The “Hell of the North” awaited the peloton on Sunday with its 30 cobbled sectors and hard-racing throughout the day. Team Picnic PostNL lined-up looking to position finishers Pavel Bittner and Sean Flynn, keeping them safe before the race opened up. Doing just that, the team had both Flynn and Bittner alongside Niklas Märkl and Julius van den Berg in a reduced peloton of around 40 riders once over the first few cobbled sectors. However, that’s when things turned sour for the team. A crash saw Van den Berg and Flynn both hit the deck, with the former abandoning the race, before an untimely puncture saw Bittner lose contact from the peloton. Märkl himself then crashed too, and from there it was a battle to the finish for Bittner, Flynn and Timo Roosen – with the young Czech rider leading the team home in the velodrome.
Bittner said: “Today was a really epic and special day at Roubaix like always. I think everyone has their stories from today. I think the biggest headline for us was bad luck with crashes. I hope the guys all recover well. I really tried to race in honour of John, if you can say that, but I also had some struggles today. I tried to fight to the line and raced to the velodrome. It’s not a result that I’m particularly proud of, but I’m proud that we kept on going today; and hope one day that I can do a nice result. I’m already looking forward to next year; it’s a love-hate thing!”