Cycle Sportives

Surely you want to keep pedalling as much as possible over cobbles though? Drive through them? That picture is scary, with gears or without.

I found that pushing a bigger gear than normal helped- old MTB'ing habit for dealing with broken ground as you very slightly push yourself off the saddle, but not enough to be out of the saddle, as it were.

That said I used the wrong tyres, on the wrong wheels, with the wrong bike- so don't listen to me whatever you do.