Its the 3rd monument of the season, with Tom Boonen starting as favourite following wins in Ronde van Vlaanderen and Omloop Het Volk. Cancellara was the winner of Gent-Wevelgem though, while Marcus Burghardt took Monte Paschi Eroica - has the German recovered from his crash in the Wevelgem race midweek?
Plus theres a host of other potential winners as well.
A slow start to the race though, Van de Walle the first to puncture, Gautier the first to fall. Quite a bit of action around the 120km to go mark - punctures for Joseph and Possoni, while Aulas, Vitoria and Knees going down, of which Knees was forced to abandon the race.
The pack also split, 67 ahead of 79, but Aulas and Joseph were in the 2nd group chasing and all 146 riders came back together. 146 riders altogether in Roubaix with 90km to go - it feels wrong!
86km to go! Puncture! Burghardt!
It leaves him at the back of the group, and he at first doesnt seem too fussed about moving forward
It takes him until 65km to go before he is back up amongst Boonen and the others, benefiting from the lack of action, theres no reason why Burghardt wont now be a threat in this race once more.
Now would be a good time to attack, dont you agree Anthony Geslin? Yes, he does.
5km later and theres a somewhat more interesting development - Nuyens, Cancellara, Hushovd and Blythe attacking
A couple of kilometres later Klier, Verbist, Lhotellerie and Nolf also attack, but only Nolf reaches the front 5. This leaves us with the odd situation of a lead group of 6 attackers - half of which are Festina
Not happy with this, Nuyens, Cancellara and Blythe attack away from them
The Festina trio put up a chase but it is too much for Hushovd who is dropped
Nolf and Geslin have their chance to catch up just as Blythe appears to lose contact with Nuyens and Cancellara, this helps Blythe back up as well to make it 5 leaders with 48km to go
But Nolf is soon struggling and falls off the group, followed soon after by Geslin so the front group is now Festina-less with 40km to go
Hushovd has been caught by the pack as Round 2 of attacks starts with 37km to go. Steegmans, Baugnies, Klier and Verbist attack - Hushovd did try to go again but the less said about his feeble attempt the better. The other 4 come up to the other 2 Festina riders though
This gives a boost to Nolf who responds to them by attacking away from them, finding the energy to rejoin the front 3
Those 4 are chased by the duo of Steegmans and Baugnies
Nuyens on the front with Blythe behind him and Cancellara and Nolf werent seeming overly keen to put in more effort than needed. But as Nuyens picked up the pace a bit, Blythe struggled to keep his wheel (The Brit from the wildcard 100% Me team does have the lowest cobbles stat of the 4) and Nuyens gets a gap! This wakes up Nolf who goes forward to try to bring it back with 20km to go
In the large group after Nuyens, the 3 chasers and Baugnies/Steegmans, theres a crash! Bad news for Langeveld
And now finally with 19km to go, 3 of the pre-race favourites awaken. Attack from Burghardt, Boonen and Ballan
Past Baugnies/Steegmans they come up to Cancellara, Blythe and Nolf
But while Boonen and Ballan stay there, Burghardt presses on in pursuit of Nuyens
Ballan goes again and gets a gap on his group
And Boonen rides away from the Cancellara, Blythe and Nolf group, again because Cancellara and Nolf sat behind Blythe. Up front, Burghardt has caught Nuyens
And now Burghardt leaves Nuyens behind!
Boonen catches Ballan, only for Ballan to put in another attack to get away from him
And we head into the velodrome now, Burghardt leading, then Nuyens, Ballan and Boonen
Nolf is restoring some form of urgency to the next group with Blythe, Cancellara and now Baugnies there, the latter having caught them up having left Steegmans
Nuyens and Ballan start to sprint for 2nd - maybe they will bring themselves close to Burghardt?
But they lose sight of Burghardt amongst a large group enter the velodrome. (The group battling for 12th)
They arent going to catch the German now!
Marcus Burghardt has won the 2010 Paris-Roubaix!
Ballan takes 2nd while Boonen has somehow caught them up and snook past Nuyens to take 3rd
Adam Blythe wins the sprint for 5th over Cancellara, Baugnies and Nolf
Steegmans 9th, Maes 10th, Verbist 11th - all solo
And Klier wins the large sprint for 12th
Only the 4 abandons, Miholjevic, Possoni and Bos were out of the time limit, with Knees having crashed out
For some reason the podium has been moved to outside the Velodrome - but Burghardt doesnt mind the extra walk!
