Adrie van der Poel, much like his son, doesn’t hang around. As I haphazardly navigated the Carrefour de l’Arbre, bouncing, shaking, and generally careening over its sodden, misshapen cobbles, the Dutchman stood passively at the side of the road, before nonchalantly glancing in my direction.
‘Come on, hurry up, it’s cold and wet. We need to keep warm.’
I looked up at Van der Poel Snr, a perennial contender on these very cobbles in the 1980s, through my mud-specked glasses. Alright Adrie, I’m trying, I didn’t say back.
So, why was I putting myself through this unique brand of cycling torture? Well, just weeks before, while sitting in my nice, warm office, I thought it would be a great idea to get some tips on how to ride the notorious pavé of Paris-Roubaix with a rider who finished third at the Hell of the North in 1986.
And whose son Mathieu is aiming to win cycling’s most famous one-day race for a record-equalling fourth time.
But as I exited the Carrefour de l’Arbre, Paris-Roubaix’s last five-star sector, my blue jersey sleeves now a worrying shade of brown, I was starting to regret my office-based dreaming. And so, by the looks of things, was Adrie.
Things had begun to feel a bit ominous an hour or so before, as we crossed the Belgian border into France – and when the rain started pouring. To be honest, my legs didn’t feel too bad, aided by a good, steady pace in our group and a relatively flat route down from Oudenaarde.
But the newly slick roads (with their attractive rural French grime) left me feeling less than excited about an afternoon on the most treacherous playground in all of sport. And that apprehension was not alleviated during my test run on the Carrefour, where keeping the bike upright was the name of the game.
But still, I was riding on holy (if rather wet) ground, and looked pretty pleased with myself as I rode up to Adrie on the tarmac, just as a Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe pro passed in the opposite direction, stone-faced, heading for his umpteenth test ride of the day, the team’s aero guru Dan Bigham watching on from a tent.
‘Stick it in the big ring, eh? Otherwise, you’ll be bouncing all over the cobbles,’ Van der Poel Snr suggested, or rather ordered, as I approached.
Ah, okay. One sector down and I had already committed the cobble cardinal sin of being woefully under geared, an inevitable response to the dramatic slowing and sharp pain I experienced as I hit the first cobbles.
Chastened, I jump on Adrie’s wheel and a quick right, left later and we’re on the next sector: Gruson. Which, though a mere two-star sector in the Paris-Roubaix roadbook, felt every bit as gnarly as its more illustrious predecessor.
My lack of fitness and inexperience on wet cobbles quickly showed on gruesome Gruson – as Van der Poel eased gently away, his arms resting lovingly on the bars, I resembled a cartoon character trapped in quicksand.
I’d barely ridden 50 metres with my would-be tutor when my legs and brain started to play up, and my body began to be bucked around by the jagged stones beneath my bike.
Tomorrow’s headlines flashed across my mind: ‘Idiot brings down Adrie van der Poel on Roubaix route, Mathieu furious’… ‘Journalist banned from Paris-Roubaix for life for disgracing himself’.
As we regrouped before the final sector, Adrie – fed up with shivering on the side of a French road waiting for an unfit journalist – decided to give me one final piece of advice: ‘Take the brake off, eh?’
I’ll have nightmares about that sentence for years.
Thankfully, the Willems à Hem sector, and its lovely cobble-side tarmac bike lane (blocked off by the winners’ posters on race day) afforded me one final chance to save the day. Through gritted teeth and desperation, I managed to stay with a Van der Poel, on the cobbles!
Granted, he did distance me through every corner (oh, the smoothness) and I looked like I was fighting a giant duck the entire time, but still, I did it. Life complete.
Rolling into Roubaix’s iconic, shabby-chic velodrome, I treated myself to a tiny air punch across the line, as well as a much-needed wash in those brilliant, historic, extremely impractical concrete showers.
Adrie’s top tips for riding the cobbles
Back at the hotel, dried and warmed up, I asked Adrie to reveal some of his top tips for any keen amateurs looking to test themselves on the route of the Hell of the North.
“Stay away!” he laughed.
“No, no, if you’re really interested in cycling and doing something extreme, it’s very nice to do it. You have to be careful, but it’s an experience you’ll never forget,” the former Tour of Flanders winner continued.
“You have to be as relaxed as possible, and let the bike do the work, not the person on the bike. To start, take it easy. Don’t start with the Arenberg, or extreme sections, start with nice cobblestones and build it up a bit.
“If you have a left-hand turn, take it on the outside, because it can be slippery. Even when you slip or make a mistake, don’t touch the brakes. Let the bike go left and right, and slowly come to a standstill.
“Amateurs put their hands by the brakes, but I like to ride in the middle. The tyres now are different than 30, 40 years ago, and you get a lot of comfort from them.
“You can do a lot with the tyres. I’m 78kg and I ride with a pressure of 2.8 Bar on tubeless tyres at 32mm. I don’t say there aren’t any cobbles anymore, but it makes it a little bit easier.”
And, finally, what did he make of my, ahem, effort on the pavé?
“I didn’t see you, because you were always behind me!”
Once again, cheers Adrie.
