sidelined

I was going to win today or die trying

And of course he won.

Pro Cycling is not a mainstream sport in this country so some context is needed when describing what this win is all about. Think Wimbledon. Think Augusta. Roubaix is regarded as the Queen of the Classics and is the prize for riders who specialize in one day races.

Next to the Tour de France it’s the race all riders would love to win. And so, O’Grady has not only written himself into the history books of Australian cycling, he’s also become an immortal in the history of the sport.

Raced over secteurs of pave (cobbles) Roubaix rewards the hard, the opportunistic and the guy with good legs on the day. Usually a race ridden in rain, snow and mud, this years race was unseasonably hot and dusty, conditions that suited O’Grady.

A great day for Australian sport and for one of cycling’s true nice guys.

If you’d like to understand a bit more about what O’Grady and the other riders face in this race, read on for a synopsys of the legendary Secteur 18 – Tranchée (ou Trouée) d’Arenberg.

What can you say about Arenberg that hasn’t been said a million times before. For many people – fans and detractors alike – this is the essence of Paris-Roubaix. Despite the fact that it’s still nearly 100 km from the velodrome, there is always incident. This is the point where – because of the extremity of the surface – the favourites start to put the hurt on to the also-rans, and hopefully on to each other. Discovered by former Tour winner – and local boy – Jean Stablinski, and introduced in the 1968 race (the first “modern” edition), it’s been a fixture ever since 1983, except for in 2005 when it was decided that it was too dangerous and had to be repaired.

Because of the shelter given by the overhanging trees along its length, and because of the underground aquifer that is reputedly very close to the surface, the ground here never seems to fully dry out. Coupled with the subsidence that hundreds of years of mining can cause to the area, this is one of the most unbelievable roads in the world. In recent years there have been a number of serious incidents here that have put its use in jeopardy, most notably in 1998 when Johann Museeuw fell and smashed his kneecap just a week after his dominant third victory in the Tour of Flanders, causing the organisers to run the course from the opposite end so that they wouldn’t hit it so fast.

Until a few years ago, it was possible to ride along the mud at the sides, amongst and even behind the spectators, but the organisers have now put barriers along the length of the Trouée to prevent this. Now everybody gets to experience the seventh level of Hell!

The race hits this secteur at the end of a long straight road out of the picturesque old mining town of Arenberg so they’re generally travelling at speeds of up to 60 km/h. On dry days all they have to cope with is the fact that it seems to be surface with randomly sized stones, arranged in an uneven and seemingly random way. If it’s wet then the stones will also be glacially slippery. It slopes gently downwards for the first few hundred metres allowing riders to maintain, or even increase their speed, before levelling off and sloping ever so slightly upwards for the remainder of its length. The unevenness of the surface makes this slight gradient seem a thousand times worse.

There are always crashes here, because everybody wants to be near the front at this point. Mud on the cobbles – churned up by race vehicles, and often deliberately by the thousands of fans who always come here – makes it all the more treacherous.

They don’t give this one five stars because of its soft bathrobes!

Note: O’Grady won the race with an average speed of 42.181 km/h over 259.5 kilometers. He finished in 6.09.07.

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