Paris-Roubaix has an outsized place in the cycling consciousness. With the exception of the Tour de France, it’s cycling’s most famous race, outshining other classics such as the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, which was first run in 1892 and is the oldest race still in the calendar.
Paris-Roubaix isn’t far behind Liège, with the first race in 1896 won by the German Josef Fischer. But more than any current race, Roubaix's cobbles hark back to the early days of cycle racing, before roads were converted to tarmac.
That history and the untamed cobbles have led to some famous victories and epic moments over the race’s 125 editions. Here’s BikeRadar’s guide to the riders who have made Paris-Roubaix their own.
The kings of the cobbles
Two riders have won Paris-Roubaix four times, both Belgian. The first was Roger de Vlaeminck, who triumphed in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1977. De Vlaeminck won all five of cycling’s one-day Monument races, including three editions of Milan-San Remo and two of the Giro di Lombardia, as well as six consecutive Tirreno-Adriatico stage races.
He was followed to four wins by Tom Boonen, who won in 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2012. Boonen, too, had a glittering career in the cobbled Classics, winning the Tour of Flanders three times, including in 2005 when he also won the World Championships, alongside Flanders and Roubaix.
The hat-trick club
Eight riders have each won three Paris-Roubaix titles, including Eddy Merckx, Johan Museeuw and Fabian Cancellara.
Of the eight, three have won three years in a row. The first was Octave Lapize in 1909, 1910 and 1911. Lapize also won the Tour de France in 1910, before dying in the First World War aged 29.
It was almost 70 years before Italian Francesco Moser repeated the feat, with wins in 1978, 1979 and 1980. Paris-Roubaix was Moser’s most successful race, but he was also world champion in 1977, and won the Giro d’Italia overall in 1984 and its points classification four times.
Another four decades later, Mathieu van der Poel, the current Paris-Roubaix champion, has won the race in 2023, 2024 and 2025, the three fastest editions ever, all covering the parcours of around 160km at over 46km/h.
Modern masters – who’s dominating these days?
More than any other road race, Paris-Roubaix favours riders with great bike-handling skills. There’s no one better here than van der Poel, so he must be favourite to win a record fourth consecutive edition. Witness his complete dominance in winning an eighth UCI Cyclo-cross World Championship this year and his impressive swerve to avoid a crash on the Molenberg when he won the 2026 Omloop Nieuwsblad.
Asked what he learned from the 2025 edition of Paris-Roubaix, Tadej Pogačar replied: “There’s a right turn at 38 kilometres.” That’s where he crashed and lost van der Poel. We’d guess Pogačar has learned that corner, so he’s a hot contender to mop up his last outstanding Monument and, maybe, with Milan-San Remo already in his pocket, all five Monuments in one year.
With a reasonably flat parcours, Paris-Roubaix can favour those with a sprint in their locker. Mads Pedersen has come third in the last two editions and was fourth in 2023. If he’s still a contender when the race reaches the velodrome, he could clinch the win this year.
Wout van Aert is, like van der Poel, a multiple cyclocross world champion, so he can handle the cobbles. Following a crash in 2024, he had a slightly below-par 2025 season, despite winning the final stage of the Tour de France. However, at this year’s Milan-San Remo, he was closing fast on the leaders, Pogačar and Tom Pidcock (another skilled bike handler) before finishing third.
This year's women’s race is more open than the men's, but don’t discount a second consecutive win for Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, a superb all-rounder with world championships in mountain biking, gravel, cyclocross and on the road, and the 2025 Tour de France in her palmarès.
First of the few
While the men’s race has seen 122 editions to date, there have been only six women’s Paris-Roubaix races. The first winner was Lizzie Deignan, who won solo in a muddy autumn race in 2021.
Deignan attacked as soon as the race hit the first cobbled section, with 80km of the 115.6km parcours still to ride. She was still over a minute ahead at the finish line in the Roubaix velodrome, with her ride labelled one of the greatest Paris-Roubaix rides of all time.
The last muddy winner
Paris-Roubaix is notorious not just for its cobbles, but also the mud. That’s changed in recent years, as April in northern France turns drier.
There has been one exception, though – the 2021 race, which took place in October, having been postponed due to the Covid pandemic. It was won by Sonny Colbrelli of Team Bahrain Victorious, who took just over six hours to complete the course and arrived in the Roubaix velodrome caked head to toe in mud.
Contrast that with van der Poel’s 5 hours, 25 minutes and 58 seconds winning time three years later, over essentially the same course, and you can see how much more difficult wet conditions make the race.
Most iconic 1-2-3
Johan Museeuw’s first Paris-Roubaix win in 1996 saw a trio of riders from the same Mapei team take the first three places, with Gianluca Bortolami second and Andrea Tafi third, all over two minutes ahead of the fourth-placed Stefano Zanini. Another Mapei rider, Franco Ballerini, who won in 1998, came fifth.
The image of the three Mapei riders finishing together in their classic kit is probably the most famous Paris-Roubaix finish line photo ever.
