came at an incredibly bad moment."

"We couldn't follow any of it. We always watch on a slight TV delay, of course. All the vehicles were at a standstill at the entrance to the Forest, so we missed everything. On top of that, this year — for the first time in history — nobody was allowed to stand in the Forest with spare wheels. Combine that with us being stuck and having no way to get past on that long sector. It is what it is. And then you add the pedal issue, but there was a long chain of events leading up to it."

"But Jasper wasn't having a good day. So that wasn't really. We should simply have been there a minute earlier. Or the pedals, yes… then of course we would have… I never imagined it would all come together like this. Other people can have their opinions on it, but… It won't happen again. But it's done now."

"That instinct from Jasper — you perhaps haven't spoken to him about it yet. But he just immediately thought: 'okay, I can see something's happened to Mathieu, I'll give him my bike.'"

"At that moment, they would actually have been better off with just the wheel, but that's all easy to say in hindsight. And from a distance. At that point I think we were in a really good position in the race. And within a few hundred metres, we have two punctures. That's part of it. But we also had no chance to fix it or to be there."

"Yes, but they had already been separated by that point. I didn't follow all of that either, to be honest. I simply can't say anything about it, because it all started with that blockage. And I was the first car there, so I don't want to know what it meant for the people behind me."

"Yes, but it doesn't bring him anything. But it will have been close to his best race ever, I think."

"Yes, but we did know. There are only four of them in the team."

"Yes, of course they did. Of course they know."

"Well, they fit, they don't fit. But it's not the same as normal. Right. It's done now. I can't undo it. I should have thought of it, but I never imagined it would all come together in such a crucial way."

'Yes, right now I think it was very stupid of me. That sounds harsh. But I don't understand how I didn't think of it. It's more unlikely than winning the lottery, all of it falling together like that."

"But Del Grosso already had a flat. He was already stood with a puncture at that point, so that bike was already… Del Grosso punctures first and sees Van der Poel a bit further up. He wants to go over with his wheel. At that moment, they're already working on Philipsen's bike, because they could see the team cars were nowhere to be found. The Forest was empty. A number of things just came together in a really unfortunate way, I think."

"Still with some hope, always. But if Mathieu had been one group closer, everything would still have been possible. Always living on hope, because the gap didn't really get much bigger. Hoping against better judgement, yes."

"It's just something new. There's no advantage, because it's just something new. Next year, everyone in the peloton will be riding this type of pedal. Six months after using a prototype, it has to be commercially available and on the bike. So soon every Shimano user will be on these kinds of pedals. But yes, it wasn't smart. Though it was also incredibly unlikely that it would all coincide."

"What am I supposed to say? It all came together. When you look at the facts now, it was stupid. But look, Mathieu started the season on them. Then he switched pedals. Right. Done. Simple. Hindsight is always easy."

"When you're in this condition, in this race, and you've won the last three editions, and then you have to let it slip away like that? Or rather, you have to let the chance to fight for the victory slip away like that? That's enough to make you never want to ride a bike again."

"Come on. You're trying to find something that isn't there. We are a Shimano team. We are expected to test things. DSM are also working with these pedals. We're not the only team with riders on them. Every team with the Shimano pedals and Shimano shoes combination will have a number of riders on those pedals."

"It's simply a testing protocol at Shimano. Now it came together unfortunately, but that's where it ends. There's nothing more to say about it. Marsman rides them, Sénéchal rides them, and Philipsen rides them here. And we also use them in the women's team."

"That has nothing to do with Paris-Roubaix. He had them on his bike for two days, but then there's a bike in Belgium with those pedals and one in Spain with different pedals. And that's simply the reason: to keep things straightforward for himself. With Jasper, with Marsman and with Sénéchal, we did continue with the testing phase. That's not so complicated, is it?"