A pretty tenuous link to Paris-Roubaix, but every cobbled section of this year’s race is situated within the region.
The first section, 2.2km from Troisvilles to Inchy, is on the edge of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, with the last one at Roubaix right in the heart of the Nord department.
If the race was true to it’s name, it would start in the Île-de-France region (i.e. the one with Paris in). However, seeing as the actual start to Paris-Roubaix is in Compiègne, the peloton are never closer to the French capital than the 82km they would have to ride down the A1 autoroute (which incidentally links Paris to Lille).
Anyway, this post was just a way for me to post a song by The Beautiful South on this cycling blog. Listening to it at 5:41am on the morning of De Ronde sparked an idea in my head.
That song is older than I am by the way.
Daniel Ostanek 