Winners atop Alpe d’Huez – the Tour de France’s (and cycling’s) best-known climb – get one of its 21 switchbacks named after them. At Paris-Roubaix, their names are emblazoned on a shower cubicle. If that sounds like a lesser prize, these aren’t just any ablutions.
A relic of professional cycling’s long-forgotten past, the showers are housed in a nondescript building next to the also-iconic Roubaix velodrome, which hosts the finale of the legendary cobbled race.
Paris-Roubaix has a deserved reputation for an unreconstructed route, with riders tackling rutted surfaces that have long fallen out of fashion.
While every other facet of professional cycling’s progress is on display – high-tech bikes, aero kit and state-of-the-art coaching, for example – the cobblestones remain a connection to a bygone era.
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The showers, too, built in the 1940s and resembling the changing room of a Soviet military base, fall into that category.
Few modern pros will ever use them. But those riders more plugged into their cycling history – and intrigued by the chance to connect with the legends of yesteryear – may still seek out the full Roubaix shower experience.
They’ll find themselves staring across at each other, though, because even shorter riders’ heads stick out above the stubby concrete partitions.
Still, after six-plus hours of ferocious racing, covered from head to toe in mud, dust and sweat, what better way to expunge it from your body than five minutes in this artefact of cycling history?
Professional cycling’s mythology is fuelled by the continuation of such rituals. There was a time when this shower block would have been positively luxurious.
Riders at the Classics might have had to get changed en masse in a gymnasium, or even knock on doors and plead to use a homeowner’s bathroom.
However, when team coaches were introduced in the ’90s, the business of showering was brought in-house – and facilities such as Roubaix’s were suddenly less crowded. Why risk having a journalist throw you a question while you’re getting clean when you could have a peaceful shower in the privacy of the team bus?
That remains the default for today’s generation of cosseted riders, but enough time has passed that the bathing block has built up a retro appeal and charm. Long may it last.
