The Call of the Road: The History of Cycle Road Racing. Chris Sidwells

was run only every ten years, the next edition being in 1901. By then the race was so famous the organisers commissioned a top pastry chef, Louis Duran, to invent a cake for it. It was called Paris-Brest and is still a popular dessert in France today. It’s even been made by contestants of the Great British Bake-Off TV programme.

      After a relatively slow uptake, by the last decade of the nineteenth century road racing was becoming a feature of European life. Races were analysed in the press, riders written about, their thoughts recorded and their performances and characters dissected and discussed. More long races were organised: Vienna–Berlin, Rennes–Brest, Geneva–Berne, Paris–Besançon and Lyons–Paris–Lyons. All have disappeared from the race calendar now, but some races born in the early days of road racing still exist.

      Milan–Turin and Paris–Brussels are among the survivors, but two others are much bigger. They have grown through the status of being classic races to become two of the five single-day races called the monuments of cycling. They are Liège–Bastogne–Liège in Belgium, and Paris–Roubaix in northern France.

      Liège–Bastogne–Liège was first held in 1892, a race for amateurs that actually ran from Spa, close to the city of Liège, south through the green hills of the Ardennes to turn at Bastogne, then head back to Spa. Liège is the capital of the French-speaking Walloon region of Belgium, and according to legend Bastogne was chosen as the southern turnaround because it was the furthest point the Liège-based organisers and cycling officials could reach by train which would still allow them to check the riders through and return in time for the first riders to finish.

      Liège soon replaced Spa as the start and finish, and the race became about its hills, which are anything from 1.5 to 3 kilometres long. They are very British hills; in fact, the Ardennes are a bit like the North York Moors or the Scottish border country. It took a while for the race to get the shape it has today, where the selection and order of the climbs vary only slightly from year to year. Then again, it took Liège–Bastogne–Liège a while to get going at all.

      A Liège man, Léon Houa, won the first three editions, after which it was shelved from 1895 to 1907. Two more editions were run in 1908 and 1909, then nothing in 1910. After that there were three more, 1911, 1912 and 1913, then nothing for the whole of the First World War. There is even some dispute about when professionals were first allowed to take part. Some authorities put it as early as 1894, others say as late as 1919.

      The reason for the on-off start of Liège–Bastogne–Liège was because cycle racing in general went through a hard time in Belgium during the very early twentieth century. Velodromes closed in both the Walloon and Flanders regions. The number of road races dwindled, and the best Belgian riders had to compete in other European countries for foreign sponsors in order to make a living.

      The next big race, Paris–Roubaix, was created to publicise a new velodrome. Track cycling had moved from flat cinder tracks, or indoor ovals, to tracks with straights and bankings, which allowed faster and more exciting racing. Some tracks were indoors, similar to new velodromes today, but bigger banked tracks of 400 to 500 metres a lap were in big open-air velodromes. There were a lot in northern France, and they were in competition with each other to get the paying public to come through their gates to watch their racing.

      Many road races finished on tracks in those days, but Paris–Roubaix is the only big one that still does, albeit on a newer track in a slightly different position to the original. The original Roubaix velodrome was at the junction of Rue Verte and the main road from Hem, not far from Paris–Roubaix’s route into town today. The men who had it built were two local textile magnates, Maurice Perez and Théodore Vienne, and they built it to make money.

      Perez and Vienne needed to publicise the ambitious programme they planned. When the Roubaix track opened in 1895, the legendary African-American track sprinter Major Taylor made one of his first European appearances. Perez and Vienne had other big ticket events planned, but needed publicity because the velodromes in nearby Lille and Valenciennes put on good meetings too. They thought that hosting the finish of a big road race from Paris could grab attention away from their rivals. With the help of the major French cycling publication Le Vélo, Perez and Vienne put on the first Paris–Roubaix in 1896.

      The route was different to today, but it was still a race of cobbled roads. The difference was that in 1896 the organisers didn’t have to look for cobbles; all roads in the industrial north of France were cobbled. So the race went from Paris almost directly to Roubaix. It started outside the offices of Le Vélo, went due north to Amiens then continued to Doullens, where it veered northeast to Arras, then went north again to Roubaix. The total distance was 280 kilometres.

      Almost all the roads used in 1896 are now tarmac or concrete, which is why a modern Paris–Roubaix starts north of Paris so it can seek out the back roads, those that still have cobbled surfaces. In fact the cobbled back roads the race uses now are protected, and they are maintained by a group called Les Amis de Paris–Roubaix. Going this way and that to find those roads, and not direct from Paris to Roubaix, is why the start is now a bit nearer Roubaix as the crow flies, but not as the race goes.

      Good prize money, the winner receiving the equivalent of seven months’ pay for a French miner, the number one industry around Roubaix, attracted a large entry. But most had entered blind and hadn’t a clue what the race held in store for them. Come to that, neither did the organisers. Paris–Roubaix wasn’t long by the standards of the day, but the roads were appalling, as the man charged with finding a route quickly found out.

      He was a Le Vélo journalist called Victor Breyer. In planning the race he simply drew a direct route on a map, then followed it. He drove the first leg from Paris to Amiens, where he stayed overnight. Next day he set off for Roubaix by bike, and by the time he got there he thought the idea of holding a race in this part of France was mad. He was cold, wet, muddy and exhausted, and determined to send a telegram next morning to his boss asking him to cancel the race. But after sleeping on it, Breyer saw the epic potential of Paris–Roubaix. A potential the race has lived up to ever since.

      However, it did not have the most auspicious start. Many entrants for the first edition had never seen the roads of the north, and when word spread about Breyer’s ride, and especially as there was a lot of rain just before the race, half the field didn’t start. The professional riders were all there, though, with their eye on the big first prize. Professionals were allowed to use pacers, some riding tandems, to help them, and the field soon split up across the rolling roads of Picardie. Even a lot of the roads in Picardie were cobbled, and the cobbles and weather conditions grew worse as the riders went further north.

      The reason they were worse, and the reason why there were so many cobbled roads in the first place, was that the north was the heart of heavy industry in France. Hundreds of coal mines, steel mills and factories, often barely 100 metres apart, belched fire and filth across the countryside. Mining subsidence buckled the roads and warped the houses, while heavy carts lifted loose stones and spread mud and coal dust wherever they went.

      Josef Fischer of Germany won the race in a time of 9 hours and 17 minutes, which is an average speed of 30.162 kph (18.742 mph). He entered the Roubaix velodrome 25 minutes ahead of the next rider, Charles Meyer of Denmark. And when Fischer arrived, the crowd, who were enjoying some track racing while being informed of the progress of Paris–Roubaix, were shocked by his appearance. He was covered from head to foot in coal dust and mud from the roads, and with dried blood from his frequent crashes.

      Apart from Meyer, only two other riders finished within an hour of Fischer. The first of them was Maurice Garin, who would win Paris–Roubaix the following year and again in 1898; the other rider was a Welshman called Arthur Linton; and both would continue to feature in the story of early road racing.

      Once he’d cleaned off the mud and muck, Fischer was remarkably casual about his victory. ‘The race was quite easy for me,’ he told reporters. ‘You must be strong to ride so far over cobblestones, and I am strong. I know that about myself.’ Given his domination, and how seemingly straightforward it was for Fischer to win, it’s incredible that Germany had to wait 119 years for its next Paris–Roubaix winner, which was John Degenkolb in 2015.