Johan Van Summeren wins Paris-Roubaix

After a risky decision and ambitious team tactics, Johan Van Summeren of the Mavic-sponsored Garmin-Cervélo team won the 104th edition of Paris-Roubaix, finishing alone at the front of the race on the famous Roubaix Velodrome. Van Summeren’s triumph is rightly regarded as the biggest victory in the history of the Garmin-Cervelo organization, and it marks a hard-earned return on years of investment in team work, technology, and sport science.

“This is a great win for me and it’s thanks to my team that I was able to win,” Van Summeren said after hoisting the trademark cobblestone trophy over his head. “Thor (Hushovd) was the leader today for our team. He’s the world champion and I was working for him. When the tactics played out, I was in position to make an attack. I could tell early on that I had good legs.”

Also known as “the Hell of the North” and “Queen of the Classics,” Paris-Roubaix is the hardest event in the annual series of one-day races known as the cobbled spring classics. Measuring a full 258km in length, the course includes over 25 sectors of brutally rough cobblestone tracks. These cobbled sections define the race and demand the most ruggedly durable riders and equipment. Victory in Roubaix requires strength, skill, smart decisions, perfect teamwork, careful preparation, and a dose of good luck.

The Garmin-Cervelo team and their 30-year old workhorse Van Summeren enjoyed all of these advantages on the unusually hot, sunny Sunday of April 10th, 2011. Known more as a domestique or team worker than as a team leader, Van Summeren benefitted from the strength of his team’s tactics. He was encouraged to join an early breakaway and thus lift pressure from Garmin-Cervelo’s race favorite, world champion Thor Hushovd. Hushovd was free to follow the moves of the other race favorites and neutralized their effort.

Out in front, Van Summeren proved to be the strongest of the leading group, dropping the remaining riders in the critical Carrefour de l’Arbre cobblestone sector with 17km remaining in the race. He powered alone on the dusty course to the finish with a final gap of 19 seconds over the surging pre-race favorite Fabian Cancellara.

“This, by far, is our biggest win as a team,” said Garmin-Cervelo sport director Jonathan Vaughters. “And we’re especially pleased the way we won it. People have to remember that cycling is a team sport and we rode our team tactics today to perfection.”

Under Vaughters’s leadership since it was created nearly 10 years ago, the team is known for technical innovation and a progressive approach to the usually traditional sport of pro cycling. Garmin-Cervelo has a commitment to clean, ethical sport, plus careful development of both riders and technology.

Victory at Paris-Roubaix also rewards Mavic’s big R&D efforts with sponsored teams. Mavic made a special effort for the Spring Classic races, in partnership with team riders and staff. Team riders had requested rugged carbon wheels, especially suited for the wide tires necessary to survive the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix. Mavic’s development team delivered on time, discovering in the end that their medium-profile rim, 40mm deep and with 24 spokes, was rigid for powerful sprinting, durable enough to withstand the harsh pave sectors, and yet compliant enough to offer a comfortable ride.

Final ride testing of the prototype wheels finished just weeks before the race. Both Hushovd and Van Summeren participated to provide critical validation, and the team’s success in Roubaix marked the ultimate proof for the new prototype.

The film below, made one month before the race, shows this process of close interaction between pro athletes and Mavic engineers.