Paris-Roubaix 2025 Predictions: 11/2 and 10/1 shots against a Pogacar win

One of the great days on the cycling calendar rolls around on Sunday when most of the world’s leading names take on the 2025 edition of the ‘Hell of the North’ that is the Paris-Roubaix classic.

The appearance of Tadej Pogacar on the startlist is a real curiosity, with the modern great making his debut in the race. But, as my Paris-Roubaix 2025 predictions will detail below, this might just be one of those events he won’t have all his own way.

As ever, this year’s race will not be for the faint-hearted, with the 30 sections of cobbles which make it so unique set to divide the best from the rest once more.

Just as in 2024, there will be a speed-slowing measure added before the brutal Forest of Arenberg, but whereas a temporary chicane was the chosen method 12 months ago, a private road will be used in ’25 to take riders off the main drag into the cobbled sector of the forest.

This will mean them turning back onto the original course at a vastly-reduced pace as the legendarily difficult 2.3km stretch of pavé begins.

Paris-Roubaix Betting Odds

There’s nothing different about the finish though, with the iconic Roubaix outdoor velodrome being the setting for the finale of the 259.2km Monument. And Mathieu van der Poel is the 5/2 favourite with Betfred to win a third successive Paris-Roubaix despite Pogacar’s presence.

Van der Poel, with the help of some great team riding by his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammates, has made this route his own playground in recent years, but Pogacar doesn’t enter any race just for the sake of it. So it is understandable that many onlookers will have the UAE Team Emirates demi-god down as a likely winner.

But he comes into this race as 3/1 second-favourite behind the Dutchman even despite the bookies’ reticence to lose money, and that’s because there are a number of ways he could lose on Sunday without an awful lot of obvious routes for him to win it.

Wout van Aert is an unsurprising contender in the market, with Betfred offering 5/1 for the Visma Lease-A-Bike star to win, while Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen is an 11/2 chance.

Mads Pedersen @ 11/2

Just as I did with the Milan-San Remo, when we got the first and second nailed with win and each-way bets, I’m going against Pogacar here.

Normally in a one-day race that sees Pogi at anything longer than 2/1 I’d be very tempted, but I have similar reasoning here as I had three weeks ago. I just can’t see where he wins this one.

Sure, he’s just come off the back of a win at the Tour of Flanders, in which he made the most of Van der Poel’s lethargy after an early crash and a week of illness to pick up the intensity late on and drive a gap open at the front. But on Sunday he might not get away from the field regardless of how high he tries to raise the intensity.

All of the significant climbing in the Paris-Roubaix comes early, making it near-impossible for Pogi to make his superior ascending the decisive factor. And on the various cobbled sections he is sure to have a few digs, but those may be as likely to send him off the bike as up the road, such is the treacherous terrain.

And, as we saw in San Remo when he couldn’t distance Van der Poel and Filippo Ganna on the Poggio, he just won’t have the sprinting ability to beat the main contenders on the line. So I’m looking elsewhere, but not towards Van der Poel.

I like the look of Pedersen, who may not have seen this one through in the last two years – finishing fourth and then third, but he was a winner at Gent-Wevelgem recently, adding to two previous victories there, and for my money is peaking towards something truly special.

He has proven sticking ability over this course and distance, and if he can just stay with the cat-and-mouse that might develop among the likes of Van Aert, Van der Poel and Pogacar at the top, I reckon his sprinting ability could make the difference when it matters.

The Dane is also the value bet of the four leading names at 11/2, and I have him as a far bigger shout than the 15.4% chance that those odds imply.

Cycling Odds

Jasper Philipsen each-way @ 10/1

Part of me is tempted to shoot for Ganna once more with my each-way hope, with his frame and form both being absolutely perfect for an assault at Paris-Roubaix.

But I’m backing Philipsen with the first four places covered by Betfred on the each-way market at a quarter of the odds.

The thinking is simple. If the last two editions of this race – and indeed, the last couple of years on the World Tour – are anything to go by, a contending Van der Poel will have a Jasper Philipsen-shaped shadow around him for much of the day.

Jasper has finished twice here in the last couple of runnings, having been the prime teammate for the former world champion on both occasions, and he should be up there for at least as long as Van der Poel is once more.

He is another whose sprinting ability could have a say in the placings at the very least, and if the punching and counter-punching bring about a stalemate of sorts prior to them entering the Velodrome Andre-Petrieux, then he is more than likely to be in the first two or three, let alone four.

The 10/1 odds are appealing too, so I’m definitely on the Philipsen train here.

You can read all our latest Cycling Betting Tips here.