Moments of Paris-Roubaix

At SCOTT, we absolutely love the Spring Classics and for professional riders, every single race is fought for like it's the World Championships. In the Classics, only a few of riders make the final selection. If you don’t get the call, there is no second chance until the following year. Names go down in the history books and there is no doubt that these guys want their names carved in Spring Classic stone.

Few one-day bike races capture the imagination quite like Paris-Roubaix. The Italians might argue that Milan-San Remo is THE Spring Classic, whereas the Belgians would say that the Ronde Van Vlaanderen is the most beautiful. But when talking about one of the toughest races of the year, our mind is drawn to one very special race. Known as the “Reine des Classiques” and the “Hell of the North,” it features cobbles, dirt, mud, crashes; it truly is one of the hardest races on the cycling calendar.

“Paris-Roubaix is a war with the cobbles” - Cancellara (2014, before the race)

The 2014 edition of Paris-Roubaix took place last Sunday measuring a distance of 257km taking the riders from Compiègne to Roubaix. Along the way they faced 28 cobbled sectors of varying degrees of brutality, totaling 51 kilometers.

“Paris-Roubaix is the biggest cycling race in the world, bigger than the Tour de France, bigger than any other bike race" - Wiggins (2014, before the race)

“The race is all about surviving, surviving, surviving; I know I didn’t feel great, but maybe others felt worse.” - Boonen (2009)

The following collection of photos does the race some justice that mere words simply cannot. Beauty, pain, disaster and glory- all in one day’s work.