'I'm worthy of being at the front' – Zoe Bäckstedt heads to Paris-Roubaix Femmes as a favourite after 'best day ever' at Flanders

Zoe Bäckstedt is in the best road racing form of her life. The 21-year-old is no stranger to being at the front of bike races and podiums, being a WorldTour winner, a national champion, and a junior and under-23 world champion, but this April she seems a level above.

In her 16 one-day WorldTour races up to this month, Backstedt's best finished was 15th at last year's Paris-Roubaix Femmes. No bad thing for someone in her development phase. But this year there has been a marked improvement. At Dwars door Vlaanderen, Bäckstedt finished fourth, before fifth place at the Tour of Flanders last Sunday, her best ever result in a Monument.

There, she was narrowly beaten to fourth by former world champion Lotte Kopecky, who has won the race three times, in the second group behind solo winner Demi Vollering. It was an incredibly impressive ride for the 21-year-old Backstedt, holding her own in an elite group of favourites including Tour de France Femmes winners Vollering and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.

"I was really proud of myself for the ride that I did," she tells Cycling Weekly in the lobby of her team hotel in the hinterland of the Belgian, Franch border. "It was definitely the best day that I've ever had on the bike. The confidence I also had in myself, especially being at the front of the bike race on the Koppenberg, I was like ‘I could do something here’. I have to be really happy with this but hungry for more."

"Before the [Oude] Kwaremont, I was thinking I'm good, I'm gonna boss this," The Red Bull rider continues. "Then I got to it, and I was like: ‘Oh no, this is not going the way I planned’. You look up and it's like, cobbles and cobbles. There were a lot of emotions going through my mind, but it was mostly keep fighting, try and get to this wheel, try and stay with that wheel. You have so much going on, but you have nothing in your mind."

Fortunately, the opportunity for her hunger to be sated comes just a week after, with Paris-Roubaix Femmes taking place on Sunday, with its 20 cobbled sectors over 143.1km. For Bäckstedt, this opportunity is all the more special because it's Roubaix, her favourite race, one that suits her skillset almost perfectly, and also the race which her father, Magnus, won in 2004.

"I would say this is what my cyclo-cross season and spring lead towards," Bäckstedt says, her energy and enthusiasm for the 'Hell of the North' clear. "After the race, I basically start my off season this weekend. It's the build up to the end of my season. I can go all in for that last one, and then take a breather and recharge, I can just go 100% full gas for this one.

"I've got nothing else for a while. So it's nice that I can just, I can be completely empty on the finish line."

Sunday will be Bäckstedt's fourth Paris-Roubaix, having ridden every edition since she turned pro with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB in 2023. The only two she missed out on happened before she turned 18, which is a good excuse for not being there.

"The first year I was obviously in the team with Alison Jackson when she won [2023]," Bäckstedt recalls. "That was my first Roubaix, and then to be in the team that won in the end was a super cool feeling in itself. Then in '24 I was on Canyon and I had my dad in the team car for the 20 year anniversary of his win. That brought another special aspect to it.

"Last year, I had super good form, and I felt really good going into the race, and everything had panned out. Now, after Flanders, the legs have told me that they're good. They just need to be the same on the weekend."

The legs might be good, but there is so much of what happens at Roubaix is down to experience, luck, and positioning, two of which the Welshwoman has been working on.

"It's absolutely brutal, it's possible to get massive blisters on your hands, and then it's a lot about luck," she explains. "It's a race where you have 26 plans, every single letter of the alphabet has got a plan to it, almost. If you have a puncture, you ride it until you can't ride it anymore."

"In the first edition, I was there almost to make up numbers a little bit, just to experience the race," Bäckstedt continues. "Now I'm here as a rider and I want to be in the front group. I want to be there when the big riders get going, when it kicks off. It's a very big change, but I'm excited for it."

Being in the right place at the right time is part of what makes a successful Paris-Roubaix, and is what helped her to her stand-out result at Flanders, too.

"It's about positioning," she says. "It's about being out of trouble. If you're at the front, if you're in the first five, then you only have four possibilities for someone to crash. If you're hundredth, then you have 99 people in front of you that can crash. I just have confidence in myself, that I know what I'm doing, that I can do these races. I can be at the front, and I'm worthy of being at the front."

In the absence of Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney after her crash at Milan-San Remo, Bäckstedt was her team's leader at Flanders; the same role would be expected at Roubaix, despite the presence of former world time trial champion Chloé Dygert.

"I'm hoping that I will be the leader for the weekend," she says, diplomatically. "I've expressed enough how much I like this race, and how much I want to do well in this race, and I think the team believes that I can do well. It would be really nice to have their support on the weekend."

Despite having a fast finish, she is clear how she would rather win the cobbled Classic: "If you're on your own, then you have so many less things to worry about, to think about, whereas if you're in a sprint, anything could happen. It's the motto of this race."

While many riders fear Roubaix and the cobbles, one gets the impression that Bäckstedt savours it; it feels like the race is in her blood, and that she enjoys the suffering that it brings.

"I'm not really the kind of person that wants to go double bar tape or fully wrapped," she explains of her setup. "I quite like the feeling of having the exposed carbon as well. It can be quite cooling on your fingers, especially when you're riding your fingers get super tense. I'm not also one of the ones that goes tape on the wrist, tape on the fingers, that kind of stuff. No gloves, regular bar tape. Just ride the bike."

Just ride the bike. That might well be her motto at the race where anything can happen. Just keep riding, and an even more special result than last Sunday might well come.