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Paris-Roubaix riders share their pain and suffering from the 115th edition of the Hell of the North

Paris-Roubaix's 55-km of cobbles dole out the hurt

April 9, 2017
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Only three riders stood on the podium after 257-km of furious racing at the 115th edition of Paris-Roubaix but a peloton of 200 riders left Compiègne north of Paris on one of the hardest days of racing faced by professional cyclists. Over 29 sectors of cobbles for a grand total of 55-km of pavé, riders fought for position, got up from crashes and endured the dust on the most bone-rattling day many riders face in their careers.

Following the conclusion of the race which was completed in record speed by winner Greg Van Avermaet who averaged 45.204 km/h, many of the riders who were not the race’s main protagonists but certainly suffered as much as the winners shared their thoughts on the experience.

Luke Rowe was expected to co-lead Team Sky at Paris-Roubaix but the Brit was a DNF on the result sheet. In 2015 he showed he had potential to excel in the Queen of the Classics but today was not his day. Instead, it was Italian youngster Gianni Moscon who lead the way for Sky leading out the sprint in the velodrome and finishing fifth behind Greg Van Avermaet.

Antoine Duchesne of Saguenay, Que. had a rough day out on the cobbles going down in one of the many crashes on the day. His Direct-Energie team placed two riders in the top-20 with Adrien Petit in 9th and Sylvain Chavanel being one of the days most aggressive riders finishing 19th.

Koen de Kort is a workhorse for his Trek-Segrafedo teammates. For the unheralded riders of the peloton, their crashes and punctures often go unnoticed. De Kort’s made the efforts following the bad luck to get back to his teammates and contributed to setting Jasper Stuyven (fourth), Edward Theuns (eighth) and John Degenkold (10th) up for top-10 finishes. De Kort finished 29th.

Lotto-Soudal did not have the classics season they had hoped for. Paris-Roubaix saw the team place five riders in the top-25. André Greipel was the team’s top finisher in seventh. Marcel Sieberg finished 24th after working to bring the chase group containing Greipel back to the leaders. Greipel was quite pleased with the performance but it certainly was earned after a hard day in the saddle.

LottoNL-Jumbo had a rough day on the cobbles. The teams top-finisher was Jos Van Emden, the winner of Dwars door West-Vlaanderen, in 33rd. Five of the team’s riders, including 33-year-old Wagner, did not even finish the race.

Arnaud Demare won the bunch sprint to finish 6th in Roubaix. The 2016 Milan-San Remo winner was hoping for more but appeared to not be too disappointing with his best result at France’s only Monument.

Orica-Scott returned to Paris-Roubaix with defending champion Matthew Hayman in their ranks. Jens Keukeleire suffered an untimely puncture to take him out of contention while Hayman made a valiant effort to defend his title finishing 11th from the Boonen group.

Movistar are not a team built for the classics with other races on the calendar a bigger target for the Spanish squad. The team’s top finisher was 24-year-old German Jasha Sütterlin in 40th followed by Italian veteran Daniele Bennati in 41st.

RELATED: Ben Perry’s steep cobbled classics learning curve

Only 102 riders were listed as finishers of the 2017 edition of Paris-Roubaix. A total of 19 riders finished outside of the time limit so despite completing the course were not awarded with the finish on the result sheet.