/ PARI S- ROUBAIX
ESTABLISHED 1896 EDITIONS 119
Of all the races lost to the covid-19 pandemic, the most keenly missed was Paris-Roubaix. The Queen of Classics is one of the most prestigious events of the year, with a unique parcours and challenge.
It’s a paradox, or perhaps absolutely typical of cycling, that one of its most important one-day races is a throwback to the past. It’s unlike anything else on the calendar - at least the Tour of Flanders is part of a coherent series of similar events, from Omloop, through E3, Gent-Wevelgem and the other Flemish classics. There is no other race that is anything like Paris-Roubaix. Yet the riders and teams keenly focus on it. The race is straightforward in many ways. There are no hills to speak of, although the riders are at pains to point out that the rolling nature of the first part of the race is more sapping than it looks from the race profile. The wind can be an issue, but generally the southwest-tonortheast direction of the parcours follows the prevailing spring weather systems - the wind pushes the speed up, but doesn’t get in between the riders to force echelons. However, the cobbles are quite specific to the race.
In Belgium, the cobbles tend to be fairly uniform, and their tops are flat. The Paris-Roubaix cobbles are huge and misshapen with unpredictable holes and gaps. Riding fast on them necessitates huge seated power and balance, and generally more weight. The riders need to be able to cross the cobbled sectors right on the redline - fast enough to burn off the opposition; not so fast that the effort can’t be repeated multiple times.
Tactics also come into play. Three of the last four winners (the exception is Van Avermaet in 2017) attacked very early, and the extra effort of riding ahead was balanced by being ahead of the worst of the fighting into and through the cobbled sectors. Roubaix is the culmination of the cobbled classics season, and never, ever crowns a winner who is not worthy.