Two years ago, I sat across from Alison Jackson in her hotel lobby a few days before the inaugural edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes. Back then, most riders were still cautious about doing in-person interviews, preferring to keep those outside of their ‘bubble’ at arms length, often giving journalists who asked to interview them at hotels a blunt and frosty response.
Not Jackson, though, who greeted us with a wide, beaming smile and spoke to me for an hour and then sat for our photographer, appeasing us both with a grin and kooky, funny poses. Journalists should remain impartial, but I couldn’t help but feel a warmth to Jackson after our interaction, and I was willing to see her perform well in Roubaix a few days later.
Even back then, before she’d had any big wins on the road and when she was far from a pre-race favourite, Jackson told me that she wanted to win the Hell of the North. It wasn’t one of those flippant dream-like statements that seem far-fetched, but it was said with a calm and assured assertiveness that achieving her goal was utterly plausible.
“I’m good on the cobbles,” she told me, distilling it down with a refreshing simplicity. “I’m also good at positioning and so that’s a big part of what this race calls for. I like to watch previous editions and figure out several ways of how I can win.” I nodded when she said this, believing every word. Jackson had convinced herself that Roubaix was a race for her, and in our hour-long interview, she had convinced me, too.
Photo: Zac Williams/SWpix
In the end, the Canadian rider finished in 24th place that year in a race which was marred with crashes and mechanicals on wet, mud-soaked cobbles. As she stood in the iconic Roubaix velodrome afterwards with dirt covering her white Canadian National Champion kit and blood seeping down the right of one knee, I spoke to her again. Had her love and hope for Roubaix been thwarted now she’d felt the thump and judder of the cobbles in a race for the first time?
‘No way, Those are my favourite races. I think I would have liked to have been on the podium or win of course,” she said with a grin.
Since that day, I have always had Jackson in my mind each time Roubaix creeps up on the cycling world and the cobbles beckon the riders. The thing is, it takes a special type of person to win Roubaix, but that is exactly what Jackson is.
When most riders might have hobbled into the velodrome vowing never to go to war on the cobbles…