Dark history: That's why Paris-Roubaix is also known as the Hell of the North

When the race was held again in 1919 for the first time after the First World War, the route led through a region that was barely recognisable. Roubaix and the surrounding area of northern France had been through occupation, destruction and industrialisation. What the riders passed was not a sporting challenge - it was a landscape of ruins. Smoke, mud, ruins. A reporter is said to have coined the image of the "Hell of the North", and the name stuck.

Yet the region was anything but a wasteland before. Roubaix was an economic heavyweight in the late 19th century - textile industry, coal, thousands of chimneys. This is exactly where a cycle race that was originally not supposed to be particularly difficult ended in 1896. The first editions were mostly on ordinary main roads, with cobblestones only coming into play on the last dozen kilometres. The cobblestone madness for which the race is known today only came about through an active decision: From the 1960s onwards, the organisers deliberately routed the route over more and more cobbled sections - sections that are now listed buildings.

Today there are around 30 sectorsfrom one star to five, numbered in descending order. The Forest of Arenberg, Mons-en-Pévèle, the Carrefour de l'Arbre - names that even people who otherwise stay away from professional cycling recognise. The race has been held since 1943 (with a brief interruption) on the Roubaix velodrome, the Vélodrome André Petrieux, which dates back to 1936. Concrete track, no roof, 499 metres long. The winner does not receive a trophy, but a cobblestone on a plinth.

So the nickname has nothing to do with the difficulty of the race - at least not at the beginning. It is a war memorial in sporting form. The fact that it now stands for pain, chaos and unpredictability is a retrospective shift in meaning that the race itself first had to work out. And the pavés that made this possible would have long since been tarmaced over without active protection.