Paris Roubaix Recon

Just got back from a hellish 6 hour ride. What did I do today you ask? This Sunday is the U23 version of Paris Roubaix, 27 sectors of cobbles and all the fastest espoir riders. Today the USA cycling team went out to recon and ride the course to get a taste of what was going to be coming up. We headed out to the ride with the Garmin team and had Scott Sunderland giving some points along the way-he was the guy working for team CSC helping teach Stuart O Grady and Fabian Cancellara to their wins, once again this guy knows his shit. Funny enough, we also ran into the team of Trek Livestrong doing the same thing as they have a favorite in Taylor Phinney going into the race. But, not wanting to give away their secrets or anything, either rode in front of our group or way back all day. Pretty easy to tell that Garmin and Trek Livestrong do not like each other. Going into today, I was thinking that I have watched the pros ride over these roads and it looked fairly smooth, a bit bumpy. How bad can it really be? I mean, I have ridden dirt roads before on my road bike. However, once again, my bike leaves me humbled. Today we rode 27 sectors and I promise you, by sector 3 I could not hold onto my handlebars and was in a very bad place mentally. I set out to try and take some photos, but about 100 meters into the first sector it was determined that my camera would be much safer in my bag and not bouncing around in my jersey pocket, so sorry, no photos. No amount of tips or try riding them here and not there could help me today. My level of respect for the men who win these cobbled classics year after year has risen considerably today. Was I hating it every time I hit the bone jarring cobbles, you bet I was. Am I glad I stuck it out and suffered through the day, you bet I am. Gotta say though, taking a lap of that Roubaix Velodrome was pretty darn fun after that ride. Funny part of the day though was that we finished in Roubaix, France roughly 25 kilometers from the house in Belgium. Andrew Talansky and I are going to ride home and are given rough directions on how to get back. Between the 2 of us, we have all of 4 rides in Belgium, but hey only 25 kilometers is a stones throw so we set off. 50 kilometers later we arrive at our house, not really knowing how we got there. We do know that a freeway was involved, lots of directions asking and general retracing of path, but we got home thank god.

And now the best part, whenever someone remarks while watching a cobbled spring classic race, "wow, that looks like fun," I can reply "hell no, been there, done that and I am pretty sure that you do not want to do that." But, who knows, maybe I might have to remind myself of it every now and then.