Having already notched up one of the Spring Classics i was looking forward to Paris Roubaix, cobbles, mud, rain and some good hard cycling.
Sadly i was to be disappointed, at least from the persepctive of mud and rain, continuing its run of sunny and dusty races the 106th edition set off to a dry start.
Having made an early start me and my co-pilot Mike took a few little detours of a direct route to Compiegne - the first to the famous Vimy Ridge and the Canadian War Memorial - Vimy and then finally a dogleg out towards Belgium to get a quick look the Trouée d'Arenberg and figure out whether the stop would be possible the following day.
After a brief meeting setting out the rules from ASO for the next i collecting my race programme and bib and headed off to find sime dinner and bed.
Thankfully the 11am rollout meant a civilised wake up and a two minute drive to the start, despite the Grey cloud's threatening overhead the whether resisted and stayed dry. After a few quick shots round the team buses we were in the car and heading off to the first stop on a section of Cobbles.
A combination of some slightly hairy driving and some fantastic map reading by Mike saw us fly through two stops to see the early break reach its maximum distance from the Peloton and make it all the way to the top of the Trouée d'Arenberg. If you are gonig to see a Paris Roubaix i can recommend doing the section at least once as it really does have to been seen to be believed 2.5Km packed with crowds the whole way.
It was then due to a fair measure of luck and another display of fanatastic map reading we managed to jump ahead of the race again and pause just before the last 5 sections of Cobbles, the point at which the race is usually slimmed down enough that the winner will be one of a few. True to race form a trio of Ballna Cancellera and Boonen were off the front and the winner was going to be one of them.
It was now a dash to the Velodrome, hoping to jump ahead of them as they looped out as we cut up, a breif moment of horn honking as serveral cars were held up trying to do the same thing, but eventually granted safe passage onto the race ahead of the pack,
We were graced with a great finish and Boonen jumping the other two to take his second roubaix cobble