LITMIR.BIZ

      Ballerini celebrating after winning his second Paris–Roubaix.

      Ballerini won Roubaix again in 1998, and it’s no coincidence that he chose to retire there in 2001. By then he was 36, and he rolled into the velodrome alone in 32nd place. He was caked in Paris–Roubaix mud, and that was entirely appropriate given that the race had defined his cycling career – and vice versa – for the preceding 15 years. You’ll often see bike riders zip up their jersey as they approach the finish line, the better to expose their sponsor’s name to the TV cameras. Ballerini, though, did the opposite. He unzipped his jersey, because he wanted the world to see his undervest. On it, in large blue letters, were printed two words:

      MERCI ROUBAIX.

      Just perfect.

      With unzipped jersey in the Roubaix velodrome at his last major professional race, in which he finished 32nd.

      By the time I turned professional I’d seen Ballerini’s exploits ad infinitum, so when I was selected for the 2003 Paris–Roubaix it was a dream. I was 22, I’d got round Flanders the previous week, and I was about to join the Paris–Roubaix pantheon. I was with FDJ, and our protected riders were Jacky Durand, Christophe Mengin and Frédéric Guesdon, a previous winner. Our DS was Marc Madiot, whom I’d watched win it on TV, and before the race he gave us this big, dramatic, stirring team talk. He explained what it signified, the legend behind it, all the stuff I’d been daydreaming about since I watched Duclos and Ballerini slugging it out ten years earlier. To say I was excited would be an understatement.

      So I knew all about it, knew every sector of the pavé, knew all the theories about riding it because I’d seen it on TV so many times. Nobody else really knew the first sectors because they were never televised, but I’d spent the preceding days reeling the names off to anyone who would listen. And indeed to anyone who wouldn’t. I was a proper nerd.

      Although Ballerini had retired, a lot of my boyhood heroes were still racing. Museeuw was there, Peter Van Petegem was there, Erik Zabel and Fabio Baldato were there … About 10 kilometres from the first sector I was near the front and, I have to say, doing a decent job. I was staying out of the way of the champions while simultaneously keeping Durand out of trouble. I’d have been about 20th, then suddenly there was a massive crash just behind me. It wiped everyone out, so now you’d a select group of 20. Essentially it was comprised of everyone who was anyone – and me, Bradley Wiggins, who wasn’t.

      I wasn’t trying to mix it up at the front because I had no place there, but by the time we reached the entrance to the Arenberg I was feeling really pleased with myself. That’s because the Arenberg is … well, the Arenberg, and I was in the lead group with the best of them. Then, wouldn’t you just know it, 100 metres into the forest the guy in front of me, Kevin Van Impe, got his front wheel stuck in the gutter. He hopped it out, but his back wheel stayed in. He slid off in front of me, and I had no chance whatsoever. I just clattered straight into him and flew straight over the top of the bars.

      I’d gone into ‘The Trench’ with the champions, and come out of it with a little group of back-markers. I had a buckled back wheel, and my knee and elbow hurt like hell. I couldn’t hold the bars, let alone ride over the cobbles, so I had no choice but to climb into the broomwagon. Paris–Roubaix had broken me in two, but I was immediately transported back to A Sunday in Hell, a documentary film about the 1976 race that I’d watched fanatically as a kid. There was a shot of two riders in the wagon, and they were telling the driver what had happened to them. Now here I was doing exactly the same thing. It sounds perverse – well, it actually is perverse – but I took some pleasure in that because in some way I was standing on the shoulders of giants. Giants in the sagwagon, but giants all the same.