Paris Roubaix: the Gravel Team on the Cobblestones of L’Enfer du Nord

This weekend of April 8/9th 2023, the professionals will set off on the 120th edition of France’s most famous cycling monument: Paris-Roubaix. For the men on Sunday 250 kilometres of the toughest roads and cobbled sectors, the women will complete a 125 km course the day before.

Created in 1896 by Théodore Vienne, who was promoting his newly built velodrome in Roubaix by organising a race that would highlight the most robust and enduring cyclists. The event became known in the press as the ‘Hell of the North’ which characterizes its parcours well.

Paris Roubaix: the Gravel Team on the Cobblestones of L’Enfer du Nord

No real relief or decisive col here, the original idea was to take the most difficult roads possible between Paris and Roubaix, passing through cobbled paths and sections of unpaved farm tracks to create a race that would not only be a test of speed and endurance, but also a challenge for the riders' technical skills. Gravel racing on an epic scale, before there was such a thing. But on road bikes.

On April 19, 1896, 37 riders took to the start over a total distance of 280 kilometres, more than 70 km of which were cobblestones. The winner of this first edition, Frenchman Joseph Fischer, covered the distance in just over nine hours.

The race has evolved, changed, but has always kept its unique and difficult character. Cobblestones often poorly maintained and increasingly uneven, make punctures, falls and the injuries they cause an occupational hazard for the riders, not to mention the chaots caused by roadside spectators (and their dogs).

So, what better testing ground to start a gravel season for the four athletes of the Café du Cycliste Gravel Team? What better conditions to put the mechanics of the suspension fork which equips the Lauf Seigla machines ridden by the team.

As they reach the infamous Arenberg sector, the girls have stopped talking, and the pace has just hardened. The cobblestones keep their promise when the bikes launch at high speed on the cobbles. Faster is the only only way to become ‘comfortable.’ It’s time to see where everyone is after the winter break. A moment chosen to welcome Isabelle to the team for this 2023 season; the Belgian rider who seems at ease on this course in weather that is part of a landscape that she knows well, a little local stage.

Maria the Icelandic, the northernmost member of the team, went into exile for part of the winter in Spain to escape the cold, Lydia and Annabelle for their part shone in cross-country ski races. Today’s effort will emulate what they will have to produce this year on the saddle of their bike, this day on the roads of Paris-Roubaix is a great warm-up.

The mud-strewn bikes spin along the smooth banks of the historic Roubaix velodrome. The four could turn again and again in the wake of racers who for years, decades, gave life to the legend of Paris Roubaix. Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Tom Boonen, Peter Sagan, Lizzie Armistead… just a few names on the list of winners in an exceptional race.

Entering the showers of the velodrome is like entering one of the holy places of bike racing, the names of heroes are engraved on each of these concrete cubicles. The girls whisper as they go around the space, this place has a soul, a deep history, they have been in the shadows of some of the greatest.

April and Easter weekend is the time of Paris-Roubaix, and the time of new beginnings.

It is also the time of a return to competition for the Café du Cycliste Gravel Team. The first race to come is the Traka in Spain, coming back to the place where last season Annabel and Lydia won the 100 km and 200 km races respectively. Paris-Roubaix will also have been raced, and we will discover who will enter the hallowed Roubaix velodrome victorious.

The Café du Cycliste Gravel Team

A new year and new season on the horizon for the Gravel Team. The all-female squad will once again test their endurance, spirit and commitment on an international circuit.

The Traka - Sound and Force

Café du Cycliste’s Gravel racing trio tackled their first event in Girona on Saturday May 1st 2022. Annabel Fisher took top spot in the 100km distance, her first ever Gravel race.

The Rift

The Rift is an unmissable event on the Gravel calendar with a course offering volcanic landscapes, and a highly unique terrain. There’s nothing else in the universe quite like it, especially not for Annabel Fisher who rode to victory in the 200km.

Team Spirit in Monsterrato

Gravel, more so than other cycling disciplines, prides itself on its pioneering spirit. It is apt, therefore, that it puts both genders on equal footing. Women compete with men over equal distances, from the same start line.