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Ronde van Vlaanderen

Now, I'll have to be honest here, this week and next are probably going to be very tough for me. This time last year I missed the ride because I spent the day by my Fathers bed in hospital before he passed away. As I mentioned earlier, the races are a week later this year - and last years ride on this weekend was the Paris-Roubaix. For my write-up from last year, you may wish to read this - http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/TheBigYin/view/a-sunday-in-hell-515516

Okay - so, moving forwards, I was advised by a good friend not to dwell too much on the past, but to get out and do something that made my Dad proud of me and that he was Happy when I did... and, these challenges were something that he always used to love hearing about - I'd read the write-ups to him, show him the photos, share the Beers and Food treats with him. So - while it's a bit difficult to concentrate at times on this, it's something I really HAD to do.

Anyway, to the ride itself - I'm still a little short of 100% fitness wise, and in combination with a forecasted deluge around 1pm, I made the choice of doing a bit shorter route than my typical Sunday. And, to try and at least show willing on the ascent section of the challenge, I added in a out-and-back on the hilliest bit of the route - which JUST scraped into the 500m+ zone. As per usual, I was flying Solo...

http://app.strava.com/activities/127418488 73.5km 538m of ascent

Made it home before the rains began - and needed to stuff some quick calories down my neck - so - waffles, chocolate sauce and Greek Yoghurt (in lieu of cream!)




I then spent a bit of time preparing my evening meal (more of which later) before sitting down to watch a bit of the bike race with a very pleasant glass of Afflingem Dubbel and Ardennes Pate on A chunk of baguette.



Post race, I took a wander up to the (not very - maybe 3 miles away) local pub for a couple of glasses while the Carbonade Flamande slowly cooked away in the oven...

And on return, knocked up a portion of Stoemp to go with it... good, old fashioned stodge / comfort food - Belgian Stylee... It may not be the prettiest dish (it's hard to make Slow-stewed beef and Mashed Potato's & Veg look sexy) but DAMN it was tasty!



All this and Spartacus for the Win again... possibly the best I could hope for today. :drinker:

And that's all folks for this installment - if you haven't booked your ride by now, you're in for a DNS I'm afraid.

Results will follow later this afternoon, once I've been for a ride, and then collated the scores.

13.04.2014 Paris – Roubaix

Paris–Roubaix is one of the oldest races of professional road cycling. It was first run in 1896 and has stopped only for two world wars. The race was created by two Roubaix textile manufacturers, Théodore Vienne (born 28 July 1864) and Maurice Perez. They had been behind the building of a velodrome on 46,000 square metres at the corner of the rue Verte and the route d'Hempempont, which opened on 9 June 1895.

Vienne and Perez held several meetings on the track, one including the first appearance in France by the American sprinter Major Taylor, and then looked for further ideas. In February 1896 they hit upon the idea of holding a race from Paris to their track. This presented two problems. The first was that the biggest races started or ended in Paris and that Roubaix might be seen as too provincial a destination. The second was that they could organize the start or the finish but not both.

They spoke to Louis Minart, the editor of Le Vélo, the only French daily sports paper. Minart was enthusiastic but said the decision of whether the paper would organise the start and provide publicity belonged to the director, Paul Rousseau. Minart may also have suggested an indirect approach because the mill owners recommended their race not on its own merits, but as preparation for another. They wrote:

Dear M. Rousseau, Bordeaux–Paris is approaching and this great annual event which has done so much to promote cycling has given us an idea. What would you think of a training race which preceded Bordeaux–Paris by four weeks? The distance between Paris and Roubaix is roughly 280km, so it would be child's play for the future participants of Bordeaux–Paris. The finish would take place at the Roubaix vélodrome after several laps of the track. Everyone would be assured of an enthusiastic welcome as most of our citizens have never had the privilege of seeing the spectacle of a major road race and we count on enough friends to believe that Roubaix is truly a hospitable town. As prizes we already have subscribed to a first prize of 1,000 francs in the name of the Roubaix velodrome and we will be busy establishing a generous prize list which will be to the satisfaction of all. But for the moment, can we count on the patronage of Le Vélo and on your support for organising the start?

The proposed first prize represented seven months' wages for a miner at the time.

Rousseau was enthusiastic and sent his cycling editor, Victor Breyer, to find a route. Breyer travelled to Amiens in a Panhard driven by his colleague, Paul Meyan. The following morning Breyer - later deputy organiser of the Tour de France and a leading official of the Union Cycliste Internationale - continued by bike. The wind blew, the rain fell and the temperature dropped. Breyer reached Roubaix filthy and exhausted after a day of riding on cobbles (setts). He swore he would send a telegram to Minart urging him to drop the idea, saying it was dangerous to send a race the way he had just ridden. But that evening a meal and drinks with the team from Roubaix changed his mind.

The first race

News of Breyer's ride to Roubaix may have spread. Half those who entered did not turn up at the Brassérie de l'Espérance, the race headquarters at the start. Those who dropped out before the race began included Henri Desgrange, a prominent track rider who went on to organise the Tour de France. The starters did include Maurice Garin, who went on to win Desgrange's first Tour and was the local hope in Roubaix because he and two brothers had opened a cycle shop in the boulevard de Paris the previous year.

Garin came third, 15 minutes behind Josef Fischer, the only German to have won the race to date. Only four finished within an hour of the winner. Garin would have come second had he not been knocked over by a crash between two tandems, one of them ridden by his pacers. Garin "finished exhausted and Dr Butrille was obliged to attend the man who had been run over by two machines," said Sergent. He won the following year, beating Dutchman Mathieu Cordang in the last two kilometres of the velodrome at Roubaix.

Hell of the North

The race usually leaves riders caked in mud and grit, from the cobbled roads and rutted tracks of northern France's former coal-mining region. However, this is not how this race earned the name l'enfer du Nord, or Hell of the North. The term was used to describe the route of the race after World War I. Organisers and journalists set off from Paris in 1919 to see how much of the route had survived four years of shelling and trench warfare. Procycling reported:

They knew little of the permanent effects of the war. Nine million had died and France lost more than any. But, as elsewhere, news was scant. Who even knew if there was still a road to Roubaix? If Roubaix was still there? The car of organisers and journalists made its way along the route those first riders had gone. And at first all looked well. There was destruction and there was poverty and there was a strange shortage of men. But France had survived. But then, as they neared the north, the air began to reek of broken drains, raw sewage and the stench of rotting cattle. Trees which had begun to look forward to spring became instead blackened, ragged stumps, their twisted branches pushed to the sky like the crippled arms of a dying man. Everywhere was mud. Nobody knows who first described it as 'hell', but there was no better word. And that's how it appeared next day in the papers: that little party had seen 'the hell of the north.'

The words in L'Auto were:

We enter into the centre of the battlefield. There's not a tree, everything is flattened! Not a square metre 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! '

History of the cobbles

Seeking the challenge of racing on cobbles is relatively recent. It began at the same time in Paris–Roubaix and the Ronde van Vlaanderen, when widespread improvements to roads after the second world war brought realisation that the character of both races were changing. Until then the race had been over cobbles not because they were bad but because that was how roads were made.

The coming of live television prompted mayors along the route to surface their cobbled roads for fear the rest of France would see them as backward and not invest in the region. Albert Bouvet, the organiser, said: "If things don't change, we'll soon be calling it Paris–Valenciennes," reference to a flat race on good roads that often ends in a mass sprint. L'Équipe said: "The riders don't deserve that." Its editor, Jacques Goddet, called Paris–Roubaix "the last great madness of cycling." Bouvet and Jean-Claude Vallaeys formed Les Amis de Paris Roubaix - Its president, Alain Bernard, led enthusiasts to look for and sometimes maintain obscure cobbled paths.

It was Alain Bernard who found one of the race's most significant cobbled stretches, the Carrefour de l'Arbre. He was out on a Sunday ride, turned off the main road to see what was there and found the last bad cobbles before the finish. It is a bleak area with just a bar by the crossroads.

The Course

Originally, the race was from Paris to Roubaix, but in 1966 the start moved to Chantilly, 50 km north, then in 1977 to Compiègne, 80 km north. From Compiègne it now follows a 260 km winding route north to Roubaix, hitting the first cobbles after 100 km. During the last 150 km the cobbles extend more than 50 km. The race culminates with 750m on the smooth concrete of the large outdoor velodrome in Roubaix. The route is adjusted from year to year as older roads are resurfaced and the organisers seek more cobbles to maintain the character of the race - in 2005, for example, the race included 54.7 km of cobbles.

For more info (including the bulk of the above) have a look at the fantastic Wikipedia page on this race at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris–Roubaix

I’ll leave you with one quote that sums up Paris Roubaix for me…

CBS covered Paris–Roubaix in the 1980s. Theo de Rooij, a Dutchman, had been in a promising position to win the 1985 race but had then crashed, losing his chance of winning. Covered in mud, he offered his thoughts on the race to CBS' John Tesh after the race:

“It's a bollocks, this race!” said de Rooij. “You're working like an animal, you don't have time to piss, you wet your pants. You're riding in mud like this, you're slipping ... it’s a pile of ****.”

When then asked if he would start the race again, de Rooij replied:

“Sure, it's the most beautiful race in the world!”

And just time for a personal favourite picture from the Paris Roubaix...

Lemond and Kelly 1985(iirc)

Photo Bonuses

Pave
1pt for "Pseudo Pave" - dirt roads/block paving/smooth surfaced stone setts or textured concrete
2pts for "Real" Pave, but it MUST be the genuine article, as that's the whole deal with Paris-Roubaix
just post the picture, I'll decide which category it fits into

Moulin
1pt for either a modern windfarm tower or wind-pump tower
2pts for a former Windmill now converted to residence or other use (probably sans mill-blades in this case)
3pts for the real thing - a full working (or visually complete looking) traditional windmill
again, just post the picture, I'll decide which category it fits into (oh, and it's 3 points for 1 windmill or 27 of 'em - and if you shoot all 3 types, you'll get the highest point value only not 1+2+3)

Post Ride Face
and one "just for fun" - some of the most powerful images from the Paris-Roubaix have been of the faces of the riders at the end of the ride. So, if you're feeling daring, post a "selfie" as you get home from the ride - muddy face and bad "helmet hair" optional, but to be encouraged. 2pts if you do post one, 3 points for the person I decide looks most authentically shattered!



Supplementary Bonuses

1 point for the Recovery Drink - pretty much any kind of french "Biere" or Vin Rouge is acceptable. One point for either.

1 point only for your choice of...
Any French Patisserie (including brioche etc.) in ride or post ride.
Croissants (presumably as a pre-ride breakfast)
Any Baguette related sandwich action - either as a cafebreak, post-ride refuel - or even old-school bikie style cut into bitesized morsels and wrapped in aluminium foil then stuffed in your shirt-pockets :laugh:

Eat all three if you do a big enough ride, but you're only likely to get credit for one of 'em...

I remember you doing that run last year Chris, cobbles certainly qualify for 2pts, and the flickr linking worked fine.

and to everyone else who's submitted a ride so far - you're all bloody brilliant - you're making my Dad really happy (because he's watching over me, and seeing all of you going out there riding on his favourite of the classics... did I ever mention that this whole challenge was his idea ??)