“The risk versus reward is just too high” – Luke Rowe and Bradley Wiggins debate cobbled stages in grand tour

With the 2025 Tour de France now in the books, rumours are already starting to swirl for the 2026 edition. Will the race return to Alpe d’Huez? And will there be a cobble or gravel stage like we have seen previously? As for the latter, Luke Rowe’s view on cobbles in the Tour de France is blunt and carries the weight of a rider who’s been trusted to guide Tour champions across the toughest terrain in the sport. Appearing on the “Sir Brad’s Café” podcast with Bradley Wiggins and Graham Willgoss, Rowe didn’t hold back in questioning the place of cobblestone stages in the world’s biggest race.

“The risk versus reward is just too high,” he said. “That one day of excitement can cost you two weeks of racing with a guy who’s prepared for six months.”

Rowe, widely considered the gold standard for modern road captains, knows exactly how brutal a cobbled day can be. He praised the spectacle for fans but argued that the inclusion of such unpredictable surfaces in a Grand Tour simply isn’t worth the fallout. “Richie Porte was absolutely flying… he crashed out and we missed Richie Porte for the last two weeks,” Rowe recalled, referencing the 2017 Tour. “You lose more than what you get.”

Wiggins admitted the cobbles are as brutal as they look, calling them “the worst ones to ride, but the best ones to watch,” while also reminiscing about the nostalgic draw of racing on roads that haven’t changed in a hundred years. But he still wasn’t sold on romance. “They were never made for the type of bikes we see in the peloton now,” he said. “They were built for farmers to get their carts between fields.”

Even when Rowe made his Tour debut in 2015, one of the key reasons for his selection being his eighth-place finish in Paris-Roubaix, he admitted he was far from ready. “I was absolutely useless that day,” he said, blunt as ever. “I let the team down.” That stage, loaded with cobbled sectors and chaos, made clear just how high the stakes are. Since then, Team Sky, and now INEOS, have prohibited riders selected for the Tour from racing the British Nationals beforehand. “Sorry to any riders who are in Team Ineos and can’t ride the Nationals,” Rowe joked. “I think I got a bit of a responsibility for that one.”

Though he respects the demands of cobbled stages, Wiggins not shy about how punishing they are on the body. “Your knuckles the next day… it’s just constant bouncing,” he said. No matter the bike tech, the roads are still the same unforgiving ones used for centuries. “You can do whatever you want,” Wiggins agreed, “but ultimately, it’s a cobbled stretch of road.”

The conversation also explored the mental and logistical strain of racing the cobbles during a three-week Tour. “The logistics of cobblestone stage days are enormous for every team,” Wiggins explained. “In some ways, it’s an arms race to who can pack out the sectors the most.” From tire choices to positioning personnel along the route, preparation starts as soon as the Tour route is announced the previous October.

And when the race hits the cobbles, everything moves fast, and painfully slow. “You’re constantly making small calculated risks,” Rowe said. “If you use a rider like Kwiato (Michał Kwiatkowski) every day, after a week he’s in a body bag. That’s how good he is, he’s an asset every single day.”

The leadership dynamic between road captains and team leaders was another major thread. Rowe spoke about how trust from riders like Chris Froome made his job easier. “Once you’ve got their full buy-in… it became quite easy,” he said. “You get that buy-in not from being the loudest in the room, but by doing the job day after day.”

Wiggins backed that up, calling Rowe “a wise head on a young pair of shoulders,” recalling moments when his calm, assertive guidance stood out. “There’s something comforting in someone with a calmness and confidence in what they’re saying,” he said.

Rowe was candid about the challenges, too, including the bad decisions. “A lot of people who are road captains will only ever talk about the good decisions they make, but I tell you, I made a lot of bad ones,” he said. “It’s easy to walk on and get the praise. But if it all goes tits up, that was also me. Sorry, boys.”

When asked about teammates who were difficult to lead, Rowe didn’t dodge. “With Ethan Hayter, I struggled. He wouldn’t buy in. He wouldn’t commit.” He also described a tense moment with Rohan Dennis that eventually resolved with mutual respect.

As for whether the cobbles belong in the Tour, Rowe’s stance remains unwavering. “To win the Tour, you’ve got to get to Paris first,” he said. And no matter how spectacular the TV footage looks, it’s riders like him, those tasked with getting leaders through carnage, who understand the true cost. “If you’re good, good things happen,” he said. “If you’re not, you’re in the wrong place and it’s over before it starts.”