Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

It’s hard to bet against Tom Boonen doing a double-double (Win Paris Roubaix and Tour of Flanders back to back for two years) but it just seems so inevitable. It is a bit like Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France between 2000 and 2005, you really could not bet against him to win, and you knew that the end would show Lance on top followed by two other animators. But this is Paris-Roubaix, “The Hell of the North” is not an easy race. Winning the HotN requires knowledge of the course and a healthy dose of luck. But Tom Boonen is not a superstitious guy. He is the World Champion and has defied the curse of the World Champ by purely dominating a majority of the races that he contested so far this year. He brushed off “The Curse” by explaining that there is no curse, there is just simply a great deal of pressure that some riders could not deal with. This is true, the World Champ gets burdened with lots of pressure and we have seen riders from Luc LeBlanc to Mario Cipollini succumb to some sort of misfortune, but the base of it could point to pressure.

So what does dealing with pressure have to do with Paris-Roubaix? Lots in fact. One factor you need on your side more than anything is luck, but in order to get luck, you must be in a position to receive it. It means that you need to be in the right position at the right time and be aware of hazard when they come up. Much of this is taken care of when you have raced the course several times before and helps more if you have won. You cannot do much if you get a flat at the wrong time, but if you have a strong team, then there is always someone there to give you a spare wheel or bike to get going. The bottom line is that in Paris-Roubaix, more than any other race requires a rider to “race his own race”. Until the riders enter in the Roubaix velodrome they have to contend with being in the right move at the right time and staying out of trouble especially in the trecherous Arenburg Forest section of cobbles which are back this year.

So what does this mean for this year’s race? Is Boonen still in top form and can Quick Step orchestrate another dominating performance like they did last week in Flanders? Discovery Channel may have something to say about Quick Step. They placed riders second and third, but made a very critical mistake of not dropping Boonen. No easy task there, but in Roubaix, the Discos are piloted by a former winner in Dirk Demol who was able to maneuver Disco team members to a few stage wins in the Tour de France.

George Hincapie has been using a coach of a different sort. In the recent show “The Art of the Athlete” in Fit TV that featured George Hincapie at home in Greensboro, NC. On that show you got to meet all the people in George’s inner circle. The guy has an entourage that can rival Lance Armstrong’s. The newest addition is his Greensboro neighbor who is a psychological coach. She helped George get over the mental blocks that prevented him from doing such things as thinking of himself as a climber. It turns out that George never much thought of himself as a climber, and it stems back to when he was a junior and raced in the Colorado mountains. In the higher altitude George could not breath and was crushed by the national caliber competition. The coach helped George get over the mental block and what we saw last year was a stage win by Big George in a tough mountain stage. Now, the coach is helping George get over his mental block of winning Paris-Roubaix. With the help of a strong Discovery team George may be able to get himself in a position to win again. He just needs to make sure that when they get into the Roubaix Velodrome that Boonen is not in his group.