L'Enfer du Nord

I'm a bit late posting this but what the hell?..

The 104th Paris-Roubaix or "The Hell Of The North" was raced two weeks ago in the north of France following many of the front lines used in the First World War.

The 259 kilometer race that includes 27 sections of broken pave (or
cobblestones) totalling 52.7 kilometers is perhaps the most beautiful
and most excruciating one day race on the professional cycling calendar.

This year's favourite, the Belgian, Tom Boonen was outwitted (along
with the rest of the field) by 25 year old Swiss rider Fabian
Cancellara (Team CSC). Cancellara attacked on the 23rd section of
cobbles about 18 kilometers from the finish and managed to hold
everyone off, savouring the final 2 laps around the Roubaix velodrome
by himself for the first Swiss victory in the race since 1923.

Before the race the Belgian legend Eddy Planckaert was interviewed and
asked about his victory in the Roubaix velodrome in 1990. He stated
that he always wondered what it would be like to arrive in the
velodrome alone and actually be able to enjoy the moment. That is
because his victory in 1990 came in a sprint against 4 others where he
beat the Canadian Steve Bauer by only a couple of millimeters!

There wasn't even a centimetre in it Planckaert remembers: "A
centimetre; forget it! Five or six millimetres, yeah. Fifteen minutes
after the finish I still wasn't sure. Did I win or not? But everybody
kept congratulating me. The soigneurs of the team fell in my arms.
Post said I had won. I didn't believe them. I hadn't seen it myself
because I was sprinting with my eyes closed that last hundred meters."

He went on to describe exactly what the victory and the race meant to
him and when he realised for the first time that he wanted to win the
race.

"You know, more than the Ronde Van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix if the
world championships of the classics specialists. Coureurs like myself,
they simply had to have Paris-Roubaix on their palmares. If I never
won it, I would have been ashamed for eternity," the most colourful
offspring of the Planckaerts claims.

"I swore to myself, as a little boy that I would win that race. I was
ten years old and stood along the cobbles, with a spare wheel in each
hand. My brothers Willy and Walter were riding. The first rider to
pass was Eddy Merckx; wearing his rainbow jersey. His face enchanted
me then. The grimness it radiated. That I had and would have to be
capable of myself. From that moment onwards Paris-Roubaix had
something divine."

Planckaert went on to paint a colourful picture of how it must feel to
win solo on the track in Roubaix. "It must be an unbelievable feeling
to enter that velodrome by yourself. To experience everything at ease,
without having to stress about those others who also want to win the
race... it has to be like an orgasm. No, better than an orgasm. A sort
of trance; a feeling as if you're floating meters and meters above
ground.

"The cobbles are the hell, and the track is heaven. And well, the
showers are inferno. It's just the order of things isn't logical.
They're tombs, from the coldest stone I ever felt. Sometimes the water
was hot and then you were lucky. But when you won, you entered the
showers as the last rider. Then there was only fog. You were standing
there; in a sort of a mist, all by yourself, underneath a measly
stream of ice-cold water.

"Paris-Roubaix, that's suffering. That's cobbles. That is dust and mud
in your nose and your throat and your ears and your eyes. That's
cursing a whole day, and yelling and shouting. But I would have never
wanted to win Paris-Roubaix without experiencing those showers
afterwards."

What a legend!!!

I have had the fortune to travel to the Paris-Roubaix race on two
occasions: 2002 - when I saw Johan Musseuw win and 2003 - when Peter
Van Petegem won after winning The Tour Of Flanders the week before.

During the two trips I was able to ride from the Arenberg Forest and
follow the exact route until the velodrome on 3 occassions. I rode
twice the first year (because the amount of suffering from one day
wasn't enough) and another time the second year. All 3 times I was
completely knackered afterwards. Riding across cobbles is like
nothing else I have ever done on my bicycle. The Arenberg is nasty
and the Carrefour de l'Arbre makes you want to cry. In fact the first
time I rode the course, I took such a pounding on the Carrefour that
my contact lens fell out of my eye. Miracuosly, it stuck to the lens
of my sunglasses and stayed there until I finished the section and was
able to put it back in (after cleaning it with dirty hands and grimey
water of course).

But all the pain is worth when you finally arrive in the velodrome in
Roubaix. There is a really cool little bar there with all sorts of
P-R paraphoenalia, posters, pictures etc. And the few beers I had
after each of the spins were among the best, most thirst quenching I
have ever tasted.