• On Tuesday March 2, the handlebars of Alpecin-Fenix ​​rider Mathieu van der Poel broke in the last kilometers of the Samyn. He managed to finish the race just 16 seconds behind the winner.
• Canyon, the maker of van der Poel’s bike, issued a “ stop ride ” for the Aeroad bikes, while they investigated the cause of the failure.
• Just two weeks ago, Alpecin-Fenix ​​had to withdraw from the UAE Tour after a member of the team’s staff tested positive for COVID-19, after van der Poel won the first stage .

Picture this: you hurtle down a cobbled stretch in the last few miles of Le Samyn, confidently covering movement, pursuing attacks and getting into position to help your teammate fight for victory. Suddenly you feel a jerk in your right hand and your arm slips. Your handlebars cracked and the good drop is gone. What are you doing?

If you’re the 26 year old Alpecin-Fenix ​​runner Mathieu van der Poel, all you need to do is move your hand as close to the gallows as possible, throw away the hanging bar piece and try to save your race. .

Even without half the handlebars on his Canyon Aeroad, van der Poel helped teammate Tim Merlier win Le Samyn by playing the defensive block in the last mile, despite the broken shifter. He finished 37th, just 16 seconds from the winning time.

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After the race, Belgian journalist Seba Close tweeted this image from the Van der Poel handlebars, with the right shift lever hanging down.

So what exactly made van der Poel’s adjustable width handlebars crack so abruptly? We don’t know yet, but Canyon has issued a statement urging anyone using the CP0018 and CP0015 cockpits on the current Aeroad CF SLX and CFR models to stop riding these bikes for now. Alpecin-Fenix ​​- and all professional Canyons teams – will switch to alternatives, with immediate effect.

“Mathieu fortunately did not fall. We want to make sure with absolute certainty that no one is doing harm until we fully understand the root cause, ”Roman Arnold, founder of Canyon Bicycles, said in the company’s press release.

Although many have been speculating on the cause for two days. His father, cycling legend Adri van der Poel, mentionned in an interview with Overtime Koers that the bars may have been compromised in a previous race, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, when his son crashed into a car. Well-known cycling journalist James Huang posed that too tight a shift collar may have caused the damage, noting that the break is clearly not near where the handlebar width can be adjusted.

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We rarely see this kind of mechanical problem, and van der Poel may be the first rider to really break a handlebars halfway through the race. Although in 2017, time trial extensions came loose from the handlebar base of Maxime Roger’s bike when running at around 37 mph, causing a brutal accident. Likewise, Niki Terpstra slid handlebars during Paris-Roubaix in 2017, causing him to fall and abandon the race; the same happened to George Hincapie in 2006.

Van der Poel now joins a small but powerful group of runners who finished the races with major mechanics. In 2011, the Norwegian Kurt Asle Arvesen traveled 20 kilometers from Paris-Roubaix without saddle. In 2010, Jens Voigt legitimizes borrowed a child’s bike of someone in the crowd pedaling 15 kilometers of a Tour de France stage so as not to give up the race after a crash. And at least he didn’t have to run in road shoes until the finish, like Chris Froome had to do after an accident on Mont Ventoux left his bike unmountable in 2016. .

This is the latest in a series of unlucky incidents for van der Poel; on February 21, a member of team Alpecin-Fenix ​​tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the team to withdraw from the UAE Tour after van der Poel won the first stage.

Of course, 2021 hasn’t been that bad for the Dutch driver. He successfully defended his title of UCI cyclo-cross world champion for the third consecutive year in the sandy and cold race in Ostend, Belgium, in January.

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