Pavé power: what it takes to win the Tour of Flanders

Not for nothing are the cobblestoned spring Classics feared and revered by the pros who race them. They know how hard these races are, and with the recent use of power meters, they have some astonishing figures to prove it

A couple of years ago Cycle Sport witnessed an unusual interval training session. Magnus Backstedt was on his annual pre-Paris-Roubaix pilgrimage to the Hell of the North. Three years before, he had won Roubaix, and, despite a bad crash during the preceding winter, he wanted to win it again.

We were in the forest of Arenberg. Backstedt wanted to test his newly healed shoulder and see exactly where his fitness was, with the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix looming on the horizon.

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