Good vibrations

Four past winners of Paris-Roubaix walk into a bar. ‘It was bullshit,’ says 1981 winner Bernard Hinault. Two-times winner Sean Kelly says, ‘It’s a horrible race to ride but the most beautiful one to win.’ John Degenkolb, who won in 2015, adds, ‘It was hard, heavy, nice, amazing, lovely and brutal.’

So far, so predictable. They’re all living up to pro cycling’s USP of pain and suffering. Then 1990 winner Eddy Planckaert arrives late from filming, in which he lives in a wooden shack in the Ardennes. He wants to talk about another cobbled Classic, the Tour of Flanders, which he won in 1988: ‘When you’re completely worn out, thinking you might drop dead from fatigue, you reach another dimension. Suddenly it seemed I was floating over the road. It’s a bit embarrassing to say it, but I ejaculated, and not just a little bit… I had reached a divine state.’