This article is part of a series called ‘A love letter to…’, where Cycling Weekly writers pour praise on their favourite aspects of cycling. The below content is unfiltered, authentic and has not been paid for.
About three years ago, I set out on a wild challenge in central London. It was two days before Paris-Roubaix, and I was feeling inspired. I, too, wanted to bear the rumble of cobbles underneath my wheels, the bone-rattling sensation in my arms, but living in a built-up capital city, I had no nobbly farm tracks nearby. What could I do? Improvise.
Back in the 18th century, atop a base of sludgy mud, London’s streets were laid with stone cobbles. Most of them have since been paved over, but the remnants of more than 50 original streets can still be found. I found a route online, 50km in length, and, in a move that would prove devastating to my bike, set out to ride them all.
I don’t know what it is about cobbles that draws us cyclists in. They’re uncomfortable to ride over, they kill your rolling speed, and wear down bike parts, and yet, for some reason, I can’t resist them. My jaunt around central London took me more than four hours to complete, and I smiled the whole way round.
I dodged tourists in Covent Garden, outsprinted buses in Wapping, and rattled along the South Bank. I had to stop twice to repair punctures, hobbling 2km to a bike shop at one point for another inner tube. So taxing was the course, that my bike never really felt the same to ride again. I’d have normally considered such a ride a write-off. But since there were cobbles involved, it was joyous.
I’m reminded of that day every time the cobbled Classics come around. These are, in my view, the best weeks of the cycling calendar, with gritty racing, and some of the most wonderfully unusual courses. I never have any trouble explaining what the Tour of France is to my uninitiated friends, but as soon as I tell them about Paris-Roubaix, they think I’m lying. “A forest? Lined with jagged cobbles? That the riders hit at 70km/h? You’re having me on.”
I remember the first time I saw the Trouée d’Arenberg. It was two years ago, when I went out to cover the race for the first time. I don’t get starstruck by people so much, but walking over those sharp stones, I felt a similar sense of awe. This was the most feared stretch of road in the entire sport. The locals probably know it as a disused, old track. I felt like I was inside the Sistine Chapel.
I’ve always sought out cobbles on my rides, and even more so since that pilgrimage. Last year, I went to Switzerland to ride the Gotthard Pass, an Alpine beast with granite cobblestone switchbacks. When I travelled to the Olympics in Paris a few months later, I hired a 20kg pay-as-you-go bike and lugged it up the cobbled Rue Lepic climb. My mantra goes: show me cobbles, and I will ride them.
I suppose what it boils down to is the thrill of adventure. There are only so many smooth tarmac roads one can take, before one craves something a bit more rousing. Some people buy gravel bikes to satiate that thirst, others go for flat-handlebarred mountain machines. All I need is a dab of air released from my tyres, and I’m raring to go.
You can keep your blemish-free Mallorcan asphalt, I’ll be where the cobbles are.
