Two years ago, Jack Rootkin-Gray was spending the early weeks of his season riding the Perfs Pedal race and Lincoln Grand Prix for Saint Piran. The Londoner had gradually established himself as one of the best young male riders in the UK domestic circuit after leaving the British Cycling academy.
Two years on, after making the jump to WorldTour level with EF Education-EasyPost, the 22-year-old is getting set to make his debut at one of the sport’s most iconic races on Sunday alongside some of the biggest and most well known riders in the world.
Speaking to Cycling Weekly ahead of his first appearance at Paris-Roubaix, Rootkin-Gray admitted that he felt apprehensive ahead of it.
"I think it's hard to say," he said when asked what he is expecting to face once the race gets underway. "I've not even done junior or under-23 Roubaix, so, to be honest, it's the only race I'm a bit scared of. It's got quite a reputation, hasn't it, as being a really hard day out, and I'm sure it will be. I'm looking forward to it, it's going to be an experience. But I think it's important to be aware of what a brutal day it's going to be."
"I also think it's just the unknown," he continued. "I've not done a race like it. I've done every other type of race, but I just feel like this is something that I haven't experienced yet. I feel like it's different from every other race."
Rootkin-Gray was speaking to CW while travelling to northern France after completing the Région Pays de la Loire Tour. He explained that some helpful advice from EF DS Andreas Klier has now ensured he feels ready to take on Roubaix.
"He's just so knowledgeable about all of these races that you do feel like you have as best of an understanding as you can having not done it," he said. "He always says about what to expect, what to be ready for, and how to do the best job you can in terms of everything you need to do at a race like this."
"I don't really know why, but I just haven't felt myself for a little while," Rootkin-Gray said of his last year, which included the move to EF. "It's just the good feeling that I've had before, I haven't quite got it back yet. There's been a lot of change lately. Although I gave some thought to it, I didn't really appreciate how different it would be at this level, especially coming from not a development team, but coming from basically an amateur team [Saint Piran]. Compared to some other teams, it was quite different."
Fortunately for the 22-year-old, he explained that former teammates Alex Richardson, who formerly raced for Alpecin-Deceuninck, and Zeb Kyffin have kept in contact, enabling them to trade stories and share experiences of the professional level.
"I still speak to him [Richardson]," Rootkin-Gray said. "I think the best thing Alex is the most useful for is keeping the morale up. And just maybe trying to remind me to not take it too seriously, which I guess I have a bit of a tendency to do and to be a bit hard on myself. I speak to Zeb a lot too, we're really good friends. He also didn't have a very smooth transition to being professional with injuries, so there's a lot of stuff we can relate over."
