{"id":10566,"date":"2026-04-10T23:04:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=10566"},"modified":"2026-04-10T23:04:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:04:28","slug":"thieves-are-stealing-the-paris-roubaix-cobblestones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=10566","title":{"rendered":"Thieves Are Stealing the Paris-Roubaix Cobblestones"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Updated April 10, 2026 03:18PM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It ain\u2019t easy being a professional cyclist.<\/p>\n

You ride your bicycle all day long, no matter if it\u2019s sunny or dumping rain. Every few races, you crash and suffer a painful case of road rash. And yeah, you spend most of your waking hours in Lycra.<\/p>\n

Alas, there\u2019s a new headache that the world\u2019s best cyclists must endure: Fans are literally stealing the roads on which they race.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, the news out of Europe this week is that thieves have been pilfering cobblestones<\/a> from the racecourse of the upcoming Paris-Roubaix<\/a>, a\u00a0famous bike race\u00a0across Northern France. For those who aren\u2019t familiar with Paris-Roubaix, which will be held on Sunday, April 12, the cobblestones are kinda sorta the main attraction.<\/p>\n

Along the 160-mile route, from the city of Compiegne to the industrial town of Roubaix, the cyclists ride over over 30 different sections of cobblestone roads. Riding a bicycle over these bumpy and slippery rock-covered lanes is akin to placing a jackhammer on your backside. The jostling leads to crashes and chaos.<\/p>\n

A rider bounces across the Paris-Roubaix cobblestones. (Photo: Etienne Garnier \u2013 Pool\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pileups, intense pain, and physical punishment caused by these cobblestones is what ultimately whittle the 175-rider peloton down to the sole winner. Paris-Roubaix racers often cross the finish line in various states of physical agony. The race\u2019s nickname, \u201cHell of the North,\u201d and its reputation as pro cycling\u2019s hardest one-day race, are all tied to the cobblestones.<\/p>\n

Even the winner\u2019s trophy commemorates the rocks. Both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s race winners receive a massive cobblestone welded to a heavy rock base.<\/p>\n

So yeah, the rocks are famous<\/em>! And historic! Paris-Roubaix has been going on since William McKinley was president in 1896.<\/p>\n

And now, people are digging\u00a0them out of the dirt and taking them home as souvenirs. It\u2019s as if someone stole the bases from Fenway Park, or took a rafter from Madison Square Garden home with them.<\/p>\n

This past week, the event\u2019s director, Thierry Gouvenou, made a plea to the public in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf<\/em><\/a>, asking them to leave the rocks in their place.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeave those cobblestones where they belong,\u201d Gouvenou said. \u201cThis race is ruthless enough as it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it turns out, digging a stone out of a road only makes things more dangerous for the cyclists.\u00a0Andrew Hood, my former colleague at the cycling publication VeloNews,\u00a0<\/em>recently strolled the Paris-Roubaix course<\/a> and saw numerous areas where rocks had been removed. Hood noted that, after a rock is taken, what\u2019s left is a massive hole in the street that poses a terrifying danger to cyclists.<\/p>\n

A hole like that can snap a carbon-fiber wheel in half, or cause a cyclist to lose grip on thier handlebars. And when a peloton of 175 racers passes over it going 30 miles per hour, even a small bobble can lead to a pileup. Gouvenou highlighted the danger in his interview with\u00a0De Telegraaf.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt will inevitably lead to crashes in both the women\u2019s and men\u2019s races,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would be deeply tragic if one of these stars crashed because someone thought a cobblestone from Paris-Roubaix looked nice on their mantelpiece.\u201d<\/p>\n

I reported on pro cycling for more than a decade at\u00a0VeloNews,\u00a0<\/em>and got to watch Paris-Roubaix live on a few occasions. I even got to ride across the stones, and experienced the jackhammer-like sensation on my backside.<\/p>\n

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Thieves have been digging cobblestones out of the Paris-Roubaix course in France (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To me, the current ordeal highlights the unorthodox relationship that cycling fans have with their favorite sport. Unlike in soccer, baseball, or even tennis, cycling fans do not need to buy a ticket or enter a stadium. All you must do is stand along the roadside and watch for your favorite racers zoom by, inches from your outstretched arms.<\/p>\n

This up-close-and-personal relationship breeds a similarly strange culture of souvenir chasing. Everyday items from the world of bike racing become collectibles\u00a0once they are tossed aside during a race. Fans, likewise, crowd the roads screaming for these items. Bidon! <\/em>(water bottle). Casquette! <\/em>(cycling cap). Musette! <\/em>(food bag). Most riders and team directors riding in a follow car will, at some point, drop collectibles to fans.<\/p>\n

Of course, picking up a water bottle and digging a cobblestone out of the street are two entirely different activities. But I believe they are related to the same line of thinking: I can attend a bike race and go home with a cool souvenir!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Paris-Roubaix winner\u2019s trophy is, you guessed it, a huge cobblestone. (Photo: ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What, exactly, anyone does with stolen masonry is a mystery.<\/p>\n

Like Gouvenou, I\u2019m here to voice my own plea: Leave the cobblestones where they belong. They are famous and sacred elements of pro cycling\u2019s wonderful history.<\/p>\n

If you really want one, then get on your bicycle, train your butt off, and earn one the old-fashioned way, by winning Paris-Roubaix.<\/p>\n

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Updated April 10, 2026 03:18PM It ain\u2019t easy being a professional cyclist. You ride your bicycle all day long, no matter if it\u2019s sunny or dumping rain. Every few races, you crash and suffer a painful case of road rash. And yeah, you spend most of your waking hours in Lycra. Alas, there\u2019s a new<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wild-living"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}