Cobblestones
The Spring Classics are peppered with these little blighters that never fail to shake up the peloton
There’s little in the world of pro cycling that instils fear and ramps up drama like cobblestones. Sprint finishes, a loosely orchestrated mass of speed and unspent energy, might be loaded with risk for the protagonists, but most involved are specialists for the job. While you might want to watch fast mountain descents through your fingers, unless someone is chasing the race, there is often more control involved than you might think. On the cobbles, however, a sense of jeopardy pervades the peloton.
Cobblestones, or pavé as they’re known in French (pronounced pah-vay) appear sporadically on the racing calendar all season long (and every few editions, always controversially, at the Tour de France) but it’s in the Spring Classics, at races such as Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix where they are front and centre. Each race has a designated number of cobbled ‘sectors’, where the race abruptly switches from smooth tarmac to bone-rattling cobbles. Due to their historic nature, the quality of cobbled sectors varies dramatically, from those that have received substantial makeovers over the years, to the likes of the Paris-Roubaix’s infamous Forest of Arenberg, a 2.3km stretch of jagged, scarred cobbles that has the feel of an obstacle course.
Positioning into these sectors in races is paramount. Everyone wants to be on the front – it’s the best place to stay out of bother and avoid any crashes in front of you on this slippery and uneven surface. Of course, in races of around 200 riders, the ‘front’ is limited to about 25-30 riders, so this jockeying for position can be quite frantic. Given these stones’ higher density and weight over an equal volume of tarmac, a fall is always much heavier, and harder to get up from. The best riders, such as Belgian cobbled-Classics legend Tom Boonen, manage to look like they’re floating over it, such is the power they can produce. Boonen at the flat ParisRoubaix, for instance, would often record faster times over the rough pavé than the tarmac in between.
The drama of cobbled Classics inspires amateurs to give them a go, too. Both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix have their own sportive, and in this issue we have Simon Warren’s report of the Ronde van Calderdale, a Flanders-inspired route on the brilliant cobbled climbs of Halifax and its surrounding area.