Welcome To Hell
Why ‘The Hell of the North’ really is the toughest one-day race in the world.
Paris-roubaix is cycling’s most infamous oneday race. Cyclist joins the crowds to see what makes ‘The Hell of the North’ so compelling
The race hasn’t even started yet and already there are cobbles. The smooth stones line the forecourt of the Château de Compiègne, a once royal abode 80km outside Paris, and the start point for the 2014 Paris-roubaix. Soigneurs scuttle and autograph hunters scramble, while the riders wait inscrutably inside team enclosures.
The crowd hushes momentarily to listen to Fabian Cancellara being interviewed over the loudspeaker. Shortly afterwards it erupts into cheers when Tom Boonen raises his hand in a wave. Soon enough, the riders ready themselves, the commissaire’s flag is raised, and the peloton drifts out of the square, with an insouciant, overheated Peter Sagan pulling off a gilet at its rear.
In the beginning
The 2014 Paris-roubaix marks 118 years since its inaugural edition, held on 19th April 1896, making it older than the Tour de France, Giro d’italia and the Tour of Flanders.
‘Two mill owners, Théo Vienne and Maurice Perez, saw a commercial opportunity,’ explains Les Woodland, author of Paris Roubaix: The Inside Story, of the two entrepreneurs to whom the race owes its creation. ‘They dressed their proposal as a training race for Bordeaux-paris [the deceased 560km Classic], so they could get the newspaper that organised the race to run the Paris end of affairs. They were showmen as well as mill owners, though. Vienne had staged boxing matches in the past, and even a contest between a bull and a lion. Both had now invested in a track, and wanted to sell tickets.’
The first edition was won by German rider Josef Fischer – the first and last of his countrymen to do so. Maurice Garin, the first Tour de France winner, came third at the inaugural Paris-roubaix, while Henri Desgrange, the creator of the Tour de France, dropped out before the start. These early protagonists completed the course behind a motorised pacer, something that was common in longdistance races of old, and rather than negotiating selected cobbled sectuers, as per today’s race, their entire route was beset with hazards.
‘Cobbled roads were the good roads, not the bad. The bad ones were made from mud or ash,’ says Woodland of the race’s early years. Back then, cobbles were not a unique feature of the race, merely the reality of road riding in northern France.
Today, the pros have to cover 51.1km of cobbles, spread over 28
sectors, and Cyclist is keen to catch the action at one of these stretches. After leaving the Château de Compiègne, we drive 100km to get ahead of the race, and skid to an abrupt halt near one of the first cobbled sectors, somewhere in a field just outside of Quiévy.
It’s not hard to see where we have to go. The sector in question is made obvious by the billowing flags, plumes of BBQ smoke and boozy chanting up ahead – not to mention the hordes of people jumping hedgerows and fighting through brambles as they make haste towards the commotion.
Rabbles of fans – mainly Dutch, Belgian and French – encroach upon the cobbles and crane their necks sideways in an effort to peek back down the narrow road. There’s a feverish impatience, heightened by the occasional passing of a gendarme or Mavic service motorbike. Suddenly the crowd parts, the spectators push back to the edges of the road, and the lead riders come blasting past in a cloud of dust and noise. They are quickly followed by the main bunch, who appear and disappear in a matter of seconds, with the crowd surging back onto the road behind them.
Before the dust has even settled, spectators start scrabbling over hedges and fields to get back to their cars in order to catch the race again further down the road. We join the rush.
A name that stuck
The devastation wreaked by the First World War changed the nature of Paris-roubaix and gave the race its famous nickname.
‘An exploratory party went north after the First World War to see if the race could be run again,’ Woodland says. ‘While they were in the Nord department, where most of the fighting had been, Eugène Christophe, a rider who was with them, said, “Nous avons vu les enfers du Nord!” [We have seen the hell of the North], and the expression stuck.’ Many believe that the term Hell of the
North refers to the cobbles, but the name actually came from the postapocalyptic scenes that Christophe and his company had witnessed.
But as well as giving ParisRoubaix its poetic tagline, the war enforced a pan-european process of regeneration, and this included the road network. The mud, ash and cobbles were gradually replaced by swathes of tarmac and concrete, to the point where the race’s identity became jeopardised.
‘The race began looking out for bad roads, as organisers feared it would become just another Paris-tours [a traditional sprinter’s classic],’ says Woodland. ‘So Albert Bouvet, the race director, went off to find the bad roads that represented the past.’
And so, as more and more cobbles were lost under a tarmac crust, the route gradually began to migrate away from the coastal peripheries and towards the western coal mines of Départment Nord. Soon, even these rough passages were under threat, and a new measure was necessitated.
‘ L’association des Amis de Paris-roubaix was created in 1977, on account of the race organiser,’ says François Doulcier, president of the
As more and more cobbles were lost under tarmac, the route migrated towards the western coal mines of Départment Nord
group that many consider to be the race’s ongoing guardian. ‘At that time, Paris-roubaix was in great danger. There were not enough cobblestones in the last 50 kilometres, so with the guidance of the race organiser, Albert Bouvet, we reacted.’
It was a further 15 years before they were able to stop authorities paving over the cobbles, and another 10 before neglected sectors could be restored to a useable standard. However, by locating these ‘lost’ roads, Paris-roubaix began to fall out of favour with the residents and governors of the area, as the race was drawing media attention to the shoddiness of their local road infrastructure, and so hosting the race became a badge of disrepute.
It’s a far cry from the modern era, where the rare ownership of a cobbled sector is heralded as a town triumph. Such is the prestige of the race, the ‘Friends of Paris-roubaix’ claim that town mayors make regular approaches with newly discovered sectors.
‘Our objective is to preserve and maintain the 85km of cobbles that the Paris-roubaix parcours can use,’ explains Doulcier of the team of volunteers that keeps the cobbles in a race-worthy condition. ‘We also promote the image of the race via events and exhibitions.’
Arenberg’s infamous Trench sector has become synonymous with the race – riders fear it above all others
Following the crowd
We’re in a bit of a quandary. Our initial plan had been to attempt to snatch a glimpse of the action at the Trouée d’arenberg – the infamous Arenberg Trench sector. ‘This is where the winning group is selected,’ according to Jean Stablinski, the 1962 World Champion who once worked in the surrounding collieries.
This 2,400m stretch has become synonymous with the race; the sector riders fear and spectators relish beyond all others. But with infamy comes interest, and The Trench also acts as a bottleneck, approachable only by those in the race convoy, or those fans early enough to avoid the masses. Alas, we fit into neither category. After a moment of indecision parked up by the side of the road, we opt to continue onwards.
It’s a shame, because I would have liked to see first-hand how riders cope with this stretch. As Edward Theuns of pro team Topsport VlaanderenBaloise later tells us, ‘It’s the most important part of the race. After Arenberg the sectors just keep coming and coming, so you have to be at the front, because the back door is wide open. It’s a sprint going towards it.
‘When we entered Arenberg, I couldn’t believe it,’ Theuns continues. ‘The first thing to cross my mind was, “This isn’t a road anymore!”
‘The second was, “Will my bike get to the other end OK?” After that, the most important thing is momentum. If you can look ahead and see a good line, or shift your weight correctly, you’ll go a lot smoother. But of course,
you have to hope for the best too; the bike will take some hits.’
It’s because of these uncontrollable factors, and the likelihood of serious crashes, that many pros choose to omit Roubaix from their calendars. ‘ Est une connerie [it’s bullshit],’ decried Bernard Hinault after winning the 1981 edition (’82 would be his last outing here). ‘It’s a circus,’ chimed in Chris Boardman, who didn’t even visit the route once.
The barmy army
With Arenberg behind us, we’re now deciding where to head next to catch the action. We stop at various roundabouts and cordoned T-junctions to check our whereabouts and size up the opportunities for parking. At one such stop we happen upon a group of fans huddled around a palm-sized TV set on a picnic rug.
‘What’s happening?’ we enquire. ‘Tom Boonen… Attack!’ comes the reply. We drive on, keener than ever to find a good viewing point.
Once back on the road, our map reveals what appears to be a shortcut. It turns out to be a dirt track, but we turn down it anyway. A few hundred metres later, with potholes battering the suspension and bramble bushes scratching at our paintwork, we hear a cacophony of horns behind us.
Pulling over into a gap in the bushes, we’re quickly passed by a stream of team cars. Belkin, IAM, BMC, Trek… they obviously knew about this clever shortcut too. ‘Follow those guys!’ I yell. Eventually we reach the end of the road, park up, and scramble along the path to the Le Carrefour de l’arbre cobbled sector, picking our way along its gutter through the dirt and grass in search of a viewing spot.
Little old men sit hunched in collapsible chairs while listening intently to the radio commentary; families nestle under gazebos, picking at snacks; and groups of lads slurp beer between chants of ‘ O-me-gaPharma… Qui-i-ckstep,’ or ‘Lot-to. Lot-to. Lot-to… Bel-i-sol!’
We chat to a man by the name of Aernout. ‘I’ve been coming here for seven years,’ he says. ‘Always to the Carrefour de l’arbre. If something’s going to happen, it’ll happen here.’ The sector is known as a launch pad for race-winning moves due to it being one of the last 5-star (toughest) sectors, just 15km from the finish.
Heralded by buzzing helicopters, dirtspattered, grimacing faces fly past, each looking in as much agony as the next
‘We’ve been here since 11am [it’s now 4.30pm], drinking, watching, talking to everybody,’ Aernout continues, fanning out his arms in recognition of the surrounding crowd.
‘Who’s this guy?’ We ask with a nod to a frail-looking man dressed in a dust-encrusted suit, swaying dazedly between us. ‘No idea!’ says Aernout, handing him a Jupiler beer.
A final foray
After a while, the telltale presence of helicopters and a rising cloud of dust on the horizon has the crowd shuffling for a good position, and before we know it a select group of riders comes into view.
The dirt-spattered, grimacing faces fly past, each looking in as much agony as the next. After a severely depleted peloton clatters by, the groups become more and more sparse until just lone figures appear and disappear through the haze, painfully turning the pedals in a final effort to reach the velodrome in Roubaix.
Later on, Topsport’s Edward Theuns conspiratorially tells us, ‘I rode the final 30km alone, and it’s a bit weird to say, but that was the part of the race I enjoyed the most.
‘I was so determined to get to the finish, and with the crowd staying to cheer every rider I entered the velodrome with goose bumps.’
Theuns eventually makes it to Roubaix in 107th place, 13m 42s down on winner Niki Terpstra, but he is nonetheless one of 144 riders from the 248 starters to have completed this edition of Paris-roubaix and he can be proud of his achievement. As François Doulcier reminds us, ‘ C’est la course d’un jour la plus dure au monde’ – this is the hardest one-day race in the world.
Joshua Cunningham is currently happily riding his bike around the world. He should be back soon