Most bike races are decided by hills. Paris-Roubaix is almost flat, and it is still the race riders fear most. The reason is underfoot - or under tire. For much of the final 150 kilometers, the route leaves smooth tarmac for old farm roads paved with unimaginably rough, uneven cobblestones, the kind that ensures that most riders experience flats and that shake bottles out of cages and hands off handlebars.
The race was first run in 1896. Today it starts in Compiègne, north of Paris, and finishes on the outdoor velodrome in Roubaix, near the Belgian border. It usually takes place one week after the Tour of Flanders, in April.
Where the name comes from
L'Enfer du Nord, the Hell of the North, is often traced to the years after the First World War, when the roads of northern France ran through a landscape wrecked by fighting. The name stuck because the race kept earning it. In dry years riders finish grey with dust. In wet years they finish caked with mud, and the cobbles turn slick as ice.
The sectors
The cobbled stretches are called sectors, and each one is rated from one to five stars for difficulty. There are close to thirty of them, adding up to more than 50 kilometers of cobbles. Three five-star sectors carry most of the legend:
- The Trouée d'Arenberg. A straight, narrow road through the Arenberg forest, slightly downhill on entry, where the race often splits apart. It is the most photographed stretch of road in cycling.
- Mons-en-Pévèle. Long, exposed, and broken, coming at a point where legs are already tired.
- Carrefour de l'Arbre. Usually the last place to make a decisive attack before Roubaix. A café sits at the corner, and fans line the fields around it.
The finish and the trophy
Riders who reach Roubaix enter the velodrome and ride a lap and a half of the banked track. If two or three arrive together, the race ends in a sprint on the boards after six hours of cobbles. The winner receives a cobblestone mounted on a plinth. It is not elegant, and every rider who has one keeps it somewhere visible.
The old concrete showers at the velodrome are part of the story too. Each stall carries a small plaque with the name of a past winner.
Paris-Roubaix Femmes
A women's edition was added in 2021, run on the day before the men's race over many of the same sectors. In a few years it has become one of the most anticipated days on the women's calendar.
Why people love it
Paris-Roubaix rewards a strange mix of power, bike handling, and luck. A puncture in the wrong place can end the day of the strongest rider in the race. That unpredictability is the point. Fans watch it partly for the racing and partly to see who survives.
Our L'Enfer du Nord t-shirt and hoodie are independently designed and made for people who know the race. For the rest of the spring classics, read our guide to cycling's Monuments.