Paris-Roubaix: a new tradition

Phew, what an exciting race!

Our coverage started early, but we didn't get any cycling, instead we got some French bloke talking to Greg Lemon (well, that's what he kept calling him) and Juan Antonio Flecha, who was looking surprisingly youthful without his helmet on. Odd, what a difference hair makes...

Flecha was there to do interviews with other riders, as he only retired last October: and of course we all remember Flecha for being the one knocked off his bike by that damned French TV car during the Tour, while Johnny Hoogerland was caterpulted into the barbed wire and had to have 27 STITCHES in his rear end!! Ouch!!

Anyway, Flecha was the other rider there, and I have always felt a bit sorry for him, as he was the one who was actually clobbered by the car, but Hoogerland is the one we all remember. Ah well.

So, there was Flecha doing an interview with Fabian, and they went up onto the Trek bus to talk. I was trying to see if Andy had a seat with his name on it, but apparently he doesn't. The bus seemed quite nice, it had three rows of proper individual seats but then there were a couple of bench seats, which seems a bit of a disappointment, and a bit too much like the school bus. Fabian sat on one, Flecha sat opposite, and I couldn't help noticing that the window had "Trek Factory Racing" on it, the right way round - such that you could read it from inside the bus, not from outside.

This seemed a bit odd: LLB said it was that way round for interviews, but I wondered if it was to remind the riders which team they were riding for now. After all, Andy started 2010 riding for SexyBank, finished 2010 riding for Leopard Trek: in 2012 they became RadioShambles, then in 2014 they were morphed into Trek. That's four teams in five years - and although a lot of the team and a lot of the support staff have remained in the team through all these changes, it can't be easy for any of them to remember who they are....

Then he interviewed Wiggo, who managed - as usual - to open his mouth and put his foot in it. Flecha was asking about the danger of participating in The Hell Of The North, and Wiggo made the comment "well, you know, if you end your career at Paris-Roubaix, well, *shrugs* that's ok, innit? But if it happened after [shitsmall race] then well..." *they both laugh uproariously*. So, having insulted the organisers of that shitsmall race, we finally get to some actual racing.

We come in with 118k to go, there is a break of 8 mostly shitsmall riders up the road, they had 9 minutes at one point, but it's down to 6 mins now, and already our commentators are talking about The Arenberg, the great big bogey of the cobbled sections. Carlton Kirby refers to Omega Pharma Armbands as O P Quickstop, which makes me laugh. I don't know why...

At 105k to go, crash! Lots of riders piling into each other, and it turns out to be a row of slender blue-painted posts under a narrow bridge, practically invisible and with no marshall. Hmm, bearing in mind what happened at the Tour of Flanders, you would have thought they would have paid particular attention to the marshalling. Apparently, not.

At 97k to go, Sky are suddenly on the front en masse, and we have no idea why. G is leading, it's a good thing he is in love with his spazzy white sunglasses: he looks quite dorky, but he's very easy to identify.

At last! The Arenberg! On the way in, the helicopter shot shows us a long field, completely covered in rows and rows of neatly-parked white campervans. Presumably all those die-hard fans have had to walk up into the Arenberg, leaving their cosy vans behind?

There are the usual punctures and problems in the Arenberg section, but nothing like what we have seen in previous years.  I think it was a good idea to have the spectators on one side only, behind ropes: much less accidental interference, and more room for soigneurs with spare wheels to stand. The whole passage is generally much calmer - except for the Trek rider, who throws his bike to the ground in disgust. (Rast, as it turned out.)

The next obstacle was a level crossing - and aargh! we can see the train approaching! The peloton are steaming towards it, will the barriers go up in time? It's a bit confusing, as suddenly we are watching a lone FDJ rider, holding on to the Mavic car in order to avoid unclipping, clearly fuming as the train has passed, but the barriers don't go up. Just as we think he's about to climb under the barrier, another rain whizzes past in the other direction. It turns out that this is the tail end of the break - most of them managed to beat the first train, but a couple of them were caught out, and as it turns out, they never make it back up to the break.

There is yet another crash, and a lot of frantic pedalling to catch up, but by 83k the leaders are sitting up and scoffing gels, so the pressure is off, and gradually it all comes back together.

The next drama is one of those that won't be forgotten for a while:

There's Hayden Roulston going down hard, and taking out Fabian, plus half the rest of the peloton. Luckily Fab was ok (having had a nice soft landing on his teammate) other than needing a new bike, but Roulston was out of the race, and apparently very apologetic about it afterwards. He won't be allowed to forget that one! Watching it again, he was lucky not to break a collarbone, as he put his arm out to stop himself as he fell.

Sagan, meanwhile, is not having a particularly good day, he seems to be unhappy with his bike, and is tearing off the bar tape. We are told by Carlton that he rides a non-standard or unusual bike size, so he can't easily swap with a team mate. That has to be, tactically, a bad habit to get into, surely? I suppose that the rider has to have the frame that suits him best, but it must be annoying for the DS, all the same.

Suddenly we get a brilliant move by Boonen - I don't like the guy, but I have to admire this move, it's just so clever; he's hanging back from the front of the group as they work along a cobbled section, with one of his teammates leading the group, in the gutter. Boonen then jumps out of the line, whizzes past them all, including his teammate, who does not speed up at all, thus blocking the entire line of chasers, none of whom want to go past him onto the lumpy bits. Brilliant! He quickly catches up with the original break, but no-one will work with him, other than G, so he has to do a lot of the work himself, not to mention all the energy spent waving, gesticulating and cursing the other riders.

The rest of the race is just sheer grit and determination: Fab rides with a total poker face as always: he said afterwards that his legs "felt funny" all day, but you wouldn't know it to have seen him ride. Sagan tries a bit, Boonen tries a bit, Wiggins tries a bit: Terpstra tries and succeeds, and to this day I'm not quite sure why they let him ride away, but he does so, and of course in the end he wins it.

We, watching, had no idea who came second, or where Fab came, as the cameras followed Terpstra all the way round the velodrome, then follow the second chasing group. Very confusing. Finally we get the finishing list, and Fab gets on the podium, with G coming in 7th, with Bradley 9th and Boonen just squeaking into the top 10.

At the presentation, Terpstra's girlfriend watches with a strangely worried expression: she did the obligatory "50 yard dash across grass in high heels" and was rewarded with Terpstra sobbing on her shoulder (bet she regretted wearing that white cardigan) and according to the tradition started by JVS, the lone winner then has to propose to his girlfriend. So why does she look so worried? LLB suggests she's thinking "Hmm, not the best time to tell him I'm pregnant by another rider, then" but I don't think that's the case.

Fabian manages not to cry in his post-race interview: he mentions his bike-change after the crash, but sportingly doesn't say "My team-mate tripped me up, the swine".

I just want to know how they get the right girlfriend onto the finish line in time to receive the blood-sweat-snot-and-dirt kiss. Do they keep the ten most likely ones near at hand? Or do they send runners out to the team buses in the last 10k, to collect every girlfriend of the ones currently leading?

An intriguing question...