I should start by saying I don't want to take anything away from Fabian Cancellara. To make his move like that with 60k to go is ballsy beyond belief. So much can go wrong at Roubaix and to put the hammer down with so many more kilometers to race was an impressive show of force. Cancellara did exactly what he knew he needed to do, he attacked and went solo just like I'm sure he had planned. He did what every bike racer has to do to win a race, he risked losing it. Well done and congratulations.
Now, here's my beef with the rest of the field, except Boonen.
Remember when Texas was driving the ball down the field pretty much at will against Alabama in the BCS title game and then that big gigantic Alabama guy laid that seemingly normal hit on Colt McCoy but when Colt got up you could clearly see his arm was hanging in an awkward position. Remember when they sent the freshman Garret Gilbert out and he looked scared and nervous and remember how for the rest of the game, you just sort of felt like regardless of the outcome this wasn't the game you were hoping for. All my personal feelings of being a huge Longhorns fan aside I felt like the game had just been taken away. That happens, it's football, and guys get hurt. But when you remove a big star and all the hype and anticipation just instantly dissipate, you can't help but feel a little bland, no matter the outcome.
For me, yesterday's Paris-Roubaix gave me the exact same feeling but for different reasons. There were clearly two guys in that race on a different level than everybody else, Cancellara and Boonen. If I you didn't know who I was talking about before I wrote that, you didn't watch the race. At 60k to go Cancellara attacks, I screamed out loud to no one, "there he goes," and when the camera pans back all you see are a bunch of other guys looking around seeing who's going to be the one to burn all their matches to try and bring him back. I'm not totally convinced that that move was the one that Cancellara was even trying to make stick. If you remember about 10k before that Boonen jumped out just to see who still had some juice but didn't really put the hammer down. I think Cancellara was doing the same thing, looked over his shoulder, saw a bunch of already defeated faces and then decided to give it a go. The only reaction at all was from Boonen, who very un-wisely had dropped back about 8 wheels to take a drink and a bit of a break. He quickly moved out of line, pedaled a couple times really hard and then realized that nobody else was even flinching and that there's no way he'd bring back Cancellara solo. The race was over, right there, 60k from the line because a bunch of other guys just gave up, they all decided then and there that racing for 2nd wasn't quite so bad.
If you watched you saw Boonen on several occasions go to the front, put in a massive effort, pull off only to see that nobody was pulling through to keep up the chase. He'd wave his hand and it looked like everybody was drawing figurative circles in the dirt because they were embarrassed of their tactics and couldn't look him in the eye. The tactics for the "best of the rest" out of that group became very obvious; very fast; make Boonen do as much work as possible and when he seems to be tired, we'll attack him too. If everybody in that chase group had already resigned to racing for 2nd, it was a brilliant tactic by all of them and since Boonen lost a sprint for 4th to Roger Hammond, he clearly took the bait and did 90% of the work trying desperately to race himself back into a chance for the actual win. It was a goal that did him in and eventually left him with his worst finish at Roubaix since he became "Tom Boonen."
At some point Flecha and Hushovd attacked the group and built up about a minute lead over the Boonen group. Everybody in the world watching this duo knew what each man needed to do to place 2nd on the day. For Flecha he needed to attack Hushovd far enough out to break him so he didn't carry him to the line. Hushovd needed to do enough work to keep Flecha happy and then jump him on the track with 200 meters go. I kept wondering why Flecha hadn't attacked? It was so obvious that it was his only chance. But there they were, on the velodrome with Flecha leading it out. Even Paul Sherwan or maybe it was Phil Ligget, basically said that Hushovd would wait till the last minute so as not to embarrass Flecha in the sprint. Flecha's legs aren't my legs so I have no idea how he was feeling, but it just seems like he missed a bunch of chances for 2nd place by not attacking Hushovd repeatedly starting at 15k out.
Big George once again missed a decisive split. His twitter account reports that he didn't have the legs he had at Flanders and I guess that's how it goes. I was certainly cheering and hoping that he'd have some magic at Roubaix. It would have been great to see him in one of those final groups.
So, I guess that's it. That's my humble, completely useless take on the 2010 Paris-Roubaix. It's always a great race and yesterday's edition was no different. I just can't help but feeling like there were only 2 guys that really wanted to win and everybody else gave up that goal when they saw the red Swiss flag on the back of Fabian Cancellara accelerate. Even though nobody cared to respond, what a great move and an insane display of power to ride solo for 60k.
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