Sean Hardy is a UK-based freelance photographer with a special interest in cycling
There is a romance that surrounds this race. It’s one of cycling’s oldest—running since 1896—and commonly known for its ability to test the hardest of riders and never fails to surround its reputation with drama and beauty.
Riders are faced with kilometer after kilometer of cobblestoned sections that not only drain legs of energy but test their bike handling skills to the fullest extent. There are sections of uneven pave you would question taking your car over. Extra bar tape is applied to riders’ handlebars to provide support and combat the rattle and shake from the cobbles. They wrap wrists with support bandages, load their bikes with wider tires, and desperately search for marginal gains to improve their chances of winning one of the most prized races on the calendar. Even as a spectator you can feel the strain as you look on in amazement and cheer at an army of legs bouncing their way across a terrain that curves through the landscape.
You can see cyclists fighting to find the best line, trained to locate the easiest way to the finish line. Sunlight will shimmer off the top of slippery stones, laying in wait to de-seat an unexpected racer. Every pedal stroke along the 260 km route is earned.
Paris-Roubaix is for the hard men. The winner is regarded as one of the strongest riders in the peloton and will be instantly propelled into the history books with the likes of Eddy Merckx, Tom Boonen, and Fabian Cancellara.