The Eurostar is easily the best way to travel to France. Unless, that is, the train engine catches fire and you’re left stranded for three hours at Ashford International watching other Eurostar trains – seemingly fireproof – cruise through on time, with a compliment of happy passengers gawping at you through their windows. My first foray to the Continent in order to catch up with some experts of the race, and also to recce Lille and the Roubaix velodrome, hadn’t exactly gone to plan.
The tour company Pavé Cycling Classics, however, were a godsend to meet and gain motivation for being able to ride the cobbles. I had heard of them from a friend who had signed up the year before to experience the ‘Hell of the North’ without the stress and fuss of organizing it himself. I had then read a great article in Cyclist magazine by Henry Catchpole which brought the company and what they do to glorious full colour. With the idea of picking the brains of an expert of the pavé, and perhaps actually visiting the velodrome or sections of pavé itself, I thought the expense of a train ticket that would deliver me to Lille in under an hour and a half was well worth the time and effort. So, there I was, finally standing outside Lille Métropole station, waiting for my meeting with William from Pavé Cycling, until I felt quite conspicuous.
My mobile buzzed and a hybrid Flemish–Irish accent came online to announce his imminent arrival. ‘Sorry I’m late, Iain, I’ve got the kids with me today as their school is closed, is that a problem?’ (Cue young kids’ chatter in the background.)
‘No, not at all, I’m standing outside the Eurostar station if you’re nearby?’
‘We’re actually parked by the McDonald’s around the corner; do you want anything?’
So lunch was sorted as I greeted a very athletic William Lanigan carrying a large bag of takeaway Happy Meals and Big Macs and smiling broadly as I jogged up to his car. We shook hands and quickly got underway, his kids watching me from their car seats in the back, silent as they tend to be when a total stranger comes into their world.
William looked like a pro racer on a day off. As he drove through the back streets of the city centre, he gave me a short biography, of how he’d moved to France in the late 1990s, following a long line of talented amateur racers, hoping to make his way in the professional peloton. Life takes strange turns, however. He married a local girl, settled down to a full-time career as an engineer, and raced cyclo-cross and road in his spare time. I was intrigued by his accent. Depending on the background noise of traffic and the kids – shyness now being replaced by boisterous chatter – he would initially sound straight from a Dublin street, but this was then littered with classic Gallic mannerisms and shrugs. I imagined he spoke French pretty much all the time, and only English-speaking clients forced him to trawl up his mother tongue from the memory banks. It was a great combination, though.
After ten minutes of driving along through the suburbs, we eventually parked in front of a pretty three-storey house with a built-in garage, which I assumed housed his apartment. Wrong, he owned the whole thing. Walking through the garage, I saw that it was lined with road bikes. Some were parked against the far wall, others in various states of repair, and all were built for riding on cobbles by the looks of them. We ascended the marble staircase, where the walls were decorated with large-framed, stunning monochrome photographs of cyclists in action, looking like they were riding through the Arenberg judging by the forest surrounding them. The photographs lined the walls all the way through the living room to the first-floor kitchen, where William introduced me to his business partner and friend, Alex Voisine.
The kids happily went off to the living room to settle down to eat and watch some TV. We eased ourselves around the kitchen table and tucked into the Big Mac meals. For three relatively fit-looking guys it did seem weird to be eating this stuff, even funnier when William offered me an afternoon aperitif: ‘You drink a Martini?’
‘No, I’m not drinking.’
He clocked me suspiciously. ‘You don’t drink?’
I felt embarrassed. ‘No, no. I’m not drinking until I’ve done the race.’
I tucked into the Big Mac as Alex directed a rueful smile towards William across the table. William went to the fridge and pulled out a few brown bottles of beer. ‘It’s a duty free, organic beer. Go on, have one, it’s our own Belgian beer – Malteni!’
Again, I declined, explaining, ‘I actually had a bit of a publishing event last night for an author and there were eight glasses of wine on the table and I never touched a drop.’
They both shook their heads chuckling, ‘You must be mad.’
I raised my hands in mock admonishment. ‘I am mad. It’s one of those things that you’ll never forgive yourself if you’re drained by the end of it. If I just hadn’t had a drink. But, you have one.’
William took the top off his bottle, raised it to me in salute and enjoyed a long swig. Placing it down on the table in triumph, he smiled at me and announced, ‘I’m riding Flanders tomorrow.’ We all laughed. ‘So, what do you want to know about the pavé?’
‘Well, like I said to you over the phone last week, I’m doing Paris–Roubaix in a few weeks’ time, so I’m trying to get as much background information on the race itself – what to expect, and tips on how to handle the pavé. When I’ve been talking to people, I’ve asked them, “Say one word that sums up Paris–Roubaix to you,” and one word more than most keeps coming back to me – “brutal”. So, it would be interesting to see what you think, because you guys know, obviously.’
William looked across at Alex and raised his eyebrows as if to acknowledge they’d be giving away trade secrets. ‘The first thing I would say about Roubaix, it’s … erm, it’s not as hellish as people expect. You expect really to have a killer ride, but when I remember the first time I rode the cobbles, I was thinking, “This isn’t so bad.”’
My perplexed look made him continue quickly.
‘I remember a friend of mine back home in Ireland who raced Paris–Roubaix in the 1990s. He rode it for a good amateur French team at the time. I remember talking to him a couple of weeks afterwards, when he came back to Ireland for the area championships, and he was saying, “Yeah, I don’t know what’s the big deal.” He didn’t actually finish the race, but he said, “I got to the brink and I was riding on the cobbles and, you know, I broke my bike and I had to wait ten minutes for the team car to come, etc., so physically I personally didn’t find it difficult.”’
I was stunned by this revelation and looked across at Alex who was nodding in agreement. William continued with his analysis in his Dublin/French brogue: ‘I’m not telling you it’s easy. It is hard, but it’s more a case of, it’s a lottery. It’s always a lottery scenario for the pros. You are trying to keep out of trouble for as long as possible. You’re trying to save energy for all of the pavé. You know, when you look at the race, Paris–Roubaix kind of plays out over a pretty short space of time.
‘Let’s say, between the start and finish of Paris–Roubaix, is a two hundred and sixty kilometre race, with the first kind of selection at the troué of the Arenberg section. Then it’s more attrition, so people will be going out the back, just running out of energy, so then the decision for victory may be between thirty or forty riders. This final selection takes place more or less on the last ten to fifteen kilometres, where it is intense pavé. So, it’s horses for courses.
‘You know, if you take a look at the television, you’ll see this summer, when Froome and his skinny friends come here to ride the Tour de France, that I’m sure it’s going to be hellish for them.fn1 They are not used to riding it and they’re twenty kilos lighter than we are. They’re designed to go uphill and suddenly you give them something that’s totally different. It must be really bad. Just like taking a fat guy to the mountains.’
Part of me agreed with what William was saying about weight, balance and the experience required to ride the route. But there was an advantage in riding these roads every week of the year, in all weathers. Maybe that explained part of the bravado, or casual loftiness of William’s verdict on this majestic race. ‘Well, it’ll be interesting to see what Wiggins does,’ I countered. ‘He has to put on some weight, too, I guess?’
William could probably tell I was still pondering his earlier declarations of how easy the cobbles were for him. ‘He is accustomed to handling a bike now on the pavé. He’s riding Flanders tomorrow, too. Equally, just look at David Millar. David Millar, who is merely a Tour rider in the past. He became a good pavé rider in the end through practice.
‘It’s a way of life. Pavé cycling for us is— it’s, erm … well, we think we’re privileged living here. Alex is from Brittany, and I’m from Ireland. By chance we ended up working together in northern France, but I didn’t realize I was coming to heaven when I came here.’ He pointed out the window towards the countryside in the distance, ‘Because here is heaven. For a bike-racing fan from March until mid-April, you’ve got loads of the best races in the world. The racers are living here. You see the Italian teams coming here and staying for two weeks, three weeks at a time, so it’s a really interesting period, a very intense period. These races have a lot of history. They have a lot of stories, so we set up Pavé Cycling to share that and to make it possible for anybody to come and jump on a specific bike and to be able to get out on to the pavé. We’ve been going three years now and it’s funny how, although we never said it would be a breadwinner for us, it sort of has. We have riders coming from as far away as Japan, the USA and Australia to book a ride with us on the pavé.’
Their excitement was palpable around the kitchen table. I was impressed by their élan, nonchalance and passion for these ancient races. They were clearly living the dream. But I still had plenty of questions I needed answering.
‘How many bikes do you have? Do people bring their own?’
Alex chirped up for the first time: ‘Eight bikes. So people have the choice to rent our customized ones, or if they want to use their own bikes they can.’
‘And you organize everything else for them, too, such as accommodation?’
Alex nodded. ‘Yes, it’s going to be an exciting period coming up this summer. We will ride the Tour de France route a few days before it arrives for the official stages, and our guys will ride the same sections, so it will be more interesting for them, as they can see the Tour de France covering the pavé they have just ridden.’
I was excited just thinking about it. However, I was in for another assumption being corrected. ‘It must be good for business, that ASO have opened the race to amateurs?’
William shot me a serious look. ‘We’re actually not fans of it, to be honest. The “original” Paris–Roubaix race for amateurs is actually run by the Roubaix Cycling Tourist Club. It’s run every second year in the month of June. For me this is the real one, because it goes from Compiègne to Roubaix, the real route. It doesn’t cost a lot, the original one. It costs fifteen euros or something like that and it’s very traditional. Then ASO have come along and prices have dramatically increased.’
Alex raised his bottle of beer, staring into the reflection of the brown glass. ‘It’s not a race any more,’ he murmured wistfully.
William continued his analysis of what he clearly felt was a serious issue affecting them: ‘I find that it’s a kind of unwritten rule that you don’t infringe on other organizations. It’s really a tradition thing. The traditional race for amateurs was running for fifty years. It had been raced for thirty years before I pitched up. I think it’s a little cheeky from the side of the ASO, and they’ve turned it, really, into a money-spinning thing.’
‘So you think it’s “buy the T-shirt, buy the hat, buy the video”? Buy everything, really?’
William nodded. ‘That’s how it is. Everyone said to me, “You guys charge to bring people on the pavé, too,” so I suppose it’s more or less the same thing. We’re all celebrating it in the long run. The demand isn’t high enough to have a lot of people doing it, though. It’s not like Mallorca, or Tenerife, or the Alps, where a lot of people go on cycling holidays. This place attracts a certain kind of bike fan and bike rider.’
Ah, now we were talking about the main subject, I knew they’d have good advice for me. ‘What’s the perfect set-up on a bike for pavé?’ I asked.
Alex gestured towards the stairwell. ‘Look at our bikes.’ William cut across both of us to get his point over, ‘Honestly, the most important thing are the wheels. Don’t look at the pros. The pros are riding wheels, disposable wheels. These wheels they are riding on Roubaix, they’re not adapted by the manufacturers.’
‘A waste of money,’ chimed Alex.
William continued, ‘I’m sure that they are less efficient with some of the wheels they are using. Not all of them, but some of the guys are riding wheels that aren’t set up correctly, but they have them because the manufacturers are saying it’s OK.’
I nodded in agreement with him. ‘You feel you’ve got to have them because it’s great marketing to say the pros ride them at Roubaix, too.’
‘Well, the only advice I was given,’ Alex said, taking over, ‘was if you’ve got your comfortable saddle, you don’t have to worry about that. Just make your wheels bombproof. Well, make your wheels bombproof and make them comfortable. For me the element on a bike that makes a bike more comfortable, the dominant element, is the wheels, because they have such a heavy filtering aspect. You can take a frame that is less rigid, or more rigid, but compared to a big section – I would compare it to a car – if you have a car with fifteen-inch steel rims and high-profile tyres and you have the same car and you put a pair of seventeen-inch low profiles on, the feeling of the car is completely different in terms of comfort. It’s more or less the same sensation on the bike, and that’s amplified when you are on the pavé. So, our bikes, we’re riding low rims, for the rims they can deform circularly around the hub. Lots of spokes allows you to have lower spoke tension. When you have only twenty spokes in a carbon ring you’ve got to tighten those spokes a lot. We ride tubulars, 27 millimetre. Every now and again I ride a bike on the pavé that’s not adapted for the pavé and I say, “What? That’s hard,” and you come back and you ride the other one and it’s like, “Aaah …”’
‘That’s what I’ve been discussing with many people back home, Alex. The amount of people I have had tell me to take more weightier tyres than 25 millimetres. Even 30 millimetres? What do you think?’
‘Twenty-fives, for me, not less. Twenty-five is the minimum. I remember the fifth year I rode Paris–Roubaix, I rode with 23 millimetres. It was very hard. Madness!’
William concurred. ‘For me, you ride bigger tyres and lower pressures, because if you have a small tyre and you ride normal pressure, you’ll puncture, for sure. You pinch the inner tubes, so for me that’s the basic thing. Other than that, I would say, don’t look too much at what the professionals are doing. The pros are putting on two layers of tape on the handlebars and stuff like that. The tapes are so good today, compared to when I was a kid. You’ve got gel tapes on the bikes and so there’s no need to put two layers on. If you put two layers on, your hands are like, “Booophh!” Too big! So, I always say the bike you set up to ride the pavé should be the bike you ride every day. What kind of frame do you have, then?’
I thought I was on a winner here: ‘A carbon.’
They both shook their heads again.
‘I’m sceptical about carbon,’ said William. ‘For me it’s more the geometry you need to think about. We work with people from Cyfac, a famous French bike brand from the nineteen eighties, who were making bikes for most of the pro teams of France and Italy when everyone was riding steel, or at the beginning of aluminium design. They had a lot of know-how on what they were doing on the steel bikes for the pros at that stage for pavé. They were making specific geometries, twenty or twenty-five years ago, for bigger tyre clearance, as well as for the capacity of the frame to absorb vibration and just take up the impact of the pavé. So, when Alex had already worked with them on a fixed-gear bike project, they said, “OK, we’ll show you what we were working on a few years ago.”
‘Honestly, it’s crazy when I see the bike industry today. We as consumers are constantly being fed stories: “Your bike is more comfortable lighter, more rigid.” It’s all bullshit and the magazines feed it to us. When I test a modern bike with technology from more or less twenty years ago, the seal we’re using, it’s a seal developed decades ago, and the geometry information that we’re using was developed twenty years ago. These bloody old-style bikes work better than a new bike. Jaysus! So, that’s why I say carbon frames and all this new “technology”, it’s just following a consumer programme like everything else we buy.’
As with his view of riding the pavé itself, William was very, very sure of his footing on the type of bike to use. I couldn’t argue with the man due to his knowledge based on actually riding the routes many times. I started to feel guilty about selling my old Cougar-designed, Reynolds-steel-framed bike in order to purchase the carbon beauty I now had: ‘The tyres, I’ve sorted out, William, and I’ve got a carbon seat post, because I thought that would be OK. But, it’s a Raleigh bike as well, but it’s a good bike. It’s a sportive bike, basically, but that’s the only worry. I thought, “I wonder what kind of strain I’m going to put this frame under?” I want to finish this race.’
I got the feeling he thought he’d spooked me as he seemed far more consoling now: ‘Honestly, if you are filtering with the wheels, if you’ve got good section tyres, and you look where you’re going … the biggest risk you have on the pavé is to hit a hole and crash. That’s where you can damage your bike. But, in general, if you avoid that on the sportive, you’ve just got to keep your distance from people; if you’re going to keep your eyes open it’s not going to be a disaster. In general, stuff comes loose, so make sure everything is tight. Even with us, we’ll take our bikes out and on the first section a pair of handlebars will come loose, or something like that, because our bikes might have been hung up for a month in the garage. Basically, all the peripheral stuff on the bike suffers, because it’s being vibrated. Check your bottle cages are tight, really clamp your bottles tight.’
It seemed like we’d been talking for five minutes, but my watch said half an hour. William’s two children wandered in looking for drinks. Once he’d supplied them with their juice bottles he boiled the kettle and made some espressos for Alex and me.
‘What about all this advice that riding on the crown of the cobbles is the best and safest place to be?’ I asked.
William handed me my coffee. ‘Yeah, ride the crown on the pavé. Look in front of you. Look what’s coming up, that’s the best way to survive.’
Alex decided to add some chilling advice, the one subject that was the elephant in the room: ‘Not in the Arenberg. There is not a best way to look. Perhaps it’s better on the right, from the middle it’s better on the right. I often say to our customers when they come. Be careful in Arenberg. Everyone wants to ride the Arenberg. Arenberg is just hard. For me it is the place that represents best what you told us Barry Hoban said – “brutal” – it physically hurts riding it.’
Sitting down with us at the table, William joined in. It reminded me of the scene from Jaws where the hunters are all recounting their battle scars from fighting sharks. ‘It can be dangerous depending on the weather,’ he offered. ‘It’s downhill for a while, where you can pick up speed, and then it’s a full-on two kilometres of flat track through the forest. So keep your powder dry.’
‘At least I had been doing something right,’ I thought. ‘Well,’ I announced. ‘I’ve been practising doing intervals on the turbo trainer.’ I was now fishing for praise.
William nodded again: ‘That’s what I tell people. They ask, “What kind of efforts should I be doing?” and I say, “Just do long intervals,” because you will come off a section in the race, and five minutes later you come to another one, so ride a bigger gear, too. If you’re comfortable on the normal paved road, let’s say a 52 x 16? Well, on the pavé you should be riding 52 x 15. So, the pavé will slow you down somewhat, but the fact that you are pushing a bigger gear is just more efficient, and the pavé doesn’t come to you as much.’
‘So would you guys say that this is the “Queen of the Classics”, as all the media would have us believe?’
William instantly replied, ‘I’ll ask you a question. Who won Paris–Roubaix in 2011?’
I guessed, ‘Was it Boonen?’
William shook his head. ‘No, Vansummeren. I would always associate Vansummeren with “surprise winner of Roubaix”. Until the day I die I will know that he won Roubaix. But, the surprise winner in Liège–Bastogne–Liège? I don’t remember. I know who won the Liège last year because it was an Irish lad – Dan Martin – but who won Liège the year before that? I have no idea. Who won the Tour of Flanders in 2011? I can’t remember, even though I love Flanders. For me, Paris–Roubaix is the main race from an international point of view; from the “common man” point of view, let’s say.’
‘But isn’t the Tour of Flanders a big event for amateurs now?’ I asked.
‘Sure, tomorrow is the Tour of Flanders Cyclosportive. It’s the biggest sporting event in Europe; it’s seventeen thousand people. I was looking at the site last night. It’s sold out. It’s huge. But, it’s a Belgian thing. Seventeen thousand people. That’s fifteen thousand that are Belgian and the rest are a couple of French guys, a couple of English guys and some Italians. From a television point of view I think maybe Roubaix is the most spectacular race, though.’
Hearing what they were saying about the strong national identity associated with Flanders made me think about the national antagonisms between my own home countries, especially England versus Scotland. ‘Is there any nationalistic antagonism from the French towards the Belgians?’ I wondered. ‘They seem to win Paris–Roubaix quite a lot.’
Again, they both raised a smile. ‘I find that’s more present in Belgium,’ replied William. ‘The Belgians hate a Dutch guy to win Flanders. They would prefer a Belgian guy to win Flanders than a French guy. I remember when I was racing myself in Belgium, and you’d puncture. If you’re a French guy, the neutral service will just drive past you and leave you on the side of the road, and if you’re a Dutch guy the neutral service will try to run you down!’ They both laughed.
‘The Belgians and the Dutch, they don’t see eye to eye,’ continued William. ‘So that’s the way it is. From a nationalistic point of view a lot of Belgians come to the pavé, and there’s more trouble between the Belgians themselves on the pavé than with the French. There was a period, two or three years ago, when there was a lot of football supporters who were coming to the races and drinking and using it as a kind of showdown. The first time we went to Arenberg with one of our cycling groups we were thinking, “Christ, why did we come here?” because you could feel the friction. There were two groups of supporters and they were shouting. There was banter between them, but you could feel that it could kick off really easily.
‘Usually, the Belgian police would be lenient with fans getting rowdy. They’d put you in a cell for the evening to cool off and then you could go, but now on the pavé, on the Flemish pavés, you’ve got the Belgian police present as well. They’ve got jurisdiction, so if you break the law, you’ll start breaking the law in Belgium, which ensures people keep it peaceful. They used to be pretty heavy handed with their truncheons, just to get their message across. But, when they weren’t there, I recall riders were getting spat at and their team cars were getting pelted with stones, because some of these “fans” were doing drugs. They were arriving on a Friday evening, in the middle of a field, and staying there until the Sunday. What do you do in the middle of a field for two days, then?’
Alex joined in again. ‘Carrefour de l’Arbre – it was full of big balloons with drunken Finnish people. I guess they like cycling, but they are more here for the party than for the cycling.’
As interesting as this was, and clearly a cause for debate, I wanted to steer the subject more towards the troubles I’d be facing myself as a rider. ‘What condition will the pavé be in when I race, do you think, Alex?’
He pondered this like a mathematician working out a tough calculus theory. ‘The condition of the cobbles – at the moment they are easier than in the summer.’
I shot him a quizzical look, as I thought it was always the winter and spring rains that would make them far more dangerous.
‘We notice that it’s easier when some sections of the pavé have mud covering them due to the bad weather before Christmas. But in the summer it all turns to dust in the heat and dry winds, so you have some very big, huge gaps between the cobbles. So the summer months of July and August are far worse.’
‘How many punctures do you think I’ll get, then?’
Again, they looked seriously at me as if imparting some religious mantra. ‘Keep your eyes open in Roubaix and you won’t puncture,’ said Alex.
‘Well, I’ve got a 27-millimetre tyre on the front and a 25-millimetre on the back.’
‘Put a 27-millimetre on the back as well, then,’ he suggested. ‘That’s where your weight is. Every time we puncture, we always puncture at the back. A puncture is always linked to the pressure, and if the tyre is pinched. In general, you’ll manage to get the front wheel over safely.’
I was now almost chanting this information: ‘So, sit at the back of the saddle, light hands on the top bars, and keep the cadence high in a big gear …’
‘Honestly,’ said William, ‘we were talking about this to Johan Museeuw, and he was saying that he developed a pedalling technique on the pavé where he reckoned he was sitting in a recumbent position. He was telling us his pedal stroke on the pavé wasn’t the same as when he was riding on the normal tarmac when he was at home.’
‘Wow, the “Lion of Flanders”, how did you get him involved in your operation?’
‘I met him at my work,’ said Alex, ‘because he used to drive his brother to where I work, and so I proposed to him that he ride with us, with our group, with some customers, and he said OK. It’s not free, we pay him, but when you have a big group it’s worth it, and he’s very friendly. He’s a bit strict at first, but after that he’s a very friendly guy. Even though he’s been retired a long time, he’s still a real pro on the pavé, he’s incredible. On the cobbles, when he accelerates, he’s gone. You can’t see him. I did one section just behind him. Pheewww!’
‘When are you arriving for Roubaix?’ William asked.
‘The Friday evening before the race,’ I replied.
‘It would be suicide to go and ride on the pavé the day before riding the Paris–Roubaix. Don’t go wrecking yourself. You’ll be grand. You’ve got to ride at a pace you can hold on. When you go on to a section of pavé you know you can hold that pace until the exit. When you blow on the pavé, you stop. You grind to a halt, so it’s not like blowing on a tarmac road. On a tarmac road you’ll drop from 40 to 30 k.p.h.; on pavé you drop from 35 to 20 k.p.h. When you go slow on the pavé it hurts, so bear that in mind. Try to be a steady diesel engine all the way along, so you’re keeping your powder dry as long as you can. The problem sometimes I see is that the first sections of pavé are not the hardest. They’re quite fast, quite smooth and a lot of people start thinking they are Cancellara. So, you kind of get to the 100 kilometres mark, and you start feeling not so cool, and there’s a lot of hard pavé to come, in and around the Arenberg. Tough sectors, long sectors. Wandignies-Hamage – it’s very long.
‘Pace yourself. Be careful of the middle section and you know that after, let’s say 100 to 120 kilometres, you’ll be able to “smell the stable”, but let’s say maybe the 10 kilometres before Arenberg, and maybe the 15 kilometres after Arenberg, I find there are tough sections there too. Afterwards, you get on to the Pévèle, 40 or 50 kilometres from the finish; they’re hard sectors, but they’re doable.
‘There’s some rest zones in the race as well. Some areas where you’ve probably only got one section of pavé for perhaps 15 kilometres, and it’s an easy sector, so you can almost say, “I’m going flat out.” But when you’re talking to Museeuw, asking him what he does in this period, he replies, “OK, in this area my biggest aim is – I turn off. During the whole race I try to save energy, because I know what’s going to happen in 20 kilometres. It’s going to be hell for leather to the finish.”’
I asked one final question of them both that related to where I was going for my next meeting. ‘Do you think there’s any more stretches of pavé to find, or are they just happy the route they have now is … well, that’s the route?’
Alex brightened up again. ‘I know of a lot more cobbled sections. They are more on the north of the route. Sometimes they are covered by the mud. When you’re riding the route, you can sometimes just see there are some cobbles here.’
‘I read that they did tarmac over lots of it, didn’t they?’ I replied.
‘That’s right,’ Alex said, ‘there is an association: Les Amis de Paris–Roubaix.’
I smiled at the name. ‘I’m seeing them in an hour.’
‘You’re seeing them? Oh, great. They saved the race in the eighties, because at that time, all the mayors of the local towns and villages were saying, “The cobbles are dangerous, get rid of them.” And they were covering them. But Les Amis de Paris–Roubaix said, “Stop. We have to save our heritage.” They did a good job.’
Time was against us, and William’s kids had finished their lunch. You never mess with seven-year-olds and their soft playtime. So, with Alex’s best wishes and a slap on the back, I bade him goodbye and jumped back in the car, and William was kindly driving me back to the Lille Métropole station.
From there I caught the local service to Roubaix, which took twenty-five minutes, and then a short taxi ride dropped me at the top of the famous boulevard, Avenue Alfred Motte, otherwise known as the ‘Road of the Giants’, which is now the final section of cobbles. It was specially laid down in 1996 as a tribute to all the many champions the race has had, their names forever celebrated on plaques embedded into the pavé.
At a café near the actual Roubaix stadium I had agreed to meet François Doulcier, the current president of a very famous society.
fn1 As we now know, Chris Froome withdrew from the race on Stage 5 of the 2014 Tour de France, from Ypres–Arenberg, Porte du Hainaut, in atrocious conditions before he even reached the cobbles. Suffering three crashes in twenty-four hours of racing, Froome fractured both wrists. However, another contender – the ultimate winner, Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali – who’s just as light as Froome, gave a master class of riding the pavé.