Paris Roubaix 2019
RossoCorso34
Posts: 204
Signed up for this with 2 friends. Should be a great and very different challenge. Has anybody else signed up or done it before?
Currently reading To Hell on a Bike, great insight to the history of the race.
Currently reading To Hell on a Bike, great insight to the history of the race.
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I’m taking my aluminium CX bike with 32mm tyres and generally hoping for the best <Gulp>. No hills which is a bonus, but it’s a historic ride so I’m looking forward to it and the velodrome finish will be the icing on the cake. It’s nice and late in the year (April) which gives more training time - fingers crossed it doesn’t rain
Wise choice !!
Are you planning on doing the full distance on 42mm tyres ?
I might try 100km on them later this month and see how they feel.
Yes, that's my main issue. Very limited options for tyres. They roll ok, but float over the rough stuff (I hope!)
Yes, arrived Friday and signed on and did the tour of the Velodromes and showers . Stayed in Lille and did the middle distance ride on Saturday. Used 28mm Conti Ultras and had no issues at all (I took 5 spare tubes and a tyre
Drive to the St Python section on Sunday, saw them go through then headed back towards Roubaix, saw them again on the road in a small town, then got back to Roubaix to see them finish. All worked out perfectly.
Stayed the next day and watched the race whilst drinking in the sunshine
I was thinking of doing it on my Specialized Diverge but decided it was taking away from the Paris Roubaix experience of a true cobble bashing....
On last years 150 km route, my Strava shows 542m of climbing.
Lille is a great place to stay, the velodrome in Roubaix is iconic and full of people and atmosphere on the Friday when we signed on. The sign on process itself was a mess resulting in an hour long queue but there are worse places to stand.
The ride itself was epic. The first 50km was spent in a bunch full of Belgians and Italians with the usual impeccable road behaviour and then came the Arenberg trench. Brutal cobbles but masochistically enjoyable as you rattle your way through history.
The Pave sections are very much at the back end of this ride and are in varying levels of severity with Carrefour being the most painful towards the end. The finish on the velodrome brought a lump to my throat.
This was one ‘sportive’ I swore I’d never do but agreed to do it in a moment of weakness. Ridden on an aluminium CX bike, with 32m road tyres at 60psi and double wrapped bar tape I had no drama, none of us punctured or fell off. It was cold and windy but that added to the atmosphere.
If it had been wet, or damp or had rained earlier the week I wouldn’t have done it. Some of those sectors would be carnage in the wet.
All in all that was one of the best weekends I’ve ever spent on the bike and strongly recommend it.
I did it in the wet and they are terrifying.
I think the "cyclo" event they do in June in even years is a better one... it is longer at over 200 km, it takes in all the pave' and there are no queues and all that nonsense
Agree whole-heartedly. One of my best ever days on a bike. A day to savour and I will likely do again next year
@theboyfold How did you get on with the Slate?
I'm looking at doing it next year and already have a Slate. Was going to treat myself to a Planet X Titanium bike for the event but I'm thinking the Slate is probably the way to go.
It was interesting. I don't find the Slate the best endurance bike, but over the rough stuff it's amazing.
So on the cobbles, it was very controlled. It didn't hop and skip around like the bikes with narrower tyres (I was running these tyres: https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/TYCLSUSHT ... -tyre-650b tubeless at about 50psi). So you could fly along the cobbles, but on the road it does drag. No matter what you do, it's not as a quick as a road bike. So into a headwind for about 90 miles of the ride and having to attack the cobbles, I eventually ran out of gas and had to enter limp home mode. The Slate is magical in the sense that when you push over a rough surface, it seems to float above it and take it in its stride, so when I had the legs I was loving the cobbles.
My friend was on his Trek Domane (which has 'full' suspension) and whilst I was quicker over the cobbles, he was a lot faster on the road and that eventually paid off.
So if I were to do it again, I'd think twice about the Slate, it performed well, but my endurance isn't good enough to do 108 miles, and push hard over the 28 sections of cobbles on it.
Thanks for the info, really interesting.
It seems you need two different bikes, one for the cobbles, one for the road!
https://www.velonews.com/2019/04/commen ... nge_492921
I had the choice of 40mm and 32mm tyres for my CX bike and following a few test rides before going decided on the 32s. 40mm off roadish tyres are great for the trails and, I would imagine, the cobbles but I found they were far too 'draggy' for a long event like this.
Yes that was my undoing.