I am fortunate to have a big birthday gift from my daughter of a weekend trip to spectate at the finish, with one of my sons.
We are flying into Paris Saturday midday, returning to Glasgow Monday lunchtime and staying in Lille Saturday and Sunday nights.
The rough plan so far is to get to the Roubaix velodrome area mid morning Sunday. Haven’t googled much about it yet but do know that it’s not ticketed so the prime spots will likely be taken by very early am.
looking for tips and pointers please from folks who have attended.
Don’t know what happened to the format on my OP ..
I have only spectated on pave sections and finished the sportive on the Saturday at the Velodrome. In your shoes I would head to the sportive finish on Saturday, have a casual beer there and scout out when/where you could be on Sunday. I would also recommend a trip to the Decathlon HQ mega-shop on the South East side of Lille. I think you can get there on the bus. It has literally everything that Decathlon makes/sells and places to try them out including its own cycle track.
Thanks, it appears that Lille to Roubaix is a 10 min train ride, so that should work
I rode the (shorter, admittedly) sportive and then had loads of time to get a seat in the velodrome for the women's race but I bet it's rammed for the men's on Sunday (and may well be a solo winner, of course)
We rode out to the Carrefour de L'arbre sector and watched from there. Towards the end of the sector there was a giant TV screen so we could watch them racing, then go to the side of the "road" when they came past and then back to the telly for the finish. MVdP was on his own already but at least we saw some racing on cobbles (and the junior races were pretty good too)
I've been there to spectate a few times. Right enough I've never been in the velodrome for the finish, but I can recommend watching at the Trouee d'Arenberg and then watching at the big screen put up by the level crossing.
Good info, appreciated.