The cobbled classics often get lumped
together, and the two biggest events of
them all, the Ronde van Vlaanderen and
Paris-Roubaix, are rarely mentioned in
separate sentences. It’s a shame, because
the two races can’t be more different. De
Ronde is justifiably known as Vlaanderens
Mooiste (Flanders’s Most Beautiful), whilst
Paris-Roubaix, her nickname is even
more appropriate, some might say perfect:
L’Enfer du Nord (The Hell of the North).
It seems fitting for the most sinister,
vicious, and cruel race of the cobbled
classics, perhaps the entire year, to
have such a moniker.
While the race would seem to have
been born with “Hell of the North”
happily stitched to its onesie, the
name came following something
not even comparable to an event
as insignificant as Paris-Roubaix.
The name was coined in 1919,
the year after the conclusion of
World War I. Race organizers
had ventured out on to the course
of Paris-Roubaix to see if roads
still existed in the war-obliterated
Nord-Pas-de-Calais. They left Paris
and soon entered into what could
truly be described as earthly hell.
The words, printed in the French
sports paper, L’Auto, are chilling.
“We enter into the center of the
battlefield. There’s not a tree,
everything is flattened! Not a square
meter that has not been hurled upside
down. There’s one shell hole after
another. The only things that stand
out in this churned earth are the
crosses with their ribbons in blue,
white, and red. It is hell!”
It’s hard not to liken Paris-Roubaix
to war. The carnage, the chaos, the
ever-present specter of fate’s touch
(fortunate or doomed), the sheer
cruelty of the race. But it’s best to
remember that there are things far,
far worse than the unfortunately small
words I can conjure up describing a
one-day race over ancient rock roads.
Different
There’s a method to the madness that
is the Tour of Flanders. In its winding,
hilly, cobbled madness, there’s some
order, some sense, but at Roubaix,
it’s, let’s just say, different. Simply
put, it’s a world apart. After riding
the cobbles of Flanders for the first
time, I figured I had acquired a good
introduction to Roubaix, so I happily
charged into my first set of cobbles
in 2009. I found myself unprepared.
