Velominati Super Prestige: Paris-Roubaix 2016
Every time I’ve ridden the Roubaix pavé, I’ve peed the next few days like I got VD from some dirty cobble. That might not really sell the non-believer on the pleasure of riding the sacred stones, but there truly is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. Here in Seattle, we have cobbled climbs and they are by all rights legitimately rough. But they pale in comparison to the brutality of the Flemish kasseien, and the Flemish kasseien pale in comparison to the French pavé.
When riding the cobbles, I sometimes find myself almost having an out of body experience, amazed at the fact that bicycle and rider are carrying on in a generally forward progression. On one occasion, I even found myself staring at a bidon that had ejected from my Arundel Mandible bidon cage, which itself says something about how rough the ride was. The bottle seemed to hang in the air for a moment as time slowed and I wondered firstly how the bidon had found its way past my top tube, and secondly whether I should fight the strangely strong urge to try and catch it.
Several of our V-Community brethren are over in Lille as we speak, riding the cobbles with our friends William and Alex from Pavé Cycling Classics and swilling Malteni like fools. They are over there because the thrilling sensation of savage shaking when you hit a secteur at speed from the smooth tarmac followed by the sense of overwhelming relief when the shaking stops as you return once again to the smooth pavement is an itch you have to keep scratching.
Sunday is Paris-Roubaix, the Queen of the Classics. And this time, it really does look like it’s going to be muddy and raining. Thank Merckx. Recall that Tom Boonen is the only favorite in the Peloton who has raced Paris-Roubaix in the wet, in 2002. Fourteen years since a muddy edition. Fourteen.
Will Boonen make it an unprecedented V wins? Or will Faboo come good and tie the record to join Boonen and de Vlaeminck? Or will Pinchy do the double and take his second monument? My money is on rain and an upset winner.
Don’t forget that the VSP Series winner takes home a custom Don Walker and that the runner-up gets a set of handbuilt Café Roubaix CR Wheelworks Arenberg wheels. Third place get a V-Kit. So start your prognostications on the start list, pray to whatever deity that melts your butter, and get your picks in by the time the timer goes to zero.
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VSP PICKS:
@frank
Super Record of course?
(and isn’t Vandenbergh out?)
VSP PICKS:
@the Engine
stop it !
Mons-en-Pevele looks muddy – https://twitter.com/ElisaMadiot/status/719105407021641728
The Whale Face is in action today! http://www.velominati.com/technique/look-pro-the-whale-shark/
I think Tony Martin is basically going to TT the whole race and tow Tom all the way to his Vth
Sagan… might not win it, but how he avoided Cancellara!
All “pirate feeds” appear down. ALERT! ALERT! I’m left solely with text updates. Brother, can you spare some frites?!
Quick. Found a feed in Dutch. I need Dutch language lessons, stat.
What a race! And he deserved that completely.
Holy crap that was intens!
So, uh, Dutch commentators are great!
Matt Heyman!
Brought me to tears. He was completely dumbstruck when he came of the bike. What a race!
will we see Phil & Paul announce their retirement?
THAT just happened !
Fuck my picks, what a race! I’ll happily hand over the VSP lead to the one who got this top V right.
Provisional results as I saw it:
oh yeah, go Aussie! What a great ride by Matty Hayman.
@Wietse Verbrugghe
Given how completely unexpected a result that is, I’m very happy with my 6 points from that.
What a race! Best edition for ages! They were all so fucked in the final and just riding on pure guts. So gutted for Boonen to have lost by so little but what a performance!
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Great race! Hayman just had a drop more left in the tank. Gutted for Tommeke but as always he shows 100% class afterwards. Great effort by Stan the Man. Well deserved 3rd there.
MATTY FUCKEN HAYMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My fucking word. If anyone picked Matt H. can we just call the VSP over and give them all three steps?
So close for Boonen. So close for Sep!
*Best recent race…worst podium headware? No fucking cycling caps!! Goddamn, Stannard has the face, head, back-of-neck rolls of a punter 4 pints in cheering on Leeds. Wow.
Gotta love a workhorse winner – it’s one if the reasons PR is so special. And to duke it out after a day in the break – very impressive. Broke his arm just over a month ago and kept his condition up for today – very, very impressive. Two Aussies in the top ten is a bonus. Nice to see Sieberg riding high too.
Anyone see Cancellara fall in the velodrome when someone tried to hand him a Swiss flag for a goodbye lap? He looked pretty embarrassed.
The OGE Backstage Pass will be a cracker –:
Hayman: “WTF?”
Cameraman: “you won it mate!”
Just quietly, he broke his arm 5 weeks ago…has been on the indoor trainer for 4 weeks & raced for 2 days in Spain last week. How the bloody hell do you race, let alone win, P-R with a broken arm?
I had not truly appreciated the awesomeness of Sagan’s bike handling to avoid crashing with Fabian. Fabian made a classic mistake of getting on the side of the crown which can be treacherous, especially in the mud. But Sags just rides right over Fabians bike. Also in the slippiest bit of the pavé! Amazing!
Guess Tommeke can’t retire now, eh? Clearly he still has what it takes despite the training time lost to injury. Already looking forward to next year’s race…
@il muro di manayunk
Crash Cancellara
Some tosser on a moto took out Elia Vivianni? How is this possible? Especially after all thats happened over the last weeks?!?
Linky:
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/racing/spectator-captures-moment-elia-viviani-struck-motorbike-paris-roubaix-video-220464
Well, I’m crushed for Boonen, but I can’t complain in terms of VSP results.
@Mikael Liddy
So much to like about this win. He’s a genuine tradesman. I snapped him as he came to the last turn at Carrefour. He looked dropped. At least 8 lengths. I gave him an earful. The mood afterwards was very sombre. Even the French were hoping for Tommeke’s V. Stunning win.
I can’t believe how disappointed I am for Boonen, while being pleased to see such a long standing hard working Dom like Hayman win. Just gutting for TB to have got that close to the record.
I think it’s a good thing Boonen didn’t win.
There’s something more heroic about a record that is shared among greats. It shows how hard it is to dominate and to my mind actually enhances the achievement.
Should Boonen eclipse RdV? Would it be fair for Cancellara to be spoken of as the greatest Ronde winner ahead of Boonen, Museuuw and Magni? In the Tour, surely a podium step shared equally between Anquetil, Hinault, Merckx and Indurain is more satisfying, and allows us to indulge in debate and speculation.
That the Giro equates Coppi, Binda and Merckx shows the flip side, where to leave out Bartoli from the discussion seems wrong.
Quite aside from the fact that he was a COTHO I felt when Armstrong became the sole record holder it distorted the picture.
Merckx has sole ownership of Liege and San Remo and Coppi of Lombardia.
That is as it should be.
@ChrisO
Can’t fault that logic
@Teocalli
Nope, good point very well made.
@ChrisO
I was thinking that too, better that it be unattainable. But he came awfully close. What a monster race.
I need to come down.
What a beauty of a race and a really nice win for a journeyman like Hayman. He’s only (only?) won 8 races in his 13 years as a pro and at age 38 makes PR his number 9? Only 6 weeks removed from a broken arm? In a break against one of the greatest classics racers of all time? I smell a screenplay some where in this story.
EBH, Stannard and Sep rode a great race and Tommeke managed them in the break perfectly giving a performance worthy of his legendary status. Today was a day that second place could not be called first loser, if this was his last race he can walk to the showers head held nearly as high as if he had won.
But all that said my MVP of the race has got to go to Tony Martin. The massive pull he took starting in sector 19 to distance the Spartacus/Sagan group should go down as the stuff of legend. He absolutely turned him self inside out to keep Boonen and the others on track and nearly singlehandedly made the final selection of riders. If you ask me the three podium finishers should chip in to send Martin a bottle of Dom, because without his work the chasers most likely bridge and who knows what could have happened.
This race is the heart and soul of cycling, and today’s edition was one for the ages. Can’t wait for next year.
In the tradition of “Boom Shake the Froome”, “That’s Nibali” and Elextrci Six’s lesser known “Stybar” I’ve now got a slightly adapted Suffregette City stuck in my head.
“Hay-Man, don’t care ’bout no broken bone.
Hay-Man, he’s gonna win on the stones…”
@dyalander
Was singing this straight after the finish!
” Hay man, disbelief on my face,
Those brutal blue stones just put my spine out of place…”
@frank
Stuck the landing one footed!
Lucky Fab’s didn’t do a collarbone!
@LA Dave
Your liggetism aside, I agree. I found myself shouting at the TV for no one in particular, just enjoying the moment and not caring who won, VSP not withstanding, as the race and cycling was the winner. Well said.
@brett
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
You gotta love the workhorse win – Vansummeren had a bit of the unlikely rock-star about him (although it may just be that he reminds me of the lead singer of Space Hog – who remembers In the Meantime?) – Hayman is more of knockabout – an experienced old head who knows the score, but instead of being grizzled and jaded, he’s kept a spark and now he’s got his reward: http://cyclingtips.com/2016/04/hayman-on-his-extraordinary-paris-roubaix-win-there-is-no-way-i-expected-it-would-end-up-like-this/
@dyalander
BTW, Hayman mentions all the time he was spending on the trainer in his virtual world.
He was using Zwift a lot, even took part in some of the group rides and races.
@Harminator
What a shot, really shows the state of those ‘roads’. Puts the succession of attacks in the last 10k into perspective – they all must have been utterly shot.
@ChrisO
I didn’t know anything about this guy, but what a great veteran. 15 Roubaix, finished them all, holy smokes, what a accomplishment in itself! A humble and deserving winner, he’s got a fan in me. He seems just as much to be a fan of the sport as well as a pro too, very cool.
@Gianni
I was gutted for Tommeke – so, so close, but each rider in that five man break would have been a worthy winner. That being said, to lose a race by so little that means so much, Boonen showed unbelievable class on and off the podium. No scowling, no petted lip. Happy for Hayman. It’s why I love Queen Marianne and Tommeke, even when they don’t win, they show exceptional sportsmanship.
Caught a bit of the Masters in the afternoon. Didn’t see too many guys at Augusta finishing on their knees with the tank drained dry and they get what? $1.5M for the win?
I was gone all weekend, soooooooo painful not to be able to watch it live. Followed it by smartphone live ticker–NOT the way to experience it for sure!
And now I cannot find any decent, “Last 30/45/50/60+ kilometers of the race” videos on youtube. They must be locking those feeds down b/c it was such a cracker of a race.
Man, I hope they loosen up sometime as I am dying to actually watch the actual race unfold!!!
@frank
Fucking unbelievable the way he rides right over Sparty’s steed, almost goes into a complete endo, keeps it upright and recovers. And all the while it is a Keystone Cop episode behind him as all the other riders just fucking faceplant in the same circumstances.
Damn!