Phil Gaimon (Cannondale) is a long and lanky racer, well suited for long climbs and fond of smooth pavement. On Sunday he found himself at the starting line of Paris-Roubaix staring down a list of firsts: first time racing on cobbles, first time racing a Cannondale Synapse endurance bike, first time racing on low-psi tubulars. Gaimon did his job, though, getting in the early break before crashing out.
At the finish, Gaimon was upbeat after getting patched up by the team doctor.
“It was about as crazy and ridiculous and awesome as I had been expected and hoped,” Gaimon said of his first Paris-Roubaix. “Being in the break was cool. At the beginning that was my job. They said get in the break and I went in the break.”
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Many riders are assigned this job, however, which is often much easier said than done. For Gaimon it was a matter of right place/right time, and gutting it out.
“A few guys went really hard and I was hanging on for dear life and then it was a split,” he said. “Four out of five years I think that would have been the day’s break and they would have given it ten minutes. But there were a couple of guys in there that the bunch didn’t like so they brought it back. I did my job and survived. And then it was chaos.”
After being swept up, Gaimon found himself caught behind a few crashes and fighting to chase back on with a group multiple times. His own crash snuck up on him, as such things do.
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