Blazin' Saddles unleashes hell: 2016 Paris-Roubaix preview

With last year's champion John Degenkolb ruled out of the race as he continues his recovery from injury, all eyes will be on last week's Tour of Flanders winner Sagan as the Slovakian world champion tries to stop Swiss cobble king Cancellara taking a record-equalling fourth Roubaix win in his last season as a pro.

Boasting more subplots than the latest Batman Verses Superman movie, the 114th edition of the race they call “The Hell of the North” promises to be a monumental battle – and one which Eurosport will be showing live from start to finish, with double Paris-Roubaix winner Sean Kelly no doubt adding his trademark pearls of wisdom.

Although the race through the bleak coal-mining region of northern France debuted in 1896 it was not until after World War One – when the route took the riders through a tree-less land ransacked by shells and trench warfare – that Paris-Roubaix assumed its mythical status. L'Auto, the leading cycling newspaper of the time, described it as "hell" while the 1919 winner Henri Pélissier admitted it wasn't so much of a race as a pilgrimage.

Almost a century on and while warfare is now thankfully but a distant backdrop, the chilling legend of the most demanding race on the spring classics calendar still very much lives on.

Recalling his Paris-Roubaix debut of 1979 for the Cycling Podcast Big Race Explainer on Eurosport, Kelly said: "It was just a horror story – from the moment we got on the first cobbles. I think I crashed three or four times. On the wet sections I was just sliding all over the place. I didn't know how to do it. I never thought I'd see myself winning a Paris-Roubaix."

Kelly did not finish his maiden Roubaix but won it for the first time five years later after first cracking the top 20 in 1981 (the edition won by Bernard Hinault – the last Tour de France winner to triumph in Roubaix).

Magnus Backstedt, Sweden's only winner of Paris-Roubaix in 2004, described the race as an "elimination process" to the Cycling Podcast – "but not by the rear door, it can be by the front door. On the front of the bunch, when you get to the cobbles there's so much fighting and so many crashes. People fall and there are mechanical problems. You can be in the best form of your life but get taken out because of bad luck."

Indeed, according to Backstedt it's more often than not the kilometre leading in to each section of the cobbles where the race can be won or lost. Tom Boonen, whose record four wins sets the benchmark alongside fellow Belgian Roger De Vlaeminck, agrees.

"If you look carefully in the past 20 years most of the decisive moves have been made on the asphalt. You have to always pay attention. The cobbles wear you down but sometimes the right moment is just after the cobblestones."

Well, that is the general consensus. The hellingen of Flanders may be far steeper but the cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix make their Belgian counterparts look like polished marble in comparison, and what they lack in gradient they make up in sheer jagged nastiness and irregularity.

"They're unique," says Boonen. "There's only one day like Paris-Roubaix in the year and that's what makes it so special. The cobbles of Flanders, there are a few hard sections especially on the Kwaremont, but the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, they're like from before the War – they threw some bombs on them during the War and that's what's left of them, and we have to ride our bikes over them."

Despite its name, Paris-Roubaix doesn't actually start in (or even particularly near) the French capital: it actually starts in the town of Compiègne, some 75km north of Paris (the equivalent of starting a London-to-Sheffield bike race from, say, Cambridge).

The 257.5km parcours snakes its way north for the best part of 100km before the first of 27 cobbled sectors at Troisvilles – although there have been concerns that this 2200m section may be bypassed because of crazy levels of mud. Removing Troisvilles (a decision may be made as late as Saturday afternoon) would reduce the 52.8km total of cobbles to 50.6km.

Each of the 27 sections are given a star rating out of five, with just three sections put in the most challenging category: Trouée d'Arenberg (162km), Mons-en-Pévèle (209km) and the Carrefour de l'Arbre (240.5km). At 3.7km long the four-star sections at Quiévy (107.5km) and Hornaing (175km) are the longest while the shortest comes just outside the Roubaix velodrome and, at 300m, is the only one-star section.

This year some innovation: the re-introduction of what organisers ASO describe as a "unique uphill sector" at Hameau du Buat. The three-star rated sector comes after 127km of racing and returns after a three-year absence.

"In terms of stones, the cobbles of the Forest of Arenberg are hard but certainly not the hardest," says Backstedt. "You can't compare them with the Carrefour – they're so much harder in my book. But there are only a couple of sections you ride through and think they're not that bad." Backstedt compares Roubaix with a "super-hard mountain stage. Like Mont Ventoux, there are only a certain amount of riders who will ever win there, and it's the same as Roubaix."

- In 1930 the initial winner, Jean Marechal of France, finished 24 seconds ahead of Belgian Julien Vervaecke, but was later stripped of the victory when the organisers controversially adjudged him to have knocked his rival into a ditch while overtaking him earlier in the race.

- Swiss rider Thomas Wegmuller missed out on a chance of competing for victory when he got a plastic bag caught in his derailleur while leading the race into Roubaix with Belgium's Dirk Demol. Unable to change gears, Wegmuller could only watch as Demol bounded clear to take the win in the velodrome.

- In 1996 the race is dominated by the Mapei team whose riders Johan Museeuw, Gianluca Bortolami and Andrea Tafi all arrive together in the velodrome. Museeuw is ordered to win the race in what is a rather subdued finale.

- Two years later Museeuw damaged his knee so badly in a dramatic fall in the Arenberg forest that he almost had his gangrenous leg amputated after the wound was thought to have been infected by horse dung.

- In 2000, Museeuw pointed to his leg as he crossed the line to take his second victory after a long 44km solo break

- Fabian Cancellara rides clear of his rivals over 50km from the finish after attacking on the Mons-en-Pévèle cobbled section in 2010

- Tom Boonen rides alone for 53km to win his record-equalling fourth title in 2012

- Team-mates Stijn Vandenbergh and Zdenek Stybar both collide with spectators on the Carrefour de l'Arbre section before Cancellara beats Sep Vanmarcke in the sprint to take his third Roubaix win in 2013.

- The time Dutchman Theo de Rooij, covered in mud after crashing during the 1985 race, told American TV at the finish: "It's a bollocks, this race! You're working like an animal, you don't have time to p---, you wet your pants. You're riding in mud like this, you're slipping ... it's a pile of s---."

- The time de Rooij said, when asked if he'd ride Roubaix again just moments later: "Sure, it's the most beautiful race in the world."

Most wins: four (Roger De Vlaeminck and Tom Boonen)

Oldest winner: Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle (38 years and 8 months in 1993)

Fastest edition: 1964 when Peter Post won with an average speed of 45.129km/h over 265km

Country with most wins: Belgium (55: 25 more than second-placed France)

Closest margin of victory: Eddy Planckaert beat Steve Bauer by just 1cm in 1990

Largest winning margin: Eddy Merckx beat Roger De Vlaeminck by 5mins and 21secs in 1970

Number of Flanders-Roubaix doubles: 12

Number of Flanders-Roubaix double doubles: 2 (Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara)

- The last muddy edition of the race was in 2002 when Johan Museeuw soloed to a third win

- Seven of the last 10 editions have been won solo

The forecast is such that next year we may no longer be saying that the last properly wet and muddy edition of the race came in 2002. While Museeuw rode over the line caked in mud for his hat-trick, the weather was balmy compared to the sodden race Servais Knaven won a year previously, or Andrei Tchmil's win back in 1994.

While we associate poor weather with the spring classics it's interesting to note that the area around Lille where Paris-Roubaix takes place, although one of the wettest places in France, oddly enough experiences its driest months in March and April. But if Sagan's win under blue sky in Flanders last weekend may have conjured up images of dust clouds in northern France, this Sunday's race could well be more like the sodden mudfest when Vincenzo Nibali triumphed on the cobbles when the Tour de France passed through the area two years ago.

One thing's for certain: a wet, blustery race is very different to a dry one. And while no one hopes for any unnecessary drama – especially after the recent tragedies in Belgium – most fans will be happy to see some rare Roubaix rain to spice things up a little.

Taking place one day after the lottery that is the Grand National at Aintree – where horses and jockeys are slowly eliminated over a series of fences that equate to the equestrian equivalent of savage cobbled sectors – Paris-Roubaix is both hard and easy to predict. As Backstedt said, only a select core of riders can win the thing, but before crossing the line anyone can be taken out by bad luck, whether that's a crash, a puncture, a plastic bag or even a rogue dog.

On Sunday there will be three former winners on the start line in Boonen, Cancellara and Niki Terpstra, the 2014 champion. Defending champion Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin), Milan-San Remo winner Arnaud Démare (FDJ) and early favourite Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) are all absent because of injuries (sustained in last weekend's Ronde, in the case of the latter two).

After his victory in Flanders, Sagan is the bookmakers' favourite – and he will certainly hope he won't be caught short as he was in last year's race. Boonen (Etixx-QuickStep) has been off the boil and could see his record equalled by Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo), who has been riding the cobbles majestically in his final season.

Sep Vanmarcke (LottoNL-Jumbo) seems to have found his footing after a quiet start to the season, while Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) could be a factor after finishing fourth in Flanders. As usual, Etixx have power in numbers with the likes of Stybar, Terpstra, Vandenberg and Boonen, not to forget Matteo Trentin, the promising Yves Lampaert, seventh last year, and German powerhouse Tony Martin, making his belated debut in the race.

Luke Rowe and Ian Stannard will lead the way for Team Sky, Astana will rely on the experienced Lars Boom and Lieuwe Westra, and Van Avermaet's absence will give Daniel Oss and Taylor Phinney a chance to shine for BMC.

Here we rate the riders, like the cobbled sectors, with a five-star guide...

***** Cancellara, Sagan, Vanmarcke

**** Boonen, Stybar, Kristoff, Terpstra

*** Rowe, Stannard, Boom, Martin, Vandenbergh

** Westra, Roelandts, Phinney, Oss, Trentin

* Gaudin, Bozic, Keukeleire, Boasson-Hagen

Absent: Degenkolb, Démare, Van Avermaet