Sport’s strangest hall of fame: Inside the Roubaix shower block

Fans of celebrities have the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and sports fans are usually able to visit a museum dedicated to their favourite team, but for cycling fans, an unassuming shower block in northern France acts as something of a combination of the two.

Constructed in the 1940’s the block sits a little way behind the final turn into the Roubaix Velodrome. If you didn’t know it was there you’d be unlikely to stumble across it, but even after battling over the toughest terrain road cycling can offer for hundreds of kilometres, riders trickle in, eschewing the more modern facilities on offer in their team buses. Why? It’s part of cycling folklore.