2018 Paris-Roubaix Sportive. I’m not going to sugar-coat it…

Pro riders in the Arenberg Forest.  My ride was nothing like this.  Photo by Time De Waele, from  here.

Last weekend I ticked off a fairly significant item from my cycling ‘to-do’ list, with participation in the 2018 Paris-Roubaix Sportive. In my head, this was going to be an epic sporting battle over the legendary cobbles of northern France, culminating in a victorious arms-raised-in-victory lap around the famous velodrome at Roubaix. If you squint, I ticked off those things and can claim – with gritted teeth and mud in my eye – to be a tough-guy vanquisher of the cobbles.  But the reality was actually rather more sedate.The Paris-Roubaix sportive is a timed amateur ride over the same Paris-Roubaix course, the day before the professionals ride it.  It’s fantastic, but I have to get something out of the way first.  I’m not going to sugar-coat it:  Those cobblestones are rough.  Dear Lord, are they rough.  For several days after riding over them I had the vague feeling that someone had kicked me in the goolies but I couldn’t quite place when or by whom (Was it in my sleep?  Did I walk into the edge of a table?).  It’s quite hard to put into words exactly what it’s like to ride over those cobbles. They really are right at the limit of what is physically possible to ride a road bike over.  It’s like you took a long flight of shallow steps and laid them on their side in some kind of mud-covered Escher drawing. Or took a pile of roughly even-sized river rocks and got a bunch of three-year-olds to build a road from them in a sandpit.

No matter how fast you’re riding when you hit them for the first time, you instantly drop about half your speed, and grip the bars for dear life as your teeth threaten to shatter violently out of your jaw (I’m not making this up – one of the group I was riding with  hit the cobbles for the first time, felt what they assumed was a filling that had dropped out of a tooth, and was shocked to learn that it was actually a whole tooth that had been shattered by the vibrations. No joke.).  It is completely ridiculous, and it’s actually pretty hard not to laugh out loud.  Or swear copiously.

After a while you sort-of get into a rhythm, relax the grip on the handlebars and try and ‘float’ over the worst of it. You need to keep your speed fairly high so you have momentum to respond to the bumps, and try and keep your eyes focused a good few meters up the track to spot any particularly rough bits.  It’s easy to succumb to the false illusion that it’s smoother on the edges – it is in parts, but every now and then your front wheel disappears into to pot hole that’s deep enough to rip the sump out of a decent sized family car. So yeah, it’s rough.

It gives you a better appreciation of just how astonishing the pro race is. It also gives you a sense of what makes it such a fantastic race. It’s old school – and it’s all about bike riding.  Other races – the Tour being the epitome – are all about technology, about marginal gains, about a handful of contenders watching their power meters all the way to the Champs Elysees while their domestiques bury themselves as they help grind-down the willpower of their rivals.

Roubaix is different. It’s unpredictable, bike handling is everything, and technology is less decisive.  All that matters is that you get to the end – for all the fat-tyred suspension-insert cross-bike innovation, all it takes is one guy with a bit of courage, a bit of savvy to make the most of the breaks to ride to victory. It’s inspiring and legendary and has inspired a maniacal level of commitment to a race that draws a very fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous.

And the great thing is that anyone can have a go, during the sportive that is ridden over the course the day before the professionals. I took part, as part of the Ride Holidays Spring Classics tour that I’ve been working with on the NZCC commemorations (more on that soon, BTW).

As soon as we arrived at the start line, it was clear that this was going to be a different affair to what I had in mind. The mood was infinitely more relaxed, helped in no small measure by the free coffee that was being handed out.  But more importantly, the event is runs as a timed sportive and rather than have a massed start with all the hoopla that entails, riders can head off whenever they like, with the supplied timing chip picking up your start and finish times. The organisers encourage regular ‘pulses’ of starters to generate useful sized bunches, but it’s all a lot more relaxed than other events that I’ve done. It’s big – about 8000 riders – but feels small.

I rode with the more relaxed members of the Ride Holidays group. The fast and furious “espresso” group headed off for the 140 km option, whereas the rest of us did the 70 km version – the mid-pack “macchiato” group, and the scenic-route “latte” group. Which, for this trip, renamed themselves the “fluffies”.  I had found my spiritual home.

We had a great time. Rolling at an even and good-natured pace through the quiet French country roads was a very pleasant way to spend a spring morning.  It was warm, and faster groups would whoosh past us from time to time giving us a gentle tow until we fell out of their slipstream.

The race organisers had given us each a sticker, listing the key milestones we’d face. Our first cobbled sector loomed at km 37, and by about 30 km in the second coffee of breakfast was starting to make its presence felt (I knew from previous experience the perils of riding on cobbles with a full bladder). I was also starting to feel a little peckish. I needed to stop.

I’d just started eyeing up suitable trees, when we came around a corner and Lo! There was charming rest stop. There were Portaloos aplenty, and enough waffles, Haribos, and halved bananas to feed an army. What could be more charming?

 

The cobbles started pretty soon after, and I’ve already said enough about what it’s like to ride on those. I’m thinking I need to give my friends at Les Amis de Paris Roubaix a call and point out a few spots that might need a bit of attention for next year.

There were some great moments. I didn’t crash, and nothing broke – not even my spirit. We kept together as a small group, although I did blast ahead on a couple of sectors to see how quick I could go (not very, in case you had any doubt).

Riding into the the velodrome at Roubaix was a great experience. I’m not going to lie – it was almost spiritual. This is a great temple of cycling, and to be able to ride around it at the end of a (gentle) battle with the Hell of the North was actually pretty joyful.  I couldn’t stop smiling.

I caught up with up with the rest of the group, swapping tall tales of the road. After a decent burger and a couple of “recovery drinks” (i.e., beers) , I decided to sneak back onto the track for a victory lap.  It was not glorious, or quick (you should fast-forward the very slow video below), but it’s fair to say I was wallowing in the delight of it all.

After that, I snuck into the legendary showers, and wallowed in the history a bit, and fan-boyed my way around the stalls.

Overall it was different to what I was expecting. A lot less intense, and without the macho hoo-ha that I’ve experienced at other cycling events. Will I have another go at it?  For sure.  I only did the 70-km version.  There were about 8 sectors of cobbles (including the legendary Carrefore de l’Arbre), but by doing the 140-km version I’ll get that as well as the mighty Trouée d’Arenberg.

There’s a great quote from Theo de Rooij, a Dutchman, who was interviewed on TV after he crashed out of the 1985:

“It’s a bollocks, this race!” said de Rooij. “You’re working like an animal, you don’t have time to piss, you wet your pants. You’re riding in mud like this, you’re slipping … it’s a pile of shit.” When then asked if he would start the race again, de Rooij replied: “Sure, it’s the most beautiful race in the world!”

I know a little bit how he feels.