Have you ever watched the riders of Paris-Roubaix bounce and judder their way across the pavé of northern France and thought: “I want to do that?”
Well, if you haven’t, I suppose that’s understandable, given the state of riders at the end of a race that is literally called The Hell of the North. But I have longed to have a go on the cobbles, to see what it is really like.
Sure, I could hop over to the Hauts-de-France and have a go on the actual course of Roubaix, but why bother when you can try and put the hammer down on the unpaved roads of your own area.
This is what I did last Sunday, as part of a really silly event put on by my club, Newtown Park CC, called ‘A Sunday in Helles’. The route takes all the best parts of the cobbled Classics – the vertiginous hills, the crosswinds, and the lack of tarmac – and mashes it into one 55km route around Bristol. It even included England’s steepest residential hill, which I conquered again.
The event isn’t a novel idea, far from it, with similar things happening in Sheffield and London, but Bristol is perfect for some weird tribute to the Tour of Flanders and Roubaix, what with its frankly stupid topography and surprising amount of cobbles.
The resulting Strava route looks like its designer had lost their mind, what with its squiggles and circling back on itself, but it is all designed to make the most of bumpiest roads in Bristol, with highlights like the five-star Kingsdown Trench sector, and the early warmup that is the Carrefour de l’Arnolfini. I surged onto the latter so fast I almost caused my friend to slip. That’s a classic Sunday ride.
It was a truly exhausting few hours, despite only being 55km, possibly because at times we were pretending a bit too much that we were professionals, but it was a fun one too. And in the midst of all the silliness, I found that I truly love riding pavé.
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I’m not a climber, far from it, although I have cycled up some silly things for Cycling Weekly purposes, but what I do have is a potentially surprising amount of power, a willingness to go stupidly hard, and a carefree attitude to the state of my bike. Oh, and I try not to care what I look like on the bike.
As a result, I found that the cobbles were perfect for me. Every time we swung round a corner onto a “sector”, I surged forward, put that power down, and just had lots of fun. I’m not going to claim to be fast in any meaningful way, but I felt fast, and that’s just as important, right?
The side streets of Stokes Croft in Bristol are hardly the Trouée d’Arenberg or the Carrefour de l’Arbre, but they’re still pretty lumpy, and made me feel like I had conquered something anyway.
My favourite was Somerset Street in Kingsdown, where you can get up some serious speed on the slight downhill, despite the incredibly off-camber road surface. The residents must have been more than a little confused.
I didn’t do anything exciting to my bike or my technique, for what it’s worth. My 28mm tyres remained at their usual 70ish psi, while on the cobbles, I simply put my hands on the top of my handlebars and powered along, churning away close to the bottom of my cassette. My bottle cages came loose thanks to the juddering, but this was the only casualty, really.
If this sounds like your idea of fun, then you should take to your own town and city and seek out those unpaved sectors. Sure, they might not be a couple of kilometres long and in the French countryside, but they can bring a smile to your face, and remind you what bike riding is all about – fun. Next time you’re out walking, just take a note of any pavé you see, and try and tack it onto a silly route. It’s the best.
Fast roading riding might be your go-to thing, but trust me, sprinting over cobbles with your friends is about as much fun as you can have on two wheels. Just don’t contact me if you break your bike.
A cobbled ride gone wrong – Tom Davidson
(Image credit: Tom Davidson)
Adam’s Sunday in Helles reminded me of a cobbled ride I did in London a few years back, which was a total disaster.
I found a route online of all the cobbles in the city centre – a 50km loop stretching from Hyde Park to Wapping, crossing either side of the river – and set out one October’s lunchtime. I expected it to take me a few hours, but I ended up battling to get home before dark.
Yes, my average speed was low, but it was the punctures that got me. Ignorant to the importance of tyre pressure, I jacked mine up to around 100psi, and deservedly popped my rear inner tube. I then punctured again about an hour after I fixed it. That time, with no spare in my jersey pocket, I had to walk a couple of kilometres to the nearest bike shop, mashing up my cleats with each step on the tarmac.
I hacked round the rest of the route, and almost four and a half hours after I set out, finally arrived home, £15 down in inner tubes, and in need of new cleats. A disaster, but an idea I don’t regret.
