Thinking of doing this, not the full works, but one of the loops starting and finishing in Roubaix, what’s it like?

I did the PR cyclo in 2012 with a mate. We signed up for the full route, but due to lack of training (house move/ baby arrival/ PhD) etc we did the 74 mile route.

We did the VC Roubaix version rather than the new ASO version. I think it cost us 22 euros – you can pay by Paypal. They run it every 2 years and the next one is 2014. Its a great event and i’d throughly recommend it.

We stayed near to the finish and drove to our start at Wallers colliery. After the finish we just got a train and then a tram to our car. The food stops were great; bbq’s and lots of other stuff. I think there was one every 25 miles. The evening before the event we rode to the velodrome and worked out a route back to our digs. We also got to have a look round at the name plaques in the showers & managed to ride a few laps on the track.

Tips for cobbles; don’t ride slowly, ride on the drops and don’t grip the bars too tight. And follow the yellow arrows. I rode 25mm conti gatorskins on my steel road bike.

ps there are a few sharp corners on the cobbles, so keep your eyes peeled.
pps make sure your bottle cages grip your bottles well.

I’ve done it twice, 09 and 10. Excellent fun, broke my elbow on the 10 route but it wasn’t all bad, in fact I enjoyed every hard teeth grinding moment of both.. Only modded the bike with double wrap bartape and 25mm tyres and slightly less pressure.
The event back then was well organised, some 4000 odd of us doing it then but I think it’s way more than that now. We (whippet mate) and I hacked off the front to be in the lead pack just to keep out of trouble and it kinda worked, too many crashes in the pack, but we got caught by a massive bunch when we ran out of steam 20k’s form the finish.
All I remember is going down like a sack of dead spuds coming round an exit of cobbles onto tarmac, I rode to the finish one handed.. didn’t realise I’d broken it until I got seen to by a freindly Ambulance bod at the Drome.
I really want to do it again but mates keep dropping out.. 😥

Me

Boonen dropped me on a hill near the end 🙁

We did the 160K this year, the day before the race. It was ok, the route out to the Aarenberg was a bit painful, and some of the riding was a tad British sportive style. the Pave is brutal, much, much harder than Flanders pave, and I’d really worry about doing it in the wet. Starting and finishing in Roubaix is handy, don’t ride it with anything less than 28mm tyres, we rode CX bikes with deep section wheels and 28mm GP4 Seasons.

i had a media free entry but bailed as i had a dodgy guts but rode a few 30mile loops and did the arenburg twice in the days before the race. i can’t say i enjoyed it though. i love flanders pavé but have no intention of revisiting roubaix on a bike unless its to watch the pro’s suffer.
it really is brutal, i think it’s worse if you are skinny too, you get bucked around a lot more.

Well, I’m fat as ****, so that won’t be a problem!

Did the VC Roubaix version in 2010 – fantastic, think it was the best event ride I’ve ever done – started off beautiful weather, then the rains came – vividly remember standing in the old mine offices at Arenberg shaking like a leaf and getting colder by the minute – we made 3 attempts to leave but the rain was so heavy it was bouncing off the road – all feeling had gone in my fingers and toes by the this stage so we had to leave and then, lo and behold, about 300m later, we hit the Arenberg Tranche – 2.5 km of riding a pneumatic drill and spat out the other end to glorious sunshine.

It was a mixture of sunshine and showers from there to the end. Riding the cobbles in the dry was an experience but in the wet, it was another world altogether – huge respect to the pros who actually race on them and then top that by managing to do an average of 25 mph – beyond me but good to get some sort of idea of what they can face.

The 2 of us opted for the full 160 mile course and we both rode our ‘cross bikes with 32mm tyres.

So many highlights but definitely up there were the random spectators that you would come across – standing in a field or edge of a cobble section, in 1 and 2s – seemingly in the middle of nowhere – yet there they were cheering you on – just brilliant!

In fact, it was so good that both of us are going back next year to have another go.

Did the ASO one this year. 100 miles or so loop from Roubaix. Excellent organisation, even had moto outriders for a bit. Good pace on the tarmac. Make no mistake though – Boonen, Cancellara et al are hard as nails. After a while the pave becomes quite a chore. Definitely worth doing once.

I did the full fat version this year and can recommend it.

I also recommend getting tanked on Belgium Beer in the Arenberg Trench come Sunday afternoon. 😀

I’ve done the full distance 3 times in the summer bi-annual sportive. The first time was brutal. Some of the worst weather that northern france had seen for years. The Pave was covered in mud and it rained most of the day. It was hard just to keep upright on the Pave. I’ve never since seen so many injuries or broken bikes. My friend and I were in the top 20 finishers. The third time was in a heatwave and tough just because of the heat.

Riding the pave is best in a big gear keeping “on top of it” which means big efforts but you get less beaten up.

One of my favourite cycling pictures is me coming through the Arenburg and the chain is bouncing so much (in the big ring) that it’s snaking above the chainstay.