Three things:

1. I want to squeal like a little girl every time I think about it.
2. Where/when are people watching it? I know it's on Versus at 7 p.m. and I'm definitely DVRing it, but I'm wondering if people know of anyplace screening it.
3. Predictions?

Jeff I want to get in on the action as well let me know where you are watching it and we can meet up

i'll be watching it live. www.cyclingfans.com has links to live feeds of it, and over at Pavé, we'll be doing a live chat/commentary/analysis with the dude from the inner ring and the dude from red kite prayer. join us!

Mattio

Hope things are good by you. Thanks for the heads up. The inner ring is m favorite cycling blog. His posts are an awesome read.

Patrick

Should be an exciting race:

Cancellara is in great form but as seen last week is not unbeatable

Boonen is in great form as long as he doesn't attack his own teammates

Ballan has been looking super strong and if Hincapie is having a good day this may finally be the year for him

Hushov may give Garmin a much needed win, but he has to overcome the curse of the rainbow jersey

Chavannel was stronger than Boonen last week and may win if he can keep his teammates from attacking him

I'm rooting for Hincapie and Hushov (I like underdogs - albeit super strong underdogs) but just want to see a great race. I definitely don't want to watch Cancellara time trial from the forest of ahrenberg by himself. I love the guy, but last year's Roy aid lacked nail biting drama. (oon the other hand, Flanders this year and last were awesome!)

Any other predictions?

Patrick

I think that the favorites are going to be marking Cancellara so strongly. I also think that there's a lot of depth in various teams' lieutenants, so I think there's a great possibility for a strong group of 3 or 4 nonteamleaders to ride to the velodrome together. I think Canc probably knows that he's going to have to ride smart; Boonen and just about everybody else knows that they can't let Canc isolate them.

I wonder how it would play out if riders gave Canc just enough rope to let him hang himself.

I'll be rooting for Hincapie, naturally, but more realistically, pulling for Leukemans and Chavanel. It would be AWESOME to see Hushovd get a Paris-Roubaix win, too. I have a hard time seeing him as a favorite but think it's within his grasp.

NON-SPOILER

Woah! To the race and to mattio's witty commentary over at pave. I followed it! Good stuff. Much better to read while watching the race on a sometimes choppy eurosport connection than the very late and lame live text updates on cyclingnews.

Slight SPOILER:

Someone may not have won, but someone is a monster from another planet nonetheless.

the 2012 edition is next sunday, and we've gotten an invite from Phil of Speedwell to go to Building on Bond for Paris-Roubaix viewing Sunday after the Spring Series CP race.

With Boonen peaking at the right time, and Fabs out, this looks like this is Boonen's to lose. Come see whether he can keep it up for the next week, watch Euskatel riders litter the pave like sad little orange speedbumps. Marvel as drunk fans spend days waiting in some French potato field to see 2 seconds of their favorites jiggle by.

Anyone out riding, I'll have the race going on the shop TV at piermont bike. It's not going to be like a viewing party or anything, but if missing the finale was keeping you from riding out, good option.

Sooo...thinking about racing CP, trekking out to watch as much of PR as I can, then jetting to make it to church for Easter services at 11am.
What time are folks expecting to get to Bldg on Bond?

What time do we expect the race to wrap up?

Projected end is between 10.45 and 11 EST, I believe.

Anyone doing this? Trying to plan out my morning...

tito, et al,
sounds interesting,
i am in if we have a quorum of Kissena's...what time/could Bond Street open to view race?

i checked &looks like they (bond street) open @7:30am & can accommodate a number of folks esp. before 10:30-11am brunch rush.

please speak-up if you are interested in this after the Central Park Race tomorrow!
-harry

According to ASO, the race will start at 10:10am and finish at 16h45, local time. that means that in NY, it starts at 4:10am and is scheduled to finish by 10:45am!

I wanna watch it. After I wake up, I'll go to building on bond to catch the action!

dan, ally, tito, 'MrPerlberg,'
is Phil w/Speedwell going to attend Paris/Roubaix screening@Building on Bond - pub (112 Bond Street Brooklyn, ny 11217)?
&other than Ally anyone else confirmed in for this? i think i'm in! after CP race.
-h

I definitively will be there.

7apr

ok! that seals fhe deal 4me if...our cat5 fallen soldier is going to be there (paris-roubaix@112bond st bkNY) count me in w/my broken french &hincapie sock on...TB hope you are feeling well!
-h

Live feeds online starting at 7. Eurosport feed is so superior to nbcsport, i gotta stay home. Head over GWB after that.

Looks great though. Mid 40's and almost 50% chance of rain. Haven't had that in a while.

Thanks Harry, can't wait to see you guys, I need some morale boost!!!

If I race, I will come esp. If they have safe place to park bikes

I will be there.

I'm out, dudes - think it's more important that I arrive at church on time and showered. Too bad, but you cannot serve God and cobbles both.

@tito that's a truism that ought to be on a calf tattoo!

...but one has to wonder; the almighty did put a lot of cobbles in front of churches

David Millar's twitter can be funny:

"Pozzato, SO fucking Italian."

"Oakley could have at least gotten the colour right. Close-ups of TOMMEKE! now ruined for me."


Ha!

William places second in Paris-Roubaix!

Amazing. Shaving your legs really does help.

^boom^

(ahem) is it just me or does Boonen's domineering win seem a little, er... unusual?
I mean, he rode away from everybody in the toughest race of the year and and had time to mug happily for the cameras.

He only looked into the camera in the final 3K when he had a 90 second lead. That seems reasonable, and no different to other riders winning with that margin (Cancellara did the same in 2010 - he had a silver Angel charm in his pocket he held up to the camera).

I didn't see anything suspicious in his ride and to be honest he didn't really ride away from everyone else. It was more that he got a small gap quickly and then hung on and on and on until the elastic snapped, and he was able to do that through a combination of factors.

He measured the application of his strength carefully and combined it with his skill over cobbles to maximum effect. He was evidently going flat out on the cobbles and each sector he eeked out 5 or more seconds advantage. But on the tarmac he often conceded some (but crucally not all) of those gains back to the chasers, and he took it maybe a little easier there to recover just a fraction and refuel.

The tactics of Sky also had a part to play in his success. Collectively and individually they really botched the chase. Using a single man at a time instead of a rotation is just dumb. That simply makes it one man vs one man all the time. EBH wasn't honest about his form - he was a protected rider and not used in the chase and then he was dropped on S6. Flecha also didn't help the cause by attacking out of the chase and trying to go with a smaller group.
Compare that to BMC vs Cancellara in 2011.

Finally - Boonen looked like he was hurting between 30k and 10k to go (inside the last 10K - he had it in bag). Compare that to Basso in the 2006 Giro or Horner/Leipheimer in ATOC last year. In those cases the riders tore away from the field, breathing easy and not breaking sweat.

Other than the obvious which is that hes got fantastic form at the moment as his previous races have shown, its also very clear that the guys been spending time in a wind tunnel. His position was fantastic on the bike, it looked like he has been really working his position for such a long attack in mind. Who knows if going that long was the plan or he just seized the opportunity with Nikki at the time. Again its clear Omega have been really tuning up the team, if Chavanel didnt get a flat there would have been 3 of them away as the select break group.

I just didn't understand the lack of commitment when Boonen and Terpstra were pulling from that star-studded small group: everyone was looking at each other calling bluff on the duo...unreal.