Dhe Paris-Roubaix women’s race on Saturday will once again not go through the dreaded sector in the Arenberg forest. The organizer ASO described it as too dangerous because the section, which is over two kilometers and has a maximum difficulty of five stars, is not far enough from the start. “If a closed field arrives there, it’s too dangerous,” said Franck Perque from the ASO. “If we want to go that way in the future, we’ll have to put some other cobblestone sectors in front of it to divide the field.”
The third edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes will take place on Saturday. The start takes place in Denain, which is only ten kilometers from the forest of Arenberg. In the men’s race on Sunday, it is well over 100 kilometers from the start in Compiègne to the section. The Arenberg sector is so dangerous because it is downhill for the first 500 meters, has very poor pavement and the men there initially reach speeds of 60 kilometers per hour.
Goats on the track
The women’s race has been extended from 125 to 145 kilometers this year. 29.2 kilometers of cobblestones have to be mastered over a total of 17 sectors, including the five-star Mons-en-Pévèle and Carrefour de l’Arbre. For men, there are 29 sectors with 54.5 kilometers of cobblestones over 257 kilometers.
In order to make the dreaded cobblestone lane in the Arenberg forest safer for the men’s race, the organizers used goats. On parts of the 2.3-kilometer section, around three dozen animals have been said to have eaten the grass growing out of the gaps between the stones over the past two months.
Goats are supposed to eat the grass from the gaps between the stones before the race.
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Image: AFP
“Bicycles can slip there and we had to make sure that the Arenberg lane was really clean. And one of the best and most environmentally friendly solutions is to let animals graze,” Audrey Mouly, director of the environmental organization responsible for the goats, told AFP. The project is an experiment.
At the same time, students from a horticulture school set about laying new cobblestones on some sections of the route. “It’s important that each brick is put back in exactly the same place, otherwise this would become a jigsaw puzzle,” said project leader Olivier Cauldron. “We’re doing this for an iconic race,” he stressed.
