12 Hours ago I was about to dig into my delicious bowl of chocolate cereal when Noel walks into the kitchen and tells me I am doing Paris-Roubaix and have my bags packed by 9hr30 as the one of the riders was sick. Still comatose I stare at the bowl of chocolate delight and look back at him, laugh, and ask him if it is a joke (57kg kid doing Paris-Roubaix, is pretty funny i think.) He smiles and says no. Great...Here goes my Sunday coffee shop ride that I had so eagerly planned out the night before. I am told to do whatever I want. I could pull out a the neutral start if I wanted to. But I am starting the classic from hell. I haver never pre-ridden the course, single bar tape (most of the guys had triple), but luckily I had a computer and markers where the cobbles start. 20 mins into the car ride, I give up my computer as one of the riders (not gonna say any names) left his SRM computer at home. So there I am with no idea at all what is in front of me, except for a lot of cobbles and pain.
THE RACE
12:15 - We start
12:16 - I consider dropping out of the neutral
After this I dont remember anything about time so here it goes: The racing started off typically fast, snail like through corners, impala out of corners, riders touching wheels, slamming on brakes, people dying, well... you get the idea. Now I did have a way to tell if the cobbles where coming up: when everybody would start cursing usually mean the cobbles where 500m away or so. Oh before I forget...one thing that was really eerie was that the countryside was masked with fog that resembled something off of a horror movie which is fitting for a race called Hell of the North. 50km in is the first cobble section: i have no idea when that is but I just dully follow the riders in front of me and all of a sudden a bunch start bouncing up and down like they were wind-up toys. I start bouncing up and down. First thought runs through my head: cobbles are badass. Then it starts getting real muddy everybody is sliding everywhere. A motorcycle/dirt bike goes down. The whole field roles to a slippery stop. I, being in my cobble racing mode, jump off the bike jump a la cyclocross style onto the hill next to the cobbles and run across it as all the riders stare at me in disbelief. I move from 80th to 1st in a matter of seconds. Some people join me in my cyclocross path. A group of 40 emerge from the first cobble section looking like something off the Band of Brothers fighting in the ditches against the Germans in WWII. Three of us our in the group with all the favorites. We start turning it up and we are gone! Then all of a sudden, around a turn the commissar's car is completly stopped along with the mavic guys and one of the riders plows right into them. Everybody else stops followed closely by cursing. Meanwhile a bunch of riders catch up and everybody is eating and drinking whatever they can get, people are getting bottles, treatment from the doctor, water squirted on their shoes so they could clip in. While I am stuffing my face, I look up and I am the last person on the road in this chaotic pit of death. It looked like the field rode through a cobbled mine field. I saw one bike of our teammates that was completly cut in half (pics will be posted later). Now I am last because I thought I would be the gentlemen and sit next to the official's car as he yelled in some French crap at the riders. But of course I forgot that racing is war in Europe and nobody has any time of day to listen to the French so everybody went around me and there was this constant shuffle of cyclists until we all just clipped in and took off. Now after this the last 2hrs I dont remember much. I remember being caught behind a crash on a cobble section and catching back on just in time for another one. Then I remember cursing Satan for building cobblestones for the sole purpose to make a big person feel good about themselves and to kill Spanish cyclists and myself. But nonetheless I was in the cars coming back after the cobbles with 60km to go and Noel goes, "David you've done a good job and I want you to drop out at the feed zone." I dont argue with people who are of a higher authority :P so I pulled out with 3hrs 15mins racing (only 1hr 45mins left). Summerhill finished 7th overall in the lead group, Austin finished 29th but was in the lead group until he crashed with 20km to go. So good race for us! I am looking forward to smooth roads ahead...

David