The Trouée d’Arenberg is not for the faint hearted. It is a foreboding place, hemmed in by trees, and with a slight descent to begin with. There is no wonder that it’s a five-star sector at Paris-Roubaix, with the cobblestones jutting up at you, looking for an opportunity to rip a tyre open, or cause a crash. I’ll be honest, I don’t want to cycle it, definitely not on a road bike, even one with the right tyre pressure and reams of bar tape. Fortunately, I don’t have a bike this weekend while covering the event. What do you do if you don’t have a bike? Well, run, I suppose.
I am a runner as much as I am a cyclist - I’ve run almost 300km this year so far - but I don’t usually run on cobbles. My home city of Bristol has some, in patches, but I don’t make a habit of running down the worst bits, seeking them out. There’s something fun, chaotic and masochistic about cycling on pavé that doesn’t really apply to running. When you’re running, the cobbles are an ankle's nightmare.
Running down the Arenberg, the first thing you notice is how much you can feel the cobbles, even through the foam and spring of a modern running shoe. They’re there, ready to trip you up or turn your balance at any point, glinting up in the sun like shark’s teeth. It’s not a pleasant experience.
It gets worse as you go along it. There is the initial burst of nerves on the run-in to the Arenberg, after the “little detour” around the Wallers-Arenberg mining museum, but the first few hundred metres are the calm before the storm. It only gets bumpier, and more vicious, and it’s hard to run reasonably slowly let alone rattle along at 40kph on roads not designed for driving along.
There’s a reason why the convoy of vehicles behind the riders doesn’t go along the Arenberg Trench, and that's because it would absolutely ruin many cars' suspensions as they went along. The lorries setting out the barriers for Sunday's big event were crawling along, trying not to shake themselves to bits. This is not a place for ordinary people, and it feels mean to even make the best cyclists in the world cycle along it.
Charging along it, though, I wasn't thinking about my body breaking down or a flat tyre, or even how hard it was really. Instead, I was thinking about how beautiful the surrounding woods are - namely the Foret Domaniale de Raismes St Amand Wallers. The riders won't get to appreciate any of this. Instead, they'll be thinking about how not to crash, or get a puncture, or trying to stay as close to the front as possible.
There is a slight incline, that I noticed but maybe you wouldn't if you were one of the best bike riders in the world, as they will be going so fast. As I pounded along the cobbles of the Arenberg Trench, I was aiming for a good line and a good time, and I think I did pretty well – 4.52km in under 24 minutes, my Strava read afterwards. I'm not sure I set any records, though.
Sadly, unlike the riders, my route took me back to the start, which gave me the opportunity once again to realise how insane the whole thing is. This road isn't the place for bikes, and running was hard enough. Maybe that's the answer – an off-bike sector? It would make for great viewing.
The main thing I learned is I have no desire to cycle along this feared stretch of cobbles – not unless I was paid a lot for it. It's constantly jolting, and the crevices between the cobbles are just as lethal as the bumps themselves. There is no easy option.
