ON THE ROAD
As 52-year-old Andrea Tafi plots an unlikely return to Paris-Roubaix, 20 years after winning it, we send our own half centurian for his first venture into the ‘Hell of the North’
In December, as 52-year-old former Paris-Roubaix winner Andrea Tafi plotted an unlikely comeback to the ‘Hell of the North’, we sent our very own 50-something Trevor Ward for his first-ever run out on the cobbles. He was joined by a man who lovingly preserves the pavé.
Today is all about the numbers. It’s about the number of sections of Paris-Roubaix cobbles we’ll be riding, the length of each, and the number of stars they have been awarded for ‘difficulty’.
It’s about the number of hours we have before it gets dark – it’s the middle of winter – and the average speed we’ll have to aim for.
It’s about the number of kilograms we are carrying, and whether my 90kilo bulk will be more of an advantage than my co-rider’s leaner frame. It should not, however, be about my age… Yet I’m only here because of the cycling media’s fascination with 1999 winner Andrea Tafi’s plans to ride the race again this year at the age of 52.
The email from the editor had been short and direct: “Trev, how old are you?” My reply was equally succinct: “Why? I’m a man, not a number.”
The editor thought that if I were the same age as Tafi, it would make a good hook for a Big Ride in the socalled Hell of the North [ we need only the slightest excuse to visit the Roubaix cobbles – ed].
After admitting that my age was “in the same ball park” as the Italian’s, I found myself assembling my bike in the car park of a cemetery in northern France on a grey and freezing December morning.
Guardian angels
My co-rider is Bertrand Boulenger, a slip of a lad and member of Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix, the group of volunteers who lovingly preserve the race’s famous sections of pavé.
He has plotted a 100km route taking in 13 secteurs – a total of 27km of cobbles - all but two of which feature regularly in the race.
I’ve never cycled in this part of France before and my feeling of dread is not lessened by a flat, desolate landscape that is currently shrouded in a blanket of low mist. The tallest features are water towers and church spires that puncture the gloom like spectral space rockets.
I’ve barely got used to my bike – hired from a supermarket in
nearby Lille - when we reach the first section of pavé, a little-used 600m section that Bertrand has included as a “gentle warm-up” for a beginner such as myself.
Even though it’s slightly downhill and the cobbles are relatively unblemished, I get my first taste of what it must feel like to be strapped to a pneumatic drill or the top of a washing machine.
Just as my body is trying to assimilate this sensory data and calibrate its response, a new sensation sweeps over me. This one is wholly different and unexpected. I’ve transited from the malevolent cobbles trying to do me harm to the safe, smooth sanctuary of pristine tarmac that just wants to keep me safe and happy, and now synaptic pulses of pleasure have replaced the earlier pangs of pain.
Of course, no one had told me about this. Cycling’s USP is ‘suffering’, so it’s all about the pain that bookends the pleasure. Everyone I’d spoken to had measured their experience on the pavé by their dust-blackened faces, aching joints and numb hands.
No one had told me that at the end of each stretch of bone-rattling, teeth-jarring, joint-mashing, boulder-sized cobbles, I would get a hit of pure, unfiltered rapture comparable to any of the other great pleasures of cycling, such as an Alpine descent, 30mph tailwind or cafe without a queue.
Having literally had sleepless nights in the weeks leading up to this ride, I am now buzzing with anticipation for the remaining 26km of cobbles – bring it on!
We have 25km before the first Paris-Roubaix secteur, a chance to get the heart rate up and soak up the ‘scenery’. It’s mainly flat farmland with occasional clusters of red-brick buildings that, befitting the mining industry they once served, have a stark, no-nonsense beauty.
Making tracks
It was in one of these communities that 1962 world champion and fourtimes French national champion Jean Stablinski grew up and worked before turning pro.
When Paris-Roubaix was in danger of running out of pavé in the mid-1960s – local mayors and farmers viewed their cobbled tracks as an embarrassment in a rapidly modernising world and favoured tarmacking over them – organisers asked Stablinski if he knew of any previously hidden stretches of cobbles. He showed them an overgrown, rutted track that ran through the forest above the mine he had once worked in.
“I get my first taste of what it feels like to be strapped to a pneumatic drill or the top of a washing machine”
The myth of the Arenberg Trench was born.
These days, Bertrand tells me, there are 100km of pavé in existence thanks to the conservation work of Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix. The group recently discovered a new 2000m section of pavé that is due to be used in the 120th edition of the race in 2022.
He joined Les Amis (paying 20 euro a year) because he lived not far from one of Paris-Roubaix’s secteurs and remembers the excitement of watching the race go by as a youngster.
“Every year, volunteers will check the state of the pavé and organise repairs,” he says. “Small jobs can be done by us, the bigger jobs will be done by paving companies, paid for by the local government. Without the work of Les Amis, there would be fewer sections of cobbles, and they would be of inferior quality, so the race just wouldn’t be the same.”
That feeling is shared by many veterans of the race, including 2015 winner John Degenkolb who became the first pro rider to be appointed as an ambassador for Les Amis last year. He thanked the organisation for ensuring that the race remained “as hard, heavy, nice, amazing, lovely and brutal” as its first edition in 1896.
By now we have arrived at our first section of the famed cobbles and I am suddenly filled with the same sense of awe and trepidation I remember from my first visit to Alpe d’Huez and assorted other iconic climbs. We may be riding the Wandignies-Hamage à Hornaing secteur in the reverse direction, but it is still 3700 metres long with a ‘difficulty’ rating of four stars.
Recalling the advice I had been given by various pavé veterans, I aim for the crown of the cobbles, grip the top of the bars and start churning the pedals in a big gear. Though ostensibly the smoothest section, the crown is not immune to the occasional missing chunk