"It says a lot about Pogacar's ambition for Roubaix" - Martin and Bruyneel discuss World Champion's early Roubaix visit

More than ever, pro cyclists and teams are preparing for specific events such as Paris-Roubaix with the utmost attention to detail, and that can be seen by the figures that have already been present at the cobbles of the 'Hell of the North' up until early December. More recently, Tadej Pogacar and several of his UAE Team Emirates - XRG teammates were testing equipment in the cobbled sectors - something which Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin have commented on.

"I found out yesterday Tadej Pogacar, Tim Wellens, Florian Vermeersch (also Nils Politt, ed.) they were up there," Martin said in The Move podcast. "I was in Brussels briefly, I thought 'wow this looks terrible this weather, I wouldn't want to be out riding' but they were out there previewing Paris-Roubaix, testing equipment on it. I was somewhat shocked to find that ,and they had a lot of resources up there, very smart people from Colnago and the team supporting them. It's shocking to know that this is when decisions for equipment for Paris-Roubaix are made, half year away".

It's one of the lightest times of year for riders, with no racing schedule, but with most of the World Tour peloton now at full speed in the training camps which are taking place in Spain. Right before flying to Spain, Pogacar and a few of his teammates who will form a key block into Paris-Roubaix, travelled to the north of France and rode for a few hours there. This was shown by a few French news outlets and surprised fans.

"We all saw the images on social media, they wanted to go incognito, but they can't go anywhere incognito," Johan Bruyneel argued. "It's true, equipment is now being tested in the winter, we also saw Wout van Aert and Visma testing out the wheels, the self-inflating hubs that were already used last year they tested it again. I saw some images of Wout on the cobbled, really bad weather... I'm not going to say shocking but it's apparently what they do now? Back in the day never, nobody did that".

"For Pogacar it's a bit different because it's a new race for him, he raced it for the first time as a professional last year - he had done it already as a junior. He's still learning that race," the Belgian pundit argues. "But even a guy like van Aert who has done it many times, who knows the race in-and-out is already testing equipment with Visma. This is something you would not even think about, to do this in December".

But it's the current methods of working, all in the hopes of succeeding later on in the spring in what are some of the world's most important races. No stone is left unturned, specially for teams such as UAE and Visma. "In today's cycling they are super prepared for everything, the calendar is announced, many teams announced, their lineups for classics - which leaders are doing which races, it's just part of it and it says a lot about Pogacar's ambition for Roubaix and also Milano-Sanremo". 

This Saturday Pogacar will talk to the media, and most certainly reveal his calendar for the 2026 season. Paris-Roubaix will be included in this. "I think he came a day late because of that, part of the team was here (in Benidorm, ed.) already, and I'm going to guess he arrived yesterday [...] But it was more for equipment testing than previewing the course".