The Hell of the North is upon us. The favorites are ready to carve their legacy on the pave.
The race starts as races often do, with a breakaway, consisting of:
Boev Kastrantas Cisse Bret
For the time being, the pack, led by Azteca, are willing to let this move go.
Cisse is the rider to have problems early in the day, and begins to yoyo off the back as soon as they hit the first cobbled section.
With the gap holding at about 8 minutes, the peloton begin to pick it up, about 140k left in the race.
Up front, Cisse is dropped. He picked a bad day for a breakaway.
The first attacks start from behind. It's Sieberg, Van Asbroeck, and Wyss.
And with far superior ability on the cobbles, they cross over to the break in no time. With them, they carry Cisse, but he's still pretty much cooked.
He spews out the pack the instant the pressure goes on, and as the gap to the pack falls to about 5 minutes, Boev and Bret join him.
Behind, Azteca are drilling it on the peloton. Summerhill must feel very good today. It is unprecedented for a PCT to control a monument for so long like this.
They are really putting on the hurt, and Summerhill himself comes to the front to give a little dig! He doesn't seem to be doing too much, but is stretching his legs little.
And while he leads the pack at 85km to go, there are some huge names being dropped!
Franzoi Jacobs Lhotellerie Sinkeldam
They all still look good on the bike, and they must have been badly positioned to fall behind. But whether they still have the legs or not, their losing a lot of ground, and very fast.
It's finally time for Kastrantas to admit he's had enough of the breakaway. It doesn't seem to matter though, as the gap is coming down very fast anyway.
Meanwhile, Franzoi has gone to the front of his group to lead the chase, but he's already more than 2 minutes behind the peloton, and it will be tough work to come back at this stage.
With 66 km to go, we see our first big move. Just as the mid stage attackers are being caught, Teunissen, and Gusev jump up to them.
Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of teams wanting and still able to chase this attack down. It's not getting to much wiggle room.
And only a few kilometers after they split away, they are caught by the ever reducing field.
Danny Summerhill counters by putting the pressure on again over the next cobbled section. Can it shake anyone?
Now it's Burghardt who comes to the front to pace with him. It seems that they are determined to destroy the group, but neither look like they are trying to break away.
45 km to go, and the first favorites are getting dropped. Marcos Altur is one of the first to go.
The aggression had to start and some point, and that point is now! Burghardt throws down the hurt and accelerates away with 37 km to go. Summerhill and Bewley are straight on his wheel.
However, seeing his biggest rival with him, he pulls off, and the others start to scramble up to them.
But Summerhill is having none of hit, with his team having done way to much to lose that advantage. Gusev joins the prior attackers in following straight away.
But the other favorites aren't going to let it go again. Next, an attack by Frederik Nolf, but Burghardt goes straight to chasing that down.
He doesn't get a gap, and coming off a cobbled section, it's Vanbilsen making a maneuver. The selection having been made consists of:
That obviously leaves some huge names behind. Cancellara leads the chase with Blythe, Zepuntke, Sibilla, and Boonen.
Just as the impetus leaves the front group, and it seems like they might just be waiting, it's the undeniable super favorite Sam Bewley who strikes out on a small patch of cobbles.
Cancellara brings back the chase group, but Bewley is still out front, chasing Vanbilsen. He is undeniably very strong, but can he possibly resist the total strength of this large group?
Bewley catches Vanbilsen, but doesn't zoom bye. Instead he sits on the wheel. Vanbilsen obviously doesn't want to tow the race favorite along though, which leads to a bit of a stalemate.
As they sit up, Burghardt charges to pick them up, still the head of a fairly large group.
But as Fenn takes a pull at the front, Burghardt seemingly cracks off, laving small gaps appearing in the group. The other scramble to keep the wheels.
Good Energy don't hold Fenn back, and he crosses the now miniscule gap with ease. Gusev tries to chase him down. Within seconds, it's all back together at the front.
And within a few more seconds, Bewley attacks again, with none other than Tom Boonen on his wheel!
But while the attack go off, Marcus Burghardt hits the deck very hard. He remains on the ground for a few seconds, before getting a new bike and trying to move on, but there's already a big gap.
Unfortunately for his, with only a few cobbled section left and under 20km to go, it's much to late for the peloton to wait for him. They keep pushing as the duo charge ahead.
Burghardt is back up o his bike and looks okay, but it's almost two mintues to the front as he passes a cracked Jon Ander Insausti.
Summerhill leads the peloton. The gap isn't too big, only about 30 seconds, but it isn't coming back.
Yet, Bewley and Boonen aren't working to hard to keep the gap. It may come back together.
On the penultimate cobbled section, Bewley really starts to push. The Belgian legend sticks to his wheel like glue. Can he make it one more time in the velodrome?
A 15 man group has settled in behind. A visibly tired Summerhill is doing all of the work, and just won't pull off, despite the fact that two teams have multiple riders in the group. The other favorites don't want to chase either. The gap remains steady, with the group consisting of:
All the best cobblers in the peloton are here, except for those noted earlier.
Speaking of which, Marcus Burghardt has given it everything he has, but with almost 3 minutes to the chase group now and only a couple of kilometers left, his chances are done.
Coming off the penultimate cobbled section, Bewley makes a devastating move. Tommeke doesn't respond; he just puts his head down and keep going.
And it seems like the Kiwi is pulling out the gap. Boonen is trying to keep the gap, but he's just not strong enough! The peloton's gap has gone out a lot with the effort. It's down to two!
Sam Bewley enters the Velodrome alone, just like last year, but with Tom Boonen fighting to close down the gap, in one last chance at a Roubaix victory!
The peloton enters almost a minute later, with Summerhill peeling off and Gusev jumping him.
He immediately gets a gap, but it might be a little late to get the jump on them, as he's effectively just sprinting early.
Boonen still has Bewley in his sights as they round the back stretch, but the meters are ticking away!
Nolf opens the sprint behind, Blythe on his wheel. Gusev
still has a bit of a gap.
Kristoff goes then, with Cancellara, Kluge, and , Vanbilsen, as Summerhill slips back.
The next little group includes Kamyshev, Teunissen, Zepuntke, and Fenn.
Kristoff jumps on the inside, Cancellara on the outside, and Blythe up the middle. But these are just for minor placings.
Sam Bewley wins his 3rd straight Paris - Roubaix, and his 3rd monument of the year! He is the king of classics, without a doubt! Spectacular ride!
34 seconds later, the old king of classics, Tom Boonen crosses the line for 2nd place. No one thought he had a chance, but he almost pulled off a Paris-Roubaix win. Against all the odds, he extended his streak of 7 straight podiums in Paris-Roubaix, and has not finished lower than 4th for the past 9 years. Truly a legend, and what a race today for the 35 year old.
Cancellara takes the lead as the sprint unfolds for the final step of the podium. But he still has to pass Gusev, and Kluge is coming very hard from behind!
Quite unexpectedly, it's Roger Kluge that sprints to third place! Some might have thought Pokerstars had sold themselves out of high paces in Roubaix. Those people were proven wrong today.
Adam Blythe just pips Spartacus on the line for 4th. He showed himself well today, and finishes with a place to show that, although If he had effectively used his teammate to chase instead of sitting on, it could have been a win.
Cancellara won't be totally satisfied with 5th. he's getting older, and he wants to take advantage of the chances he has now. But aside from one slip up, he played his cards pretty well, and a top 5 won't be too disappointing.
Gusev holds on for 5th. He was quite active in attacks, and gets a nice position to repay that. He'll be happy that he beats out some of the better cobblers.
Half a wheel behind is Alexander Kristoff. Perhaps if the race was harder it wouldn't have suited him as much. He may have misjudged his sprint, but 7th is not bad for his type of rider in this race.
Kenneth Vanbilsen put in a very strong attack today, and finishes 8th. It's a great result for the 25 year old, who will have a great career to place higher ahead of him.
Rounding out the top 10 are Senechal and Zepuntke. both probably had the capabilities to do better here, but the 22 year olds will have many more chances to try their luck in Northern France.
Teunissen gets 11th, Fenn 12th, Nolf, and Kamyshev 14th. Mixed feelings for that bunch, although Fenn will be happy for Blythe.
Sibilla takes 15th place, with Damien Gaudin 16th.
That means that Danny Summerhill got swamped by the entire group, finishing at the very back, in 17th place. Very disappointing for him today. He did the lion's share of the work and was involved in most of the attacks. But in the end, he towed the group along and they jumped him. The real question is, why did he do it? Very disappointing day for the American.
But no one's day (besides maybe Franzoi, who finished 38th, over 15 minutes down) was as disappointing as Marcus Burghardt's. He was up there in the first attacks and looked strong, but a terrible crash just as the race heated up left him with nothing left. He finishes 4'02'' behind, in 18th place. Not what a man who has been called the best pave rider in the world wants to see at the end of Roubaix. But that's cycling.
Only 82 riders finish this year's Hell of the North, and only 16 of the 24 team in the race finished with enough riders to even be viable for the Team Classification, including Bacardi, whose entire team was eliminated from the race. It was truly hell.
