How Much Faster Is A Modern Superbike At Paris-Roubaix?

Paris-Roubaix is "The Hell of the North" for a reason. With 50km of brutal, bone-shaking cobbles, riders and mechanics have spent decades trying to "tame" the pave.
In the early 90s, one piece of tech changed the game: the RockShox Paris-Roubaix SL suspension fork. Between 1991 and 1994, these 30mm travel forks ruled the roost, winning three editions of the race before mysteriously vanishing from the pro peloton.

In this video, we take a near-perfect replica of Greg LeMond’s 1991 Z-Team bike, and we head to the "four-star" cobbles of Bath's Royal Crescent to run a test with classic lugged steel Bottecchia and a Mathieu van der Poel-style Canyon Aeroad with 32mm tyres.
Can a 30-year-old mechanical suspension outperform modern pneumatic tech? And why did the pros stop using forks? The data results might surprise you!

00:00 Paris-Roubaix, The Hell of the North
00:43 Greg LeMond’s 1991 Z-Team Replica
01:19 The 4-Year Era of Road Suspension
02:30 Our Test on "4-Star" Cobbles
03:09 The Evolution of Roubaix Tech
04:41 How RockShox Tamed the Cobbles
06:51 The Winning Years: 92, 93, and 94
08:08 Why Suspension Makes Sense (For Some)
08:42 Our Vintage bike and Canyon Aeroad
09:47 The Test: Vintage vs. Modern
12:27 Impressions: Which Bike Was Fastest?
15:18 Why Did Suspension Disappear?

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The RockShox era only lasted 4 years, but it produced some of the most iconic bikes in Roubaix history. Do you think we’ll ever see a return to mechanical suspension in the pro peloton, or have 32mm tubeless tyres killed the idea for good?👇

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