Paris - Roubaix Diary
12th - 15th April, 2007
by Ed Hood

Day 1 : Day 2 : Day 3 : Day4

Day 1 - Thursday 12th April, 2007

My lift was late; the architect at the site meet was a pain, then the car broke down. It was therefore a stressed Ed who lurched onto the 12.30pm London express at Waverley on Thursday afternoon to rendez-vous with VeloResults Editor, Mertin.

The train wasn't too bad, we picked the right carriage - a couple of coaches down, two gentlemen were making a fist of an attempt on the record for how much Castlemaine 4X can be consumed between the two capital cities.
First lad: "Here, Bob... watch it - ah think that boy's the polis."
Bob:"F**k um!".

At Kings Cross we transfered to the tube, in my book, only moles should be below ground; our fellow tube travellers obviously felt the same - otherwise, how could so many people look so miserable?

Hatton Cross, there's Dave and the Audi; Mr. Chapman is assisting Richard Rogers in building Heathrow Terminal 5, and is a former amateur Paris-Roubaix competitor, crossing swords with Marc Sergeant that day.

M25, M2, Dover, Ferry, Calais, all pretty grim but neccessary, the Coquelles Ibis hotel was just fine for three weary Scotsmen though.

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Day 2 - Friday 13th April, 2007

Friday's gig was to do a course recce. There are 28 sectors and you can't skek them all, so we decided to do the track at Roubaix, the final four sectors, a new sector which has just been added and the two legendary sectors - Carrefour de L'Arbre & Arenberg.

We walked the entire 2.5km's of the Arenberg sector, and back!
It was sore on the feet just padding along, let alone riding a bike over it at 30mph.

It's all up on Pez here, but suffice to say that you cannot take in Arenberg until you see it. The path through the forest is like a living thing, the cobbles vary in texture, some sit flat, some squint, some shining, some jagged - all the time the sun was shining and the birds were singing. It sounds corny, but it was as if the cobbles were sitting there waiting for their big day.

2.5km looks a long way in a straight line: pity the poor guys that fenced every metre of it, on both sides! This view is facing along the course - you can't tell from the pic, but it's downhill.

The BlackBerry has made so much difference to writing; you can sit in the car and tap away, maybe not as rapid as on a laptop, but very practical, I had my copy written and sent before we had reached our hotel in Saint Quentin.

The pictures are the bind, they have to be down-loaded from the camera into the laptop, edited and labelled, then emailed in batches. If it's a good wi-fi signal then it's a doddle, if the signal is erratic or weak, it's the most frustrating experience imaginable. The signal in the Ibis lounge wasn't too bad but it took us around 45 minutes to get all our shots on their way to Canada. I can't recommend Saint Quintin as a cullinary centre or a place to get supreme attention from the waiting staff, but we got some pasta - eventually.

The final sector, no.1, just outside the velodrome in Roubaix,
pays tribute to every past winner of the race.

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Day 3 - Saturday 14th April, 2007

The Saturday gig was to do a piece on the velos, so it was down to the start at Compiegne, and collect our creds. ASO didn't let us down; "I have credentials for you, but not your driver!". I won't bore you, but it was several hours and more of that patience-stuff later before we got the vital bits of string and plastic.

The VeloResults team head for the Château de Compiègne to pick up their accreditation.
That's Bernard Hinault at the door to greet us!

The team presentation on Saturday afternoon was colourful and loud but wasn't providing us with anything we wanted, so once we had our creds we bolted in search of bikes.

The team presentation was very busy, however we couldn't help but notice the
riders would rather have been lying in the hotel room with their feet up.

The Pez piece was to be on the bikes that would do well at Roubaix - I did really well and didn't get a single one of the podium bikes, sometimes that happens. The Pez piece is up here and I think we got some good stuff.

The first job is to track-down the team hotels; Rabobank and Discovery were our first two 'victims'. Rabobank had packed-up for the day, but Discovery were open for business. The team rides their elastomer-damped Treks just twice in the season; Flanders and Roubaix.

Apart from the rear damper the other 'tweak' is that a second front fork end is piggy-backed over the original to increase the clearance under the front fork crown. This must jack-up the front of the top tube and affect the handling, but maybe they compensate for this with the way the 'suspended' rear triangle is worked. There's no pivot or hinge on the chainstays, Trek just rely on the flex of the carbon.

We're given Van Petegem's Specialized to photograph to our hearts content.
It's not until you get real close that you notice the very subtle changes.

The Quickstep and Lotto teams were out of town, but we found them!
Lotto were wrapped-up and heading for dinner but QuickStep's mechanics were on the case. They gave us Van Petegem's bike to play with but Tom's steeds were kept well to the rear of the cellar. Is it just a coincidence that Tom's "temporary" Specialized's are black - the most difficult colour of bike to photograph?

The next port of call yielded Lampre, AG2R Prevoyance, La Francaise des Jeux and Liquigas. Lampre had Ballan and Bennati, both favourites, so a good look was called for.

Reversed seat stays on Ballan's one-off Carbon Wilier.

Ballan's Wilier was cyclo-cross based, with the rear seat stays reversed and 'mini' levers on the tops of the bars. Brakes were cheapo Campag and the chainset was brand-new Chorus, rather than Record, strangely with mixed Campag and TA rings.

Derailleurs were Record carbon though, front, back and shifters. Clearances were big, to accomodate fat Vittorias and mud. A pop rivet secured the Ritchey seat post to the seat tube in order to stop it from slipping-down; unfortunately the saddle was sitting squint - The mechanic's face dropped when Mertin asked him if that was "normale"!

Just when the mechanic thought he was finished for the day, we
point out that he needs to drill another seatpost for Ballan's bike!

The FDJ mechanics had 1997 Roubaix winner, Frederic Guesdon's Lapierre on the stand and were also prepping-up a neat carbon cyclo-cross job for Philippe Gilbert although there was debate about whether he would actually ride it.

Philippe Gilbert had both a cross-based bike and a modified road
bike to choose from, and the mechanics weren't telling.

Sometimes I think that a lot of the 'trick' bike preparation is just to get people like me snapping and writing about the brand; if it is, then it works!

We passed on AG2R's Decathlons, there's no-one in that outfit who will work the photo-finish cameras hard, and besides, the mechanics weren't the friendliest.

The aluminium number holder kinda spoils the look of Mauro Da Dalto's Synapse.

Liquigas - those Cannondales are lovely, the lime green and black colour scheme looks great in the flesh. On Friday's cobble recce we had met Rory Mason from Cannondale out on the course taking pics of Pozatto's velo - you can read about it on Pez, but we also fancied pictures of Magnus Backtsted's big machine - the mechanics were cool guys and allowed us to play around with it as much as we wanted. For a big bike, it's very light with minimal, 70's TT bike clearances.

With the 28 tyres, the clearances on Maggy's System 6 couldn't be tighter.

The Cofidis hotel was next and yielded Nick Nuyens Time: nice, very understated but with the chainstays stretched to give more clearance and compliance.

A bunch of Times. Which one you boys want to play with?

The copy was rattled out on the road again, the Campanile Hotel at Cambrai had great free wi-fi; the pictures flew into cyberdom and we found a pizza joint just five minutes from the digs. Happy boys, looking forward to the big day.

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Day 4 - Sunday 15th April, 2007

It's more like July in San Trop than spring in Northern France.

We're in Wallers to take-in cobble sectors 19 and 17, both of which are on the outskirts of the village but at different ends, we had thought about watching at sector 18, Arenberg, but half of France has the same idea, it's heaving, and we have to get up to the finish "soon-as" after we've cobble-watched.

The peace before the [dust] storm.

We decided not to go to the start; too much crush, too much traffic and besides, we had to track down a can of tyre repair foam (we had a puncture with the Audi yesterday and we've no spare now).

La Voix du Nord has Cancellara and Boonen rated on five stars for today; Hoste, De Pete, Flecha, Gusev, Ballan and Pozatto on four.

Sector 19 runs through the maize fields, if you keep your eyes off the horizon, it's a rural idyl. If you scan-out to the distance though, there are cone-shaped hills, covered with grass and trees. Only these aren't hills, they are mine spoil heaps, 'bings' as we call them in Scotland.

Like many other places, the coal industry is gone but not forgotten.
It certainly defines the area around Wallers.

When you sink shafts down into the earth, then run the 'roads' out to where the 'black gold' is, there's an awful lot of drilled and blasted rock to dispose of; hence the bings. There are four within a couple of kilometres of where we stand.

It's a long time since coal came out of the ground here, but the mine winding towers at Arenberg still stand tall over to our right.

The publicity caravan has started to come through; there's hardly a breath of wind and it's stiflingly hot. The dust off the cars is choking, it will be terrible in the bunch.

The speed was high early-on up those long, tree-lined avenues, but eventually a big group got clear; that's only the early hands of the poker game though.

Grabsch (Milram & Germany) is 1-25 clear of the big break of around 30, with QuickStep well represented. The air is heavy with brown dust and the coureurs look more like miners who have just come-up to the pit head, than the tanned, sleek young atletes that they are.

It's three minutes plus back to the CSC-driven bunch but Tom is right up there and bright-eyed. Top ten rider from last year, Bert Roesems (Lotto & Belgium) is way-back the group and Ghent Wevelgem winner, Marcus Burghardt (T-Mobile & Germany) is stone-last in the string, but he's been on the deck - his sparkling white tape is all torn.

There are still riders passing after 17 minutes and there's Matt White's (Discovery & Australia) bike on the sag wagon; Russian race-favourite, Gusev has lost a strong team mate.

We spot Matt White's bike on the wagon after Sector 19.

We try to catch sector 17 but the race is too fast for us and we miss the leaders. In the bunch, approaching the final hour it's getting 'for real' as Lotto put the hammer down; Hoste was de-classed last year and will want his revenge.

A long walk back to the car, head for the motorway and the drive to Roubaix. Sector 13 of cobbles runs alongside the motorway and there's a traffic jam as cars are abandoned wily-nily on the hard shoulder to watch the race.

There we were just driving along, and the Paris-Roubaix break rode over the motorway above us.

Yet again it makes you wonder what you have to do to attract the attention of the traffic police on French or Belgian roads.

It's a bit of a production getting to the velodrome, even with our 'Press' sticker on the car, but eventually we get there, abandon the Audi and head for the sun-drenched track centre.

The big screen is in full-flow, but it's hard to get a handle on the action as the coverage switchs from group to group. Tour de France "speaker', Daniel Mangeas provides the commentary, but it's at auctioneer speed and difficult to pick-up if you're not a local.

One thing we do know for sure is that Stuey 0'Grady is 'en seulle' at the head of affairs, riding like one of the greats - flying over the sets, making it look simple. It's very fluid behind, but the jist of it is that the early-break, which I described as, 'the early hands of the game' is, in fact, 'the play of the day'.

Not much sitting-room left in the bleachers at the Andre Petrieux velodrome.

That group of 30 provided most of the top placings - O'Grady was in the break, punctured out of it but got back to forge-ahead and win in great style.

Of the bunch, only a late-charging Boonen made any headway, just failing to catch the Flecha group which sprinted for second. The smiling, Argentinean-born Rabobank rider further underlined that Spain is now a major player in the classics. In the last year, Fleche, Liege, Zurich, HEW, San Sebastian and San Remo have all gone to riders from the Iberian peninsula.

Flecha was pretty happy with 2nd place.

Flecha beat fellow early-break members Wesemann, Leukemans and Petito to the line with Boonen just failing to drag himself, Hammond and Franzoi into contention for a podium place sprint.

The good weather has played a huge part in the evolution of this race and also in Wednesday's Ghent-Wevelgem. The lack of the rain which many riders hate, and more particularly wind, which means there are no echelons and less chance of splits, results in less factors to split the race.

Wesemann's sweating face 15 minutes after finishing showed the effort.

With fewer riders wasted, there's very little difference in speed between break and bunch. All that said, both races produced good racing and worthy podium finishers.

Hinault lays flowers at O'Grady's feet!

"Daddy won!"

The track centre at Roubaix was a great experience - O'Grady in tears of joy; rare Bjarne Riis smiles; Flecha happy to talk to every one about his excellent result; Wesemann proving a point to his old masters at T-Mobile;
Backstedt philosophical; Boonen's dad not making much of a job of hiding his disappointment - it was all there.

Pozzato's 'motor' wasn't firing on all cylinders today, and he ended up 35th at over 8 minutes down.

Le Permanence - Salle de Presse.

But there are pictures to email and copy to write; tomorrow it will all sink-in properly. Meanwhile: it's motorway, Calais, Ibis, Ferry, and back to reality tomorrow.

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