Friday, carried the stripped down Kinesis in the Bike Whisperer’s Heaviest Bike Box On Earth? to Victoria on the District Line and waited for the Baxter Sports Tours International bus. And waited.. and waited. Jonathan had called Ricky and let him know there’d been an incident with one of the driver’s wives and they couldn’t find a replacement driver so they’d be a bit late. Nevermind, I’d rather them be late than me. On the road eventually, with the bus full of fit-looking cyclists (and us) we made a later 4pm ferry (Shepherd Neame’s Master Brew is nice) and took perhaps 4 hours to drive to Compi?gne, outside Paris. The hotel fed us some stodge and then closed up on us – I guess they don’t get too many booze cruises out this way? Jonathon scored us some French Pelforth beer to keep us happy.
Setting up my bike Saturday morning I was lucky(?) to notice a loose brake block – the tiny retaining screw was missing! Never had that happen before. Shimano brake shoes use a thread locker compound on the screw but these were cheap Aztec brand. This is the second time I’ve had issues with them. Buy cheap, buy twice. So, Wayne and I headed into the local bike shop with Jonathon. Instead of paying 26EU for two BBB replacement blocks I got the shop owner to find an allen bolt – sorted. Also picked up some panic buys for James who’d flown in late from some secret government mission and Ricky, who just loves buying new things 😛
Got back and were going to recce the ride to the start line when Big Daddy Wayne finally acknowledges that no matter how hard you push, SPD shoes are never going to clip onto Speedplay pedals. Yes, he’d brought the wrong shoes. Whoops. We rode back to the bike store but found this closed for lunch so continued with our mission to ride to the start line in Cambronnes les Ribecourt. It was about 15-20k away from the hotel depending on which dodgy Garmin route you used. We had a beer there and headed back to make sure we bought Wayne’s replacement SPD pedals in time. The way back we used an N road which proved to be straighter and much quicker – this would be our route to the start on the day, in order to avoid rebuilding the bikes at 5am.
Sorted out the bikes, showered and hopped into the bus to head back to Cambronnes les Ribecourt to grab our bike numbers, then back to the hotel for another slightly sad dinner. Everyone went to bed (explains why they were all skinny.. and pissweak :P) whilst we drank until they closed the bar – Grupetto style!
Tom’s and my own alarm sounded at 4.30am. Dressed, filled bottles, filled jersey pockets, applied chamois creme (solo activity this one) and headed into the feeding frenzy that was the 5am breakfast. We arrived just in time and managed to get some food before the masses tore the place apart, frightened staff running to the kitchen, searching for reinforcements.
We waited for a bunch of South Africans (they were all in some kind of team kit like us but I forget what) to get ready and then left the hotel, just before the bus (carry Wayne, Ricky and James to the 180k as well as most of the others). We rode the 15 or so kilometres to the start and got there just as the bus was unloading riders – a small head start for us.
The actual start was up near the cafe so we wasted some time heading into the registration building. I think we took a ‘before’ photo here and then rolled off down the road.
The first checkpoint was at the 82k mark and I noticed quickly that this was not as flat as everyone says it is. Okay, so when you’re 95kg you notice the bumps more but still, it wasn’t ‘Mildura flat’ by any stretch of the imagination. We were in an ever-growing bunch that just got bigger and bigger as it swallowed the riders who’d left earlier. There was a crash up the road at some point but everyone appeared to be up by the time I rode by.
We were doing over 30kph over evreything (not stupid fast but this was a 260k day!) and at one point I managed to lose contact with the bunch. I chased down and rested behind a couple of vans before pushing hard to get back onto the group. Phew.
At the first checkpoint (9am) we all got our cards stamped and agreed that the pace (averaged 32kph for the 100k) was a little hot for the length of event. We’d go at our own pace from now on.
The first cobbles came ~20k after the first checkpoint. They were brutal, just as I expected. I tried to remember Tour of Flanders and what I’d done back then to help ride them. Big gear, hands loosely on the tops, ride hard. Ok, done. Hmm.. where’s my bottle gone. Balls! One bottle down and the Powertap hanging off the side of the bars and it was only the first section of pave! As I adjusted to the cobbles I found myself riding them more comfortably on the drops. I’m using a new Kinesis Racelight T2 winter road frame rather than the Ribble Audax I had at Flanders and I had FSA Compact bars fitted. Even with the single layer of bar tape and no bar gel I found them more comfortable on the drops and rode most of the day this way. I did the same trick as Flanders and left far too much pressure in my tyres (>100psi) but dropped this whilst waiting for the guys after another pave section. I also put on a second pair of gloves – my secret weapon! Because of the thin bar tape I had gone out and bought some Specialized Gel gloves. These fit under my old Gore gloves – nice.
After riding along the side of the cobbles through a pave section I thought my tyre was going down and checked it whilst stopped a couple of times. “Nope, must be my mind” I said to Dave. As soon as Tom and Rob were up and we set off again the damn thing went down! So, I dive into the grass and start to swap the tube just as the thunderstorm kicks off and starts pouring down. I pull out a thorn or piece of flint and rush to inflate the tyre and we are on our way – me grinning like an idiot, Dave complaining about a wet bum.
It really bucketed down and I was now cold and regretting my decision to leave all my extra clothing in the bus. The rain eliminated any ‘easy’ routes along the sides of the pave. It also made the cobbles themselves VERY sketchy as Rob found out when he hit a patch of mud, went down and had a Frenchman ride over him. He’s lucky I rode around him because I reckon I was a fair bit heavier than that French bloke! We stopped to check on him and he was a bit shook up but ok to carry on. The cobbles were now beating the crap out of us AND quite dangerous thanks to being wet and muddy. Wheels would go all over the place if you weren’t careful. The blokes from Brixton Cycles were not having fun out there – “Man, I had no brakes and couldn’t steer at all down that hill, I was just hoping to make it to the road bit at the end!”. That was the only cobbled hill I can think of though.
My fingers were starting to ache now and Continental Dave gave me a great tip: Squeeze your fingers together. ie. imagine you were doing a karate chop. So, my fingers were together and the handlebars just bounced in between my four fingers and thumbs. It really made a big difference to hand comfort. I don’t think anyone was passing me over the cobbles now, in fact it was all traffic, slow riders (Italians and mountain bikers – wtf?) blocking the good lines. It would sometimes take quite some time before getting a passing opportunity – sometimes not at all until the pave ended.
Another problem was cramp. I was very dehydrated. I don’t drink enough normally and not having one of my bottles didn’t help. I made an effort to drink more and eat lots of banana and magnesium-rich dark chocolate (they had chocolate as well as fruit, cakes, biscuits and waffles as well as energy drink and water at the feeds). It worked and I staved off the cramp bug.
At 1pm we were at the Arenberg feed and I’d tweeted “Arenberg feed. Thunderstorm. Tired. Cobbles are fun when wet..”
The Arenberg Forest cobbles are frickin’ mental. I thought I’d pinch flatted a bunch of times and the bike sounded horrible smashing its way over the jagged pave. I’m so glad I’m a sponsored rider and don’t have to buy my own equipment.. oh wait a minute..
Tranch?e d’Arenberg
Having been on the bike, being battered, hot/cold cycled for 7hrs+ now I was rapidly losing my cool. I grumbled words to this effect but really I just wanted the bloody ride to be over. Writing this now I’m thinking “it wasn’t that bad, was it?” but it was. I’d done far less riding in 2010 and just didn’t do this kind of distance, let alone cobbled. I wanted to ride alone and left the other three guys. We met again when I waited at the last control but I just kind of rode away again, preferring to fend for myself. It turned in to a bit of a time trial towards the end as riding harder made the cobbles like Le Carrefour less punishing and I could see I was knocking the few remaining kilometres over. Having the checkpoint guy say “only 30k to the finish” helped.
Le Carrefour de l’Arbre and you can see I’m not messing about.
Powering through town now and a little worried I’d lost the route (little yellow turns painted on the road) since there were no other riders. It was glorious when I found another little yellow arrow! I rode in and there was the Roubaix velodrome! As I rode towards it I heard Ricky and Wayne yell “Shaaaaane!” and Grupetto or something. Some guy wanted to try and get one over me in the sprint but sorry mate, not gonna happen. Just like that it was over, I’d done it! 275k in under 12 hours. Ride time was about 9 hours 10 minutes.
Nhatt, Wayne, Ricky, James were at the line. I was toast. Didn’t know what was going on. Didn’t care. We waited for the rest of the Grupetto to arrive and then went and collected our finshing certificates and got some food. Then got some more food. Eventually we made our way back to the hotel for some more food and showering and then some beers and more food.
As per Grupetto rules, we were the last ones to go to bed on all nights and obviously drank the most.
Massive thanks to Ricky, Wayne, Tom, Dave, Rob, James and the Baxters.
