Paris Roubaix Sportive?

Master Brew FTW!

Didn't bother with the rest of the report....

I thought I would try and reawaken this thread. Have just signed up for the ASO Paris Roubaix challenge, yes not the full course but will still be tough and a big step up for me personally (friends think I have gone crazy).

So any advice (seems like a lot of experience on this thread), will be doing it on my specialized tarmac (I am not quite crazy enough to do it on my fixie), plans to put on 25c tyres but anything else I should be doing. Tape? Gloves? extra padding?

25 tyre. double bar tape, binding hands with climbing tape and decent mitts. Nothing loose on your bike. Don't grip hard. High gear. Find a line and let no one push you off it. Don't try and be a purist, look for easy ways around or over the cobbles, enjoy the velodrome.

anyone else doing this?
they have shortened the route and no velodrome finish either now :-(

no closed roads either.
not ideal

anyone else doing this this year? I need to get a doctor to sign me off, and I've been told that my surgery would only do this as a private appointment which would cost almost £200! Where did folks get theirs done that wasn't quite this pricey?

anyone else doing this this year? I need to get a doctor to sign me off, and I've been told that my surgery would only do this as a private appointment which would cost almost £200! Where did folks get theirs done that wasn't quite this pricey?

If it's anything like the Marmotte, I'd suggest a swift trip to Rymans to buy a DIY stamp kit, and then bosh out your own letter-headed paper with a suitably doctor-like squiggle at the end. It's for their insurance purposes, not yours, and they are never going to check

anyone else doing this this year? I need to get a doctor to sign me off, and I've been told that my surgery would only do this as a private appointment which would cost almost £200! Where did folks get theirs done that wasn't quite this pricey?

There's no doctors thing for P-R is there?

Yeah - there's a medical certificate to be printed out and signed / stamped.

http://www.parisroubaixchallenge.com/us/medical-certificate.html

For what it's worth, if anyone wants (and would prefer to avoid the suggestion above), I've found a place on Harley street that will do the business for £50. PM me for a link / details.

That doesn't look like the full one - is it the Rapha one? We did the VCR ride through Sporting Tours:
http://www.vc-roubaix-cyclo.fr/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=132&Itemid=13&09af27f4860ccbaec0cf2cac64ac7b2c=6f1791bec5cf0f11d340afedcebdd8d6

Yeah - there's a medical certificate to be printed out and signed / stamped.

http://www.parisroubaixchallenge.com/us/medical-certificate.html

For what it's worth, if anyone wants (and would prefer to avoid the suggestion above), I've found a place on Harley street that will do the business for £50. PM me for a link / details.

i guess you can write a fancy document yourself and have it signed by anyone who writes like a doctor. works for me in all cyclosportives. PR isn't even considered as such, they won't ruin your pleasure...

ooops, i did not read quite well.. i thought you were gearing up for the real thing in june ;)
that one is for cyclotourists. the ASO thing is imho an overpriced event, since it covers barely half of the cobble sections and mileage of the complete pro course. nevertheless: have fun!

Yeah - it's the ASO / Rapha one rather than the VCR.

As Skimons mentioned, it's a fair bit shorter (140 rather than 200ish km) though to be honest that was an attraction - 120 miles (VCR)is significantly longer than anything I'd done before - and it originally looked like it was slightly easier to organise logistically, though I'm not sure if that was actually true in the end.

See how it goes, maybe man up for the full length one next time :)

i just got back from doing the 2012 sportive, the 210 km which ends in the velodrome.. 55km of pave.
Any one else do it?
A great event, and we were lucky with the weather.
I was shocked to see a large chap going over the pave on a set of rev x spinergy 4 spokes... chapeau

I believe 6pt, hillbilly and object were doing it.

Was hoping for a report from them, perhaps they are off drinking beer or normandy cidre.

It was an amazing ride. I used to ride DH and thought that was hard on your hands, but pave is just wrong, damn wrong!

Loved it, and indeed I couldn't believe some of the bike's people were doing it on.

good work jim, em and tom.

In the middle of the first section of Pave (at a cross-roads with some normal tarmac) there as a chap with a pink roadbike, his forks had snapped off at the fork crown.

Other than that, the worst damage we saw was this chap- friend of Murtle whose name I cannot recall currently:

Which was a result of this bit:

I'd have to agree about the wrist pain , up to 100 miles it was tolerable a then the fun factor went a bit.Can't imagine the panic my brain would have picking a route across the cobbles in the wet.
The iconic showers were fab, i went for big maggy's as there was a bit of a queue of Italians for moser's.
A big thumbs up for campag neutrons and 28mm 4 season tyres.. no punctures

Hah, I had four punctures- pinch flatted each wheel, then the tubes I put in both failed, which was rather annoying.

I'd previously had an ok experience with the Park Tools patches, but I am never, ever using them again.

Oddly both pinch flats happened with ~90 psi in the tyres, once both were down to the ~65 psi that my little pump was happy with I had no more flats, and my fillings stopped their headlong charge out of my teeth over the cobbles.

I came to the conclusion that no matter that the side of the road could be smoother the risk of punctures outweighed the convenience, and that the crown of the road was the place you had to be. The side of the road often dropped away into an epic pothole, or had smooth dirt with an abrupt very, very sharp edged cobble turned so it hit the wheel square on.

I wore my watch, which I thought nothing of- until about ~90 miles in, when I realised that it had hammered on the back of my wrist hard enough to bruise the flesh underneath.

so how many of you would be keen to do it again 2 yrs down the road?
Whereas flanders is yearly i can see why it's only every 2 years, i think it takes that long for the memory to fade.
I'm not sure i'd be that keen.

I've been thinking about this, once the memory of the cobbles fades, I'd probably say yes.

Right now, no. That said I did it with un-padded bar tape, so just changing that might make a significant difference.

Doing Paris-Roubaix whilst solving a Rubix cube.. skillz.

Have you read Patrick Bossert's book about how to do the Paris-Roubaix sportive? Amazing to think he first rode it when he was 12.

so how many of you would be keen to do it again 2 yrs down the road?
Whereas flanders is yearly i can see why it's only every 2 years, i think it takes that long for the memory to fade.
I'm not sure i'd be that keen.

Not sure if I would do it again, it was good fun and the pave was the highlight for me and I have never ridden a whole ride in the big ring before. I'll have to see how I feel about it in about 18 months.