What can you say about Paris-Roubaix? It was exciting, intense and just plain brutal watching the world’s best cyclists suffer through 258kms/160mi defined by 27 sections of cobble. The wild ride ended with two laps around the Roubaix Velodrome where someone claimed the highly coveted cobble stone trophy weighing twice as much as the bike he rode in on.
That someone was dark horse Johan Van Summeran of the US based Garmin-Cevelo team. The Belgian domestique emerged as this year’s winner by hammering through the final kms of the grueling race known as “Hell of the North” to clear the finish :19 seconds ahead of favorite Fabian Cancellara (Leopard-Trek). Maarten Tjallingii (Rabobank) followed Cancellara with a 3rd place finish and Gregory Rast (Team RadioShack) finishing at a close 4th.
