Paris-Roubaix (as posted by Mitch)

No one in their right mind would do this, but the day after riding the Tour of Flanders route six of us (Elliot, Brian, Rob, Judd, Gavin and myself) headed south into France to ride the last 87 miles of Paris-Roubaix. This is touted as the hardest single day bike race. We skipped the first 100 miles of the race and about 6km of the famous cobble stone sections that give this race it’s grit, and I am here to tell you that this is not only the hardest single day bike race. I believe Paris-Roubaix must be the hardest single day sporting event period. Unbelievable!!!

A quick explanation is that the French cobbles make the Belgian cobbles feel like silk. In more detail, while the forest of Arrenburg is beautiful it is traversed by a section of cobblestones that are demonic. Continue along the race route and the cobblestone sectors that follow are said to be a little bit easier—not the case. As each kilometer of cobbled and/or paved roads breaks you down the stones begin to beat you up more and more. The last section of cobbles in Roubaix are practically flat and seamless, but by that point you the rider are so broken it feels like someone is hitting your bike with a jack hammer.

Here’s the deal with riding a road bike on cobblestones. The wheels need to be really strong, the tires need to be fatter and the bike needs to be adjusted to move the riders weight further over the rear wheel. While pedaling over the stones, the technique is to push a larger gear than you typically would given the speed or incline—and then you have to push with all your might. The faster you can go across the cobbles the better off you are. If you get tired and cant go fast anymore—simply put, you’re fucked!!! Speeds in excess of 30mph help you float from one stone to the next, if you slow down to something like 20mph it won’t be long before you’re only doing 10mph. 10mph will leads to any combination of cussing, whimpering, stopping and or throwing your bike into the farmers field beside the course and deciding to walk the rest of the way to Roubaix.

The six of us all made it to Roubaix on our bikes and with smiles on our face. Getting there we had to negotiate a broken spoke, a broken bottle cage, a shredded tire and three pinch flats. We also stopped four times for various combinations of espresso, Coca-Cola and French pastry which we could not have survived with out. Every section that was paved was rolled at a casual 10mph—needles to say if we were racing we’d never have made it to the velodrome and the finish line in Roubaix. But, since we weren’t racing we did make it—and to our surprise the velodrome was not locked up as we were expecting it to be coming from ‘liability crazy’ America. So, we each got to complete the race course as the races leaders do with a lap and a half on the famous track. For a cyclist this nostalgia was priceless and helped us forget how beaten our bodies were. The worst damage by the way was on our hands. Each of us spent the following two days with inflamed sausage fingers--completely swollen from our knuckles ratling against each other for hours on end. Not to mention the blisters on our palms. Yikes!!