Cobbled recon for Van der Poel, Van Avermaet, Kwiatkowski and more - Gallery
Dress rehearsals for Hell of the North include passes along Trouée d'Arenberg sector for WorldTour teams
Thirty sections of cobblestones loom ahead across the fields of northern France and into Belgium for the 119th edition of Paris-Roubaix on Sunday.
Last year on a rescheduled October date, Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious) survived massive amounts of mud and slippery conditions to win his first Paris-Roubaix. This year, the race returns to its traditional spring calendar slot in April, with flowers bursting in bloom and the skies expected to be clear for Sunday's 257.2km march from Compiègne, France to the velodrome in Roubaix, Belgium.
The men's race will showcase all 18 WorldTeams and seven ProTeams, with many of them seen on Thursday embarking on reconnaissance rides across key sectors of cobblestones, from the five-star Trouée d'Arenberg to the two-star Quérénaing - Maing, both more than 2,000 metres in length.
The defending champion's team Bahrain Victorious was seen on the course, as well as AG2R Citroën, Cofidis, EF Education-EasyPost, Ineos Grenadiers, Jumbo-Visma, and Team BikeExchange-Jayco.
The 2022 route for the Monument has remained mostly unchanged, with the 30 sectors of pavé adding up to 54.8 kilometres of the course. Three of these sectors will be traversed again in July by many riders, as part of stage 5 of the Tour de France. The trio come after the Arenberg - Hornaing-Wandignies (#17), Warlaing-Brillon (#16) and Tilloy-Sars-et-Rosières (#15).
Click or swipe through our gallery of photos above to see which riders were part of team training for Paris-Roubaix, and if any had issues with traction just four days ahead of the full-speed action.
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