No Arenberg in 2012 Paris Roubaix!

[jens_attacks]

What is the most 'cool' place to crash?

 

[ElChingon]

Hey Now! Those scrabble tiles are just as slippery as the P-R cobbles , then those hills can be treacherous

 

[LugHugger]

Well its kindof obvious that those of you who like that sort of challenge and think its part of being a great athlete all dont live near the cobbles and dont see the stretch when it gets nasty .
Like the authorities said , its passable on a dry day but like all frost and earth tremors that move the pavement and create ruts and cracks , the same is said for the cobbles. They creat holes and uneven heights as the stones are pushed up .
The issue isnt whether or not to remove cobbles but to repair them so the water run off can be managed and the mud and water doesnt obscure the ability for a racer to see where he positions his front wheel.
The enormous pot holes and uneveness of the cobbles creat conditions that just become mental. They then serve no purpose in keeping the race course of the tradition of the past alive just so you can say you rode it.

If all roads were cobbles then they would be maintained like any other road is maintained . If you are all so hung up on tradition and keeping the road in a state of disrepair , then you better race the road with bikes from the 50's to 70's as your most modern bike . Then you can say what great racers you all are. Park your plastic bikes and become real racers and then talk .
But in the meantime , since you wont do that , then just let the authorities cancel that part or get it repaired to smooth cobbles that dont hold water or mud beyond reason. It can be done .

After all the talk on other threads of how no one wants to pay for someone elses crashes and rehabilitation after the fact , then what is all this about saying we need to make things more difficult.

There is a reason the race organizors take this view. It is their job to keep some degree of safety to human life in the realm of sanity.

I would like to add , no one would plumet down a mountain on a wet or muddy road like the one on the arenberg forest if it were a decent on a mountain stage . You have to be able to see where you are going.

PR is 116 years old this year. The race IS the course. The course IS the cobbles and Arenberg has become one of the highlights of this race in the modern era. Do some homework on the history of this race. Look at some of the pictures of really wet races - 81, 83, 87, 90. In these races sections of the course were entirely submerged. I ride these roads year round and you can take your BS nanny attitude and shove it up your ****.

 

[stainlessguy1]

PR is 116 years old this year. The race IS the course. The course IS the cobbles and Arenberg has become one of the highlights of this race in the modern era. Do some homework on the history of this race. Look at some of the pictures of really wet races - 81, 83, 87, 90. In these races sections of the course were entirely submerged. I ride these roads year round and you can take your BS nanny attitude and shove it up your ****.

ok tough guy, have fun , i guess you havent had enough bad luck then .

 

[LugHugger]

Thank you, Clueless, we will. Spare us your ignorant proclamations on the greatest one day race on the calendar.

 

[craig1985]

In before the post gets edited.

Have to say it doesn't quite feel the same without the Arenberg in Roubaix, although it's still a tough race. I want a rainy day for Roubaix as we haven't have had one for quite a few years.

 

[greenedge]

I hope the Arenberg is still in the course. However it is a long distance from the finish and did not have much of an impact last year. It would probably not again this year ( as Cancellara has realised that the peloton will just work to bring him back ) like at RvV.


I still do not want the course to change.

 

[LugHugger]

I hope the Arenberg is still in the course. However it is a long distance from the finish and did not have much of an impact last year. It would probably not again this year ( as Cancellara has realised that the peloton will just work to bring him back ) like at RvV.


I still do not want the course to change.

What???? Not much impact? Trying telling that to Tommeke
Arenberg marks the start of the real racing and separates the wheat from the chaff. It's perfectly possible to lose the race here, hence it's status amongst the fans and riders.

 

[Kvinto]

What???? Not much impact? Trying telling that to Tommeke
Arenberg marks the start of the real racing and separates the wheat from the chaff. It's perfectly possible to lose the race here, hence it's status amongst the fans and riders.

Absolutely true, this is a place where The Race begins, offering more than 80km of the big guns' showdown and i guess it is more km of favourites' battle than in some of GTs

 

[Nick C.]

Was the race anything special before they added Arenberg in the 60s/70s?

 

[Mambo95]

Was the race anything special before they added Arenberg in the 60s/70s?

Yeah, it was still a very big race.
It should be remembered that Arenberg wasn't in the race from 74-83, which were the years of DeVlaeminck, Moser and the film A Sunday In Hell, a period which defined much of the race's mythology.

The race is better with it than without it, but it's not that big a deal if it skips a year once in a while.

 

[Echoes]

get it repaired to smooth cobbles that dont hold water or mud beyond reason. It can be done .

But it IS done, for damn sake. "Les amis de Paris-Roubaix" have been working on them for 25 years.

http://www.lesamisdeparisroubaix.com/doc 2007 Anglais.pdf


I stand by what I said in my first visit to this thread. There have been much less crashes (and no serious crash at all) on the Forest since its last removal in 2005. Just youtube some of the passages of the Trench in the 80's and compare.

Was the race anything special before they added Arenberg in the 60s/70s?

It was a great classic because it had the most international field. In the 50's, the course was totally different (via Amiens, Arras and the biggest obstacle was an asphalt climb, the Mur de Doullens). Every year that course had less and less cobbles. The 1964 is still the fastest edition ever (won by Post). The 1965 edition had the smallest cobbled distance.

They changed the route in 1966 when Gimondi won (via Valenciennes and the P&#233]It should be remembered that Arenberg wasn't in the race from 74-83, which were the years of DeVlaeminck, Moser and the film A Sunday In Hell, a period which defined much of the race's mythology.[/QUOTE]

But the Sunday in Hell edition (1976) had a lot of sections that no longer exist today. In 1977 Goddet was anxious when he realized that many sections around Templeuve had been asphalted. Hence the startline moved from Chantilly to Compiegne and a new search cobbles. Carrefour de l'Arbre added in 1978.

 

[stainlessguy1]

But it IS done, for damn sake. "Les amis de Paris-Roubaix" have been working on them for 25 years.

http://www.lesamisdeparisroubaix.com/doc 2007 Anglais.pdf


I stand by what I said in my first visit to this thread. There have been much less crashes (and no serious crash at all) on the Forest since its last removal in 2005. Just youtube some of the passages of the Trench in the 80's and compare.




It was a great classic because it had the most international field. In the 50's, the course was totally different (via Amiens, Arras and the biggest obstacle was an asphalt climb, the Mur de Doullens). Every year that course had less and less cobbles. The 1964 is still the fastest edition ever (won by Post). The 1965 edition had the smallest cobbled distance.

They changed the route in 1966 when Gimondi won (via Valenciennes and the Pévèle), in search for very old cobbled sections, only used for the driving of cattles (copyright A Sunday in Hell). The Forest came up in 1968.




But the Sunday in Hell edition (1976) had a lot of sections that no longer exist today. In 1977 Goddet was anxious when he realized that many sections around Templeuve had been asphalted. Hence the startline moved from Chantilly to Compiegne and a new search cobbles. Carrefour de l'Arbre added in 1978.

Ok so Thanks for the link , i see they have been working on revitalizing the road for the past 25 years , and that is great . Short of making a whole new 50 some odd km of cobbles , and just repair the sink holes so riders dont totally disappear in the hole it should then be a no brainer that the course will be intact at race time.
So if all this is true , and the link is providing details for donations and all that , it seems totally organized. Then why all the hooplah over the state of the road and the threat of them pulling out the arenberg forest section by the authorities as the original poster had stated?

I mean the link even shows some brand new cobbles laid and they are flat and smooth ( they look great) , then of course it shows a guy with a pick axe repairing another section.
Now , i dont know about you but with donations and a national treasure in historical cycling and all , seems to me i would put a couple of more guys on the repair work .

The road seems a bit long for one guy.

So maybe watch the movie , * Cool Hand Luke* with Paul Newman , and they did a road to nowhere in a day . Just a suggestion but what if the local jails gets some good honest labour involved and i bet the guys could have a real blast building up that road again for a couple of weekends.

i am not against the cobbles or the race or the stretch. I only responded to the OP .

 

[Echoes]

I've seen Cool Hand Luke but a long time ago. I don't remember everything.


Pecheux is a wimp. He already scrapped the Haute-Levée for many years because it was supposedly too narrow.


On the French version of the website you can see that there are about 200 members in "Les amis de Paris-Roubaix". All voluntary workers. I'll always take my hats off to them. They're doing a great job.

 

[Cult Classics]

Maybe if the Arenberg was raced over as many times as hills and mountains were descended there would be more 'serious' incidents. Difficult to know when on the one hand you're talking about a single stretch of cobbles raced upon one time in a season, and on the other you're talking about the descent of more or less any hill or mountain across any race at any point in time of the year.

 

[Siriuscat]

The race is a unique test and Arenberg is a big part of that test. To remove it wouldn't be the end of the world but on that Sunday in April there is no finer sight that the Trench and it's atmosphere is unique as well. It doesn't take much to clean the cobbles which would appease the Health and Safety mob but if it's wet.....doesn't matter how clean the cobbles are they'll be as slippy as hell anyway.

 

[RedheadDane]

And it seems like a solution has been found!

http://feltet.dk/nyheder/monsterfejemaskine_redder_arenbergskoven/

Article is in Danish and I'm to lazy to translate, but basically it involved a huge-*** sweeping maching!