Paris Roubaix 2024

First time in my life riding cobbles.

Like many things in life there is nothing that can be explained to you that prepares you for what you are going to feel the moment you experience them. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the ride. I massively missed T-Y and JFW. They were supposed to ride with us today. But I also missed the rest of the Saturday gang. This is a fantastic event to ride as a group and have fun. The route is flat and we ride easy on the tarmac. Every now and then a sector of cobbles comes and the fun starts. We regrouped after each sector and that is the time to chat, smile and ride easy. The anecdotes and experiences accumulate as the ride goes on. 

The second half of the ride was a bit of a different history. It was pain management. Not leg or bum pain as it usually is on big riding days. I have never been on a ride where my hands, wrists and forearms have hurt that much. Testimony of a privileged life, I’m sure my grandfather, who was a miner, wouldn’t have this problem. Each cobble sector was now a matter of deciding how to grab the handlebar to feel less pain. Inevitably there is a point where you ask yourself what the hell are you doing here. 

Each cobble sector has a number of stars. One star the easiest, five stars the longer and harder sectors. 

On the approach to the finish we were treated with two 3 star sectors, followed by a 4 star sector and one 5 star sector. At that point I have had enough. It was at that point where I asked Adam to take a picture of my hands.

But the organizers are clever. Following the theory that says that no matter how painful a experience is if you finish it with a pleasant feeling you have great memories of the whole thing, last 15kms of the ride are two 2 star sectors, a final 1 start sector and a finish with half a lap at the iconic Roubaix velodrome. 

By the time I received my finisher medal I was already thinking of doing this ride again. 

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11118640451

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

Riding in Asturias ep1: Pola de Laviana

For someone based in Lugones a ride to Pola de Laviana is the equivalent to a Windsor ride to someone based in Kingston Upon Thames.

A ride as flat as you can get in this area, rewarded by a specific cake.The Bartolo, an almond based cake, would be the equivalent of Windsor’s Cinnamon Bun.

No cake for me today though. As I would do in a Windsor solo recovery ride, I rode to Pola de Laviana very easy and non-stop.

What I did today as I was riding, thinking about the similarities to a Windsor ride, was to spot all the town signs. You can’t be too prepared for the next visit of the Kingston Wheelers to Asturias.

I now even know the exact location of the final sprint line. A power sprint, more similar to the Esher sprint than to the flat sprint at Hampton at the end of a Windsor’s ride.

Of course, I won’t tell anyone where that line is. Being the only one that knows where the line is gives you a small advantage and I need any advantage I can take. 

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11074843563/

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

Bidders and Noel, the loving cycling parents

The best way of riding into a strong head wind is to be lucky and have Bidders and Noel with fresh legs joining your ride. 

They'll go and sit on the front the whole way. Keeping the pace steady. Chatting away.

Behind them you just hang there. Thinking it is all fine until a tiny bump on the road appears. That's when the gap opens.

You feel orphaned for a few seconds. You know you won't be able to close that gap. The wind is too strong. Like a baby seeing his parents moving away you are about to start crying to call their attention. Please don’t go. Please don’t leave me here. 

Like loving parents they'll ease the pace before you start crying. Seeing the gap closing down will make you feel loved and cared for. 

Bidders and Noel will do that for more than four hours and you’ll learn that in cycling, like in live, it is important to have loving parents.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11028097255 

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

Don’t ride with The Pope in Kent if you want to feel strong

 

My 2nd best time up Chalkpit Lane (https://www.strava.com/activities/10923564884/segments/3201561135176217292). Only 6 seconds slower than my PR.

My 2nd best time up Toys Hill (https://www.strava.com/activities/10923564884/segments/3201561135176053452). Only 13 seconds slower than my PR.

A PR up Ide Hill (https://www.strava.com/activities/10923564884/segments/3201561135172125388). 1m11s faster than my previous PR.

A PR up Star Hill (https://www.strava.com/activities/10923564884/segments/3201561135173169868). 1m23s faster than my previous PR.

You’d think I felt strong today and you would be wrong. 

Feeling strong is a relative feeling. It all depends on how strong the rest of the riders are. If everyone is strong you don’t feel strong, no matter how hard you are riding. 

Well, unless you are The Pope. If you are The Pope, and the ride is in Kent, you are not only allowed to feel strong but you will show it to everyone attacking every single climb and even taking the final sprint.

Don’t ride with The Pope in Kent if you want to feel strong.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10923564884/

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

A recipe for a hard day

Four equally strong riders. A Rompepiernas (https://www.unbiciorejon.com/2020/09/spanish-cycling-jargon-101-part-2.html) route. Riding steady all day. 

Plenty of water in the roads. 

A great scone at the coffee stop. The coffee wasn’t that great but I went for the large option and the caffeine worked. Felt better in the second half than in the first.

GC Denis doing the best JFW impersonation I ever seen taking tree town sign sprints no one knew that were there. What made it realistic was that he was second in a fourth one even in the absence of challengers.

If it didn’t kill me it made me stronger, right?

The route in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10882336308/

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

The day of number 2

 

Two hours of stopped time in the ride. We were lucky we dogged the rain all day.

Two were the KOMs I lost to Lucas and I consider that a success.

Two punctures today. One before the ride even started.

Two were the sprints that JFW took today. Below expectations performance.

Two inner tubes JFW needed to repair a puncture. Another below expectations performance.

Two pieces of cake for Bidders at the coffee stop. That’s an expected performance.

Two coffees for me at the coffee stop. It helps to explain my overexcitement during the return leg.

But There Can Be Only One Winner of the final sprint. It definitely helps that no one but me knew where the line was.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10828014905

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

My coach would be proud of me

 (Almost five minutes at 345w with an average heart rate of 49bpm doesn’t seem accurate to me. Either that or my training is going really, really well)

Not sure what my coach, if I had one, would have prescribed as a training session for today, but if you ask me I’d say I got it almost perfect.

Easy riding all day. Chatting, laughing, enjoying the scenery. 

A sprint whenever JFW decided he wanted one. Which, for me, was a bunch of sprints at random moments of the ride. 

Three efforts up the hills trying to hold to JFW’s wheel. Which, for me, was the equivalent to three over the threshold, motor-paced efforts.

One final sprint. Perfectly led this time by JFW. Which, for me, was just another prestigious win added to my plamarés.

I’m guessing the scone with cream and jam I had at Tanhouse was not the ideal fuelling for the ride, but it’s contribution to my overall happiness made it totally worth it.

I almost wish I had a coach to witness how well I executed today.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10779632238

Take care

Javier Arias González

Gluttony

 

I felt better today than yesterday.

Weird, but true.

I felt even better when I managed to keep The Pope’s wheel up Hazelwood Lane. 

Even weirder, but also true.

To celebrate I went for a double cake at the coffee stop. Gluttony is one of my sins, probably not the worst though. 

There is no way I’ll skip a Pasteis de Nata if I’m at a Portuguese cafe.

That cost me my chance at getting Juniper’s KOM.

That, and that The Pope took off his arm warmers before the climb (he showed up without gloves). I took my gloves off to compensate. Looking for a fist fight ended up with me swearing (in Spanish) when I saw him (one more week) disappearing off the front in the final ramp.

I blame that defeat on the two aforementioned cakes. Also, on the di2 system that unilaterally decided to switch chainring at the most inappropriate moment. I’d also throw into the mix that I was riding with a rear wheel low in pressure, the sealant was not fast enough fixing a puncture. That’s probably 100w there and then. I wouldn’t have taken the KOM anyway but I would have been closer.

From there it was game over for me. The pressure in my rear wheel was too low to have any say at the Horton sprint. 

The Pope took it after an early attack by GC Denis (definitely not a sprinter).

Gluttony is also one of The Pope’s sins. Definitively not his worst one. One of the weirdest sentences I have written, but also true.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10694774638

Take care

Javier Arias González

Fake it till you make it

 Staying on Neal’s wheel while he closed the gap after JFW’s suicide attack up Green Dene almost killed me.

I survived that traumatic experience at the price of knowing I was wasted for the rest of the ride.

A challenge when you want to pretend you are in good form. Time to fake it.

Next climb I used a car coming down as an excuse to slow down and let JFW take the KOM.

At Col du Chemin Fe (I’m not making it up, that’s the name of the segment) a puncture came to the rescue. 

I found myself chasing Neal and JFW again up Punchbowl’s cycletrack. Not the place I wanted to be. 

Five seconds before I blew up JFW did the typical JFW thing and blew up. I took the opportunity to start riding next to him pretending to be a nice cycling mate. I even use the old trick of asking him lots of questions to make him talk and force him to slow down a little bit more.

A mandatory dose of caffeine at a long coffee stop made even longer by another puncture, this time in Denis’ bike (I swear to god I didn’t touch his bike. I would if it had occurred to me, though).

A few moves to the front at key moments to make everyone believe Javier is contributing and seems he is coping is an essential part of the strategy.

 

A strategy that changes radically 20k (or more) before the last sprint.

From that moment, fake anything you need to fake to avoid sitting in the front. Taking time to clip your pedal, a pee stop, waiting for others at crossroads, moving to the left of the road when we are turning right. Whatever it takes to avoid the front.

Now, the moment you get to Cobham make sure you are in the right wheel and stay there no matter what.

Give thanks because you have a quiet hub and that gives you the chance to be forgotten by those at the front.

Bet everything on Neal going a bit too early, Neil following suit and you have just that little extra energy to open a gap. 

Look back and if you see them sitting down, sit down yourself and hope they don’t come after you.

Fake it till you make it.

It is not the most honorable win but it is a win and you don’t have any honor by now anyway.

Enjoy it while it lasts because you’ll pay for it tomorrow.

P.d. My proposal to enter the 24 hours of Ultracycling (https://www.transiberica.club/24h/) in 2025 was very well received. A group of us will likely give it a go.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10687692473/ 

Take care

Javier Arias González 

Surprise! Surprise!

GC Denis said he was tired, DD said she would consider joining but never did, JFW said something about a pain in a knee (an excuse clearly overused by my riding mates if you ask me) and he did his typical of showing up for a few kilometers and then peeling off.

So it is just me and The Pope.

We were, what?, 20km into the ride? 

The Pope came to me and asked me if I knew the profile of the ride.

Yes, I said, Devil’s Punchbowl and then two climbs.

One of them is Barhatch. He replied back to me.

Ooooooooooohhhhhhh!

As Cilla Black sang (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwIER9eeOrw) “Surprise, surprise, the unexpected hits you between the eyes”. 

I know that “technically” this was my route and “in theory” I should have studied it. 

But the reality is that I just copied Dai’s route and the result of me studying the route was “Flat until Devil’s Punchbowl, where the climb will be neutralized due to gates and pedestrians. Stop at the top. Two hills on the way back”. 

True, but not very precise.

Anyway, time to re-think my strategy. 

The thought of suggesting avoiding Barhatch crossed my mind but I feared it would damage my cycling public image so I opted for a coffee and a (fruit) scone at the coffee stop. Caffeine will save me.

Now, Back on the road I knew Barhatch was coming but I didn’t know when (I definitely should have studied the route a bit better).

And that is a problem because I wanted to avoid starting it at the front. Let’s say it is less than ideal to start Barhatch with The Pope on your wheel if you want to have any chance of success at taking the KOM.

Luck had it that at some point I was sitting on The Pope’s wheel and I saw him removing his gloves.

That’s it! That’s the sign. I knew then the climb was coming. I stayed on his wheel and refused to take any more turns at the front.

My plan was to stay on his wheel all the climb and out-sprint him to take the KOM.

I think it was the great philosopher Mike Tyson who said best “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.

And The Pope didn’t have gloves…

I don't know what killed me more: the 21% slope or the envy of seeing him disappear going up the hill.

Got to the top and I was happy to see my morale was intact. 

Either caffeine is an amazing substance or I’m more stupid than I thought possible.

Regardless, I fancied my chances at Combe Lane.

That is a climb that allows you to sit on someone’s wheel and out-sprint that person to take the KOM.

I might be a bit of a one-trick pony rider but I value simplicity so it suited me. 

The climb started. Me sitting on The Pope’s wheel. Dido’s White Flag’s song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-fWDrZSiZs) came to mind “But I will go down with this ship. And I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door…”.

It didn’t matter. 

Whenever The Pope wanted he hit me again and I surrendered immediately (he still had his gloves off). My morale was not intact anymore.

I started to doubt I could take the final Esher sprint so I talked The Pope out of it. I couldn’t care less about my cycling public image, my ego couldn’t take another gloveless punch.

So we crossed the Esher town sign line riding in parallel while talking about running.

I call that a cycling success. 

Surprise! Surprise! My ego is intact. 

The route in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10647208868/ 

Take care

Javier Arias González

Disappointing my coach

 I’m sure my coach is very disappointed.

The plan for today’s ride was to ride easy all day. Tomorrow I’m leading a ride to Devil’s Punchbowl and The Pope is riding so I wanted to save my legs. Not because I have high hopes of keeping up with him, last weekend’s ride (https://www.strava.com/activities/10601714863) taught me not to be that arrogant, it was just a matter of maximizing my chances of survival.

All started very well when I didn’t have a coffee in the morning so I didn’t get the caffeine induced unjustified optimism I normally get.

Still the plan didn’t last long. A few kilometers into the ride I found myself at the front pushing a pace that was a couple of steps higher than what I was planning.

Even at the “climbs” I was going a bit too hard. 

Nothing crazy, just not quite the pace I had in mind.

It wasn’t my fault of course. It was JFW’s.

I’m only guilty of lacking any personality to stick to the plan and imitating him like a parrot.

JFW moves to the front and sets a strong pace and there I go, following his lead, moving to the front and keeping the pace..

JFW starts at the front in a small incline, soon I pass him pretending I’m riding easy while pushing the pace.

I wasn’t happy with my behavior. I even ordered a decaffeinated coffee at the coffee stop to make sure I went back to the plan.

Back on the road I stuck to the plan. Sat in the third wheel. Rarely moved to the front. Didn’t lead the group up any of the climbs.

I was so proud of myself…

But that only lasted until JFW started to tease me at every town sign sprint.

He would move to the front and start looking at me as if he were controlling me ahead of the sprint.

I very rarely enter those games. I prefer to keep my powder dry for the final sprint.

Today I took the bait again and again.

Soon I found myself sprinting for town signs I didn’t even know existed.

What was meant to be a steady ride home ended up looking more like a HIIT session.

My coach is going to be very disappointed I thought at some point. 

Indeed, I am self-coached and I’m very disappointed.

Taking the final sprint is a small consolation but I’m guessing tomorrow I’ll be even more disappointed.

Stay tuned.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10639660626/ 

Take care

Javier Arias González