WON PARIS- ROUBAIX IN 2014
Roubaix has a special place in my heart. When I was a little kid and I started cycling, Roubaix was one of the races I admired the most. I was watching the television like the cyclists were the heroes, because on the television it looks tough but if you see it in real life it’s even harder. I thought it was a special race and when I was a first year professional and had the opportunity to start there, it was a really special feeling.
The route hasn’t changed for a lot of years. You can’t compare the cobbles with other cobbles, because in Belgium the cobbles are rough but in the north of France it’s even rougher. And also we don’t race there any other time of the year. It’s really one day of the year. In Flanders, we have a lot of races here and you do the cobbled sections and the small hills in another race and it’s just another mix of those roads. But in Roubaix, you race those roads just once.
Everybody has got a luxury team bus where you can shower - but sometimes I take my backpack out of the bus and go to the showers there. These small things make it extra historic, I think, and heroic. It’s almost unbelievable that I won there. It sounds silly, but it’s really a dream come true. It is a race that suits me well. I knew it, but actually finishing it off, I will never forget that moment. Maybe later on I will realise it even more. Every winner has their name on a plate in the showers, and when you see your plate against the wall there with all the other big names, it makes me proud.
I think it’s the most heroic race of the year. It’s the most spectacular one as well and obviously it’s one of the most known in the world. It is so different and hard that everybody goes to their limit and over it. Even at the finish - I was just talking about it with a team-mate - even if you’re 50th or 70th, you still sprint, because you don’t know where you are in the field any more and you want to get the best result. That’s basically the only race where you do that; it’s very special.
As soon as I became a pro, I found I could ride Roubaix very well, so I started to love it even more. It’s really hard terrain, really rough; not just for the legs but for the whole body. People who have no experience of the cobbles will ride it in the wrong way. They will pump the tyres too high and hold the bars too hard and suffer even more. You have to find some small adaptations on the bike, but the way you ride on the road is not the same way you ride on the cobbles, and you have to get used to it as well. It’s very demanding. I’ve basically always been in the front group, so that’s my level.
To win, I think everything has to fall into place for me. I need a perfect day, but I need perfect circumstances. I’ve had bad luck many times with punctures and crashes, and I’ve always got back into position, but it takes a lot of energy. It’s sad that we didn’t do it last year, but I don’t think this year will be any different because everybody has found their normal rhythm again.
I rode my bicycle from Calais to Roubaix early one morning and I saw the 1980 ParisRoubaix, come by me with about 15 kilometres to go.
I had a camera lens in a little handlebar bag and just attached it to the bike and rode from the car ferry in Calais to try and find the race. That’s the bare beginning, and I saw the race every year since. I’d been doing cycling photography for three years then. I’d seen the Tour de France three times, but never seen a one-day classic and I was attracted to doing it as part of my growing interest in the business.
Every year you learn something more about the route, but in the beginning, probably for 10 years, I always made a point of going out during the week before and recceing the course, sometimes with teams, sometimes by myself with the car, and every year you’d really refresh your mind and make notes. Even if you’re in the race you make a lot of diversions around the race, so your experience counts to know where to be and when to be there, but also the knowledge of having been out during the week and refreshing your memory about which cutthrough to take and when to stop and what to expect. Gradually you go back to the areas of the race where you got your best shots, you remember a favourite corner; you have to be in the Arenberg Forest, you have to be at Troisville where the cobbles begin, you have to go onto the Carrefour de l’Arbre at the end. Between those, you’ve probably got four or five other opportunities.
It was definitely my favourite one-day race. There’s this eternal debate about Flanders and Roubaix. I always say Flanders is the most difficult race to win, the hardest race to win, whereas Paris-Roubaix is the greatest one-day classic. It’s a freak, one day out on ridiculous cobblestones, it’s an adventure for everybody in it, especially the photographers who are guaranteed to get some great shots. Even on a bad, dusty, dry day you go there knowing you’re going to have a great day out. It makes your enjoyment of the race that much greater than Flanders. If it’s a wet day you’re really excited. Because you’re part of the Tour de France family it has a prestige that Flanders doesn’t have, you know there’s going to be really worldwide attention.
Being inside the velodrome as the race arrived was like being in the coliseum awaiting a gladiators’ duel.