Every second Saturday of April for the last seven years of my life, I have woken up and typed the following words into Google: ‘Weather Roubaix’.
For the past seven years of my life, I have discovered, to my overwhelming despair, there has been pleasant weather forecast.
I have ranted and raved about Europe’s not-so-toasty Spring weather this year, but I’m going to say it anyway. If ever the almighty Zeus – the king of the skies and king of all other gods – is going to grant my wish for horrendous weather on the cobbled stretches between Paris and Roubaix, this year is surely the year.
Right? Well, bummer.
The moisture won’t be arriving this year. Take a look for yourself; it’s fairly saddening.
http://www.weather.com/weather/5-day/Roubaix+FRXX0084:1:FR (screen shot?)
Typical right? Every other god-forsaken race has been abnormally numbing and wet. Greg Henderson said in Gent-Wevelgem he was wearing, “everything in [his] suitcase.”
Baden Cooke recounted that in Milan San-Remo his, “fingernails thought they were going to pop out. A few of us were almost crying.”
As you can see, my hopes were high for this year’s Roubaix.
But no. Once again the dryness, like the deodorised armpit and the salted jersey, or even that desert in the movie Space Balls that those men have to comb with gigantic hair combs, similar dryness will reign over Roubaix providing much (un)wanted clarity and beauty.
Before I started writing this piece, before I plunged once again into the potential self-demise of predicting race victories, I simply thought Fabian Cancellara would win.
I, too, watched Ronde Van Vlaandaren. I too gawked, screamed, and even squinted at the screen to make sure I was seeing correctly.
Fabian Cancellara killed them in Flanders, he unleashed a load on his competitors – take that how you wish – and they had no response.
When I started to think a little more about Paris-Roubaix though, The Hell Of The North, the race where George Hincapie’s steerer-tube snapped, throwing him kartwheeling over the front of his bike dazzlingly; that race where Leon Van Bon flatted three times and crashed twice to nearly win in most-heroic fashion; that race where the riders used to use shock absorbing seatposts and forks, I got sceptical.
Chance is a bitch, let’s face it. Luck, fortune, the ‘ebb and flow of life’, these are specifically tricky aspects of life to master and it is certain that not even Fabian Cancellara has the ability to dodge bad luck. That much is easy to understand.
The other aspect that got me pondering though, or at least got me thinking that it is possible Cancellara may not actually win, was when I heard Sylvain Chavanel’s interview after three days of De Panne.
He was asked about the Tour of Flanders and his chances and he mentioned his preparation this spring has been “for Roubaix” and almost brushed off his chances at Flanders as insignificant.
Chavanel made me realise just how different Roubaix and Flanders actually are. One with bergs, one with none. One with short efforts, one with long. It’s pretty much as simple as that.
So does this actually matter? Does the fact that Paris-Roubaix lacks elevation make it a different race?
Well yes and no. On one hand, the power the ‘Main Men’ punch out over the sections of cobbles in Roubaix is just about as high as they would be doing over the bergs around Oudenaarde. There are some key differences though.
Climbing generally goes hand-in-hand with lower cadence. Climbing also uses different muscles associated with a more ‘aft’ seating position opposed to driving it on the flats on the tip of the saddle.
So if you think as I do, you would’ve just realised something. Fabian Cancellara kind of does all of that. High cadence, seated climbing. Fast and furious on the long flat time-trial-like efforts of long cobbled stretches.
Cancellara has developed the ability to ride bergs in the saddle and at a cadence that almost rivals what he uses on the flats.
Sylvain Chavanel has prepared over the winter and spring for Paris-Roubaix and it is obvious these two races are quite different.
The question is though, is Chavanel’s ‘Paris-Roubaix form’, as good as Cancellara’s overall ‘Spring Classics form’?
Oh yeah, what about Peter Sagan? And Tom Boonen? Well the key to this race folks, as we have discovered, is beating Fabian Cancallara.
On a final note, the course remains fairly unchanged from 2012. Worth noting is you can probably plan to turn your TV sets on at the 150km mark to watch the Trouée d’Arenberg at kilometre 158, and settle in to see some firestorms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Route_pavée_crt_2002.jpg
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