The Vélodrome André-Pétrieux sits on the eastern outskirts of the sleepy town of Roubaix, surrounded by little other than wilted clusters of trees and quiet suburbia. White walls which guard the stadium are so incongruous that it would be easy to drive by without even an ounce of awareness that the place exists at all. And if you venture inside the gates on any day other than Paris-Roubaix weekend, you will discover cycling’s ghost town.
There will be wind whistling up and over the steep banking, cracks appearing in the concrete with small green springs of grass trying to force its way to life. The grandstand will look down on you, sombre and empty, the folded plastic seats cold and useless, for there will be no spectators there to watch you. If you close your eyes and think hard, you might be able to force yourself to imagine what these hallowed banks have seen over the last 122 years. If you really believe, you could conjure up images of Tom Boonen or Fabian Cancellara sprinting to victory here in a bygone era, or Lizzie Deignan writing history when she burst alone through the gates covered in dirt and grime to win the first women’s Roubaix four years ago. You might be able to envision people in the seats, screaming and cheering for their battered heroes, the bell being rung for the final lap of the sprint, the commentary booming as the winner is announced, the tears and cries from the victors, the national anthems of the podium ceremony, the flashes of the photographer’s lenses, the smell of beer and taste of frites. But when you look again, you will come back to reality and find eerie, unmistakable silence. The only thing that is be left here of those moments are the souls of the people that lived through them.
It is on the first weekend of April every year that the stories are written. On those two days, the professional cycling circus comes to visit Roubaix velodrome for the Hell of the North, the Queen of the Classics, the toughest, most brutal one-day race on the calendar, and peaceful solitude is transformed into booming excitement. There is no other bike race with such a finish: riders are welcomed after a day battling through race organiser ASO’s sadistic obstacle course of farm tracks and jagged cobbles by fans who have travelled far and wide to see them. Before the superstars magically appear in-person, there are big screens streaming the race live to the velodrome, so people know who to expect to see slamming through the right hand bend onto the concrete slopes first. The race’s protagonists are conjured from the television to reality right in front of the eyes of the audience. This is entertainment.
When the first ones appear, the noise of the crowds builds in a crescendo. It’s loud every year no matter who comes through the gates – this is Roubaix, and each winner has fought to make it – but, Paris-Roubaix Femmes in 2025 felt seismic. Pink hats signifying race sponsor Zwift's ‘Watch the Femmes’ movement dotted the heads of spectators in the stands, and the cheers for Pauline Ferrand-Prévot were deafening. Becoming a first French winner for the first time in 28 years meant the Visma-Lease a Bike rider had the hearts and attention of her nation; she was welcomed into the sport’s greatest stadium after a stunning solo breakaway and the velodrome was the stage to yet another fairytale.
When Mathieu van der Poel stormed through to finish the following day, he wrote history too: a third successive Roubaix win by the greatest Classics rider of this generation. Behind him came Tadej Pogačar, the three-time Tour de France winner who insisted on taking part in this race because of its beauty, romance, spell and intrigue. The world champion knew what it meant to come into the velodrome this year: he grinned up at the crowd as he rode to his second place on debut, waving up at them with a wink. One day, surely, the Hell of the North will be his too.
It all happens in two afternoons, in two quick explosions of vivacity and zest thrown up in a way that only bike racing can. A few hours later, if you return to the velodrome once the people have piled out and the speakers have been turned off, you will find workmen rolling up banners and taking down fences. You might hear the beep of a lorry reversing, you might see an empty beer cup rolling in the breeze between the empty seats. The velodrome, then, will rest for another year with two more winners irrevocably cemented into its legend. Cycling’s sleeping giant, awoken only when the peloton is ready to ride through Hell to get there again.
