Zoe Backstedt "emotional" following fan reaction to using father Magnus Backstedt's race winning pedals in her first Paris-Roubaix

Prior to her first taste of Paris-Roubaix, Zoe Bäckstedt revealed that she was to ride the race using the same Speedplay pedals used by her father Magnus Backstedt when he won the race in 2004. Post-race Zoe Backstedt spoke of how the fan reaction to her story had made her emotional.

"It's emotional for me racing my first one with Eleanor in the race and him in the team car," said the 18-year-old EF Education-TIBCO-SVB rider after the finish of the race. "It was really savage that, you know, we started with a bit of a street crit, which was super quick. It was just like remembering what I've done is like I did mini Roubaix when I was younger, so the sectors that I hadn't done in recon were the ones I've done like three or four times in the past."

Finishing 46th, this was always more of a day to gain experience for Backstedt. "I was struggling with positions just a little bit," she said. "My legs were a little bit tired already coming into it. You know, it's been a big block of racing for me. I came into the velodrome, looked at the top of the big screen. I just saw AJ sprinting and then celebrating, and I kid you not, I think I just screamed for that whole lap."

Father Magnus also spoke after the race, explaining to Cycling News how his Paris-Roubaix winning pedals had ended up on his daughter's bike. "We've always known that Speedplay have been a little bit of a tricky one as soon as you get a bit of mud between the cleats and the pedals to clip in," he says. "And those ones, Richard from Speedplay sat in the bathtub in Compiègne and he ground off the coloured bits of the pedal and so that was just the metal so, I could effectively clip if I got any mud in the cleats. They've been around in the house, as well as another production pair of them. I thought why not give her the option of using them."