You want, I know, the wow – because what cyclist doesn’t? – but if we’re really going to get into this and if you’re really considering this (and yes we are, and yes you should), you need to understand that this thing here is the wow of the wow, an undertaking so bounteous with woooo! and also with owww! that the ride won’t merely wow you but will wooooww! you in ways that you, before pedalling the cobbles, are unable to imagine; and that I, after pedalling them more times than I can or care to remember accurately any more, cannot fully explain.
The cobbles, of course, being the Roubaix cobbles, the only cobbles you can mean when you say ‘the cobbles’. Yes, other places are cobbled; but that does…