Paris – Roubaix – Seven Cycles

The Places We Go

Because we build our bikes one-at-time, for their riders, we don’t have to manage an inventory of anything other than raw materials. That allows us to build the bikes riders want instead of trying to guess what they want or trying to convince them to buy what we have already built.

The challenges our riders have been taking on this last year really bring home to us how the way we do things allows our customers to lead us forward, to take us where they want us to go.

Mike Bybee rode from Arizona to Canada on his Sola SL bike-packing rig. Brad rode across the US, from Oregon to Virginia on his Evergreen SL, set up for loaded randonneuring. We rode in Yorkshire and on the Isle of Man. Matt Roy and David Wilcox attempted a 1000km brevet in the worst heat wave the Pacific Northwest has seen in decades. Daniel Sharp rode the Oregon Outback. Seven was at the Mt.Evans Hill Climb, in the Pyrenees and at Dirty Kanza. Sevens have been ridden through the night, through two full centuries, around Lake Michigan, through Paris and over the Paris-Roubaix cobbles.

Sometimes we shake our heads in wonder at all of it. What ends up happening is that, as much as guide Seven riders through the process of designing their bike, they guide us through the world of cycling. They show us what is possible and change our own ideas about what a bike can be.

Image: Daniel Sharp

Cobbleside at Paris-Roubaix

After the Paris-Roubaix Challenge on Saturday, we took our tired bodies back to the course for the pro race on Sunday, and we were lucky enough to get inside the start area, to walk among the bikes and riders as they prepared for the mayhem to come. It was fascinating to see all the tweaks, to tire pressure, saddle height, etc. that the racers insisted on making right up to the moments before the starter’s pistol sounded. The nervousness in the air was palpable. Paris-Roubaix has a controlled start, which means the entire peloton gets rolling parade-style before anyone is allowed to go full tilt.

Unlike the morning of our own date with the cobbles, the sun shone brightly. Support cars with a dozen bikes on top rolled out in an endless procession. Many of them would reach the finish with just one, if any at all.

From the start, we went directly to the Arenberg Forest where a sort of carnival was underway. There were so many cycling fans there it was hard to get a good sight line to the race, and when the peloton arrived it was more by the rumbling of the ground that we knew it. The cobble bed is raised there, and you can feel the passing of more than a hundred charging bodies in your feet. The whole mass of them was still moving very fast at that point.

Next we went to the Carrefour de l’Arbre, 242km into the race, where the winning move tends to take place. Here we were right up at cobbleside, and the flatness of the area let us see the riders coming from something like a mile away. There was a dust cloud and a wave of cheering.

The first through were coated in dust, and having been out on the punishing course all day, most of them looked exhausted and angry, like disgruntled ghosts of the group we had seen at the start in the morning. Dirt caked at their noses and mouths, and there was ample evidence of crashes, blood, torn clothing and mud caked across their bodies.

After the leaders came through we expected the peloton, but Paris-Roubaix abhors a peloton, and the race was completely strung out, riders coming past in twos and threes.

We listened to the finish huddled around a radio perched on a card, and though we don’t speak Flemish, the emotion in the voices, and in all the other fans cluttered by the roadside told the whole story. When the German, John Degenkolb, won, a few incomprehensible curses were muttered, and the locals trudged away disappointed.

We didn’t have a horse in this race, as the saying goes, and the whole day was thrilling from our perspective. It really is a thing you can’t imagine until you see it, even if you’ve raced bikes before, even if you’ve watched on TV, even if you rode the same cobbles the day before.

Wheel Test – Paris-Roubaix Pacenti Luxe Disc Wheels

We’ve been looking for good go-to disc wheel for mixed-terrain riding. It’s a category with a number of entrants, but few products that really hit the mark. So we connected with Justin Spinelli at Luxe Wheelworks and Kirk Pacenti at Pacenti Cycle Design for a set of Pacenti’s own rims laced to White Industries hubs with Sapim bladed spokes.

They proved very durable and, at 24 hole front and rear, they manage to strike the right balance between weight and strength for us. Certainly we were impressed with them over the 54km of cobblestones at the Paris-Roubaix Challenge last weekend, not to mention the 14 hour mixed-terrain odyssey we did around Paris a few days before. We did both these rides without a broken spoke, dent or even a flat tire.

We rode them with Challenge Paris-Roubaix 27mm tires, similar to what the pros ride, to really put them through their paces. Justin had promised us that we’d have no problems, that they’d be bulletproof, but the cobbles of northern France have crushed all sorts of wheels (and spirits). We were impressed enough with them that they’ll become the default wheel for our Evergreen line in the coming months.

When We Ride Roubaix

The Queen of the Classics, the Hell of the North, the Paris-Roubaix “road” race from the suburbs north of Paris over the famed cobbles of northern France and into the velodrome at Roubaix takes place this Sunday, and we can’t help but think (mostly because our own Rob Vandermark is there riding the course on Saturday) that titanium makes a lot more sense for a cobbles bike than carbon fiber.

Carbon fiber is great at being light and stiff, but it’s no mystery why many of the big bike companies put elastomers or pivots in their rough road bikes, because carbon fiber doesn’t absorb the bigger impacts as well as a more compliant material, like titanium.