The bikes are all ready, everything has been sat prepped for hours. The only thing left to do is unlock the padlock and cable tying the six bikes together on the roof, lest someone decides to help themselves to a neutral service bike without having numbers pinned to their back.
Richard, or 'Reeshaard' as the Frenchman introduces himself, will be driving the Shimano neutral service vehicle I've graciously been given a seat in. He has kind eyes and lines in his face of a life well-lived.
He potters around at 10:30 before the start of Paris-Roubaix, eating the lunch out of the brown bag he's been given (he also passes one to me and an older gentlemen who strikes up conversation having cycle-toured his way to the start line today). We are also soon joined by Julien, or 'JuJu' as Richard affectionally calls him. Julien also begins eating his lunch.
The reason for the early fuelling is they won't have much time later, given they'll be laser-focused on providing assistance to any of the 175 riders taking on Paris-Roubaix today.
I chit-chat with Richard a little to pass the time, and while he's steeled for quite the day out on the cobbles, he says today is nothing compared to the Tour de France, where he also drives one of these bright blue cars around. This is mostly due to the number of fans at the side of the road who, as you've no doubt seen in various social media videos by now, rock race vehicles from side-to-side when driving through mountain passes and also love leaving their feet sticking out on the road and leaving it until the very last second to whip them away.
We climb into the Skoda. The back is full of spare wheels and Julien. The front is spotless. A bottle of water sits in the cup holder, a boiled sweet lies in a small, designed dent in the centre console. Luckily, Richard pops this in his mouth 1.5 km before the start, so I stand down from preparing to Heimlich-maneuver Richard should he swallow it whole as we go over some particularly bumpy cobbles. He then places his phone down underneath the climate controls, the background lights up with a photo of his grandchildren.
He clicks on to the VeloViewer app on the screen built-in to the dashboard, and then pulls down the radio hanging from the ceiling to check in with Shimano mission control, along with all the other cars and bikes heading through the race rollout, names like Kevin, Christophe, Hendrik and Servais (yes, that Servais). "And this is Richard," he says, pointing to a translucent grey blob that signifies our own car heading down the green line of the Paris-Roubaix 2025 race route.
Looking out the front window, a wheel can just about be spotted hanging overhead. A peer out of my passenger window reveals a pedal. We pass a Shimano mechanic waiting by the side of the road, her motorbike driver ready to go. The driver makes the sign of the cross, jokingly, as clouds hover overhead and the cobbles will be wet for at least the first few sectors of the day.
We trundle along at around 40 km/h, slowly getting ahead of the race, as we pass kilometre zero and the peloton behind sets off, the voice of race radio, Seb Piquet, crackling into action, already letting team cars know when their riders are at the back of the pack and require assistance.
We are instead positioning ourselves ready to help later on. "C’est tranquille, huh," Richard says as we cruise along of the calmness we're currently experiencing, before adding this will all soon change. We occasionally wave at families by the side of the road, Richard drums his fingers on the steering wheel and when we go over a speed bump the spokes behind jangle. Then the flag drops a few kilometres back. The fight for the breakaway takes a while but is soon formed. The race is on.
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