Cobbled Classics
11 April 2011
Paris-Roubaix Update (11 April)
An interesting race. We expected Cancellara to win alone or for the favourites to sprint it out, but instead Johan Van Summeren won from the break. The key moment came when Cancellara sat up, upset that Allesandro Ballan and Thor Hushovd wouldn’t work to pull back the break (which included BMC’s Quinziato and Garmin’s eventual winner Van Summeren). After trash talking the field last week, Cancellara shouldn’t have been surprised that he had few friends. The tragedy of the day belonged to Quickstep’s two leaders Tom Boonen and Sylvan Chavanel, who were both put out of the race by a series of unluckily placed punctures and crashes.
Tour of Flanders Update (4 April)
There appears to be a consensus that this year’s Ronde was a great race. It would have been great to see Sylvan Chavanel and Fabian Cancellara go one-two, as they’re both in my fantasy classics team. Nick Nuyens is a deserving winner. Next up is Paris-Roubaix.
Original Post (2 April)
This weekend the Tour of Flanders runs. On the eleventh is Paris-Roubaix. My appreciation for bicycle-racing outside the Tour has grown over the past few years, especially Paris-Roubaix. It’s probably the most important race that an Australian cyclist has ever won (competition: McEwen won twice on Les Champs-Élysées; Goss’ recent Milan-San Remo win; Cadel’s world championship is more significant, but I’m excluding it on the basis that the route changes annually) with Stuart O’Grady in 2007. The classics seem to attract a slightly different rider than the Tour—Frank rather than Andy Schleck, no Alberto Contador.
My only experience with cobbles is riding a hefty Vélo’V bike over a portion in Lyon and that was reasonably unpleasant. Doing it at 40km/h on toothpick-thin bikes is another question all together.
The weather for tomorrow is for showers and temperatures between nine and eleven degrees. Very fun.