One of the oldest bike races in the world, this third monument of the season comes just 1 week after the Tour of Flanders and will be raced on 13 April.

The race, founded in 1896, will be in its 113th year in 2015, with the Belgian’s again taking the majority of wins over the race’s history with 55 wins. The race is always approximately 260km and traditionally features 27 sections of cobbles, typically making up around 50km of the overall route.

The cobbles start after the first 100km and continue until the finish of the race. Making this race one of the toughest in the world as well as being one of the most prestigious. 

Paris-Roubaix helped to revolutionise bike manufacturing, forcing companies to change frame design and cycling components to create designs that are still seen today in the carbon fibre bikes of the peloton.

Tom Boonen is tied with Roger de Vlaeminck with 4 wins, and it is almost a certainty that Boonen will be there again in 2015 to try and become the race’s most common winner.

Although called Paris-Roubaix the race hasn’t started in Paris since the 1960s, instead starting in Compiegne which sits 80km North of the capital. The race always finishes in the outdoor velodrome in Roubaix though, where last year’s victor Niki Terpstra won by 20 seconds.

Dubbed the ‘Hell of the North’ not because of the race’s difficulty – although many professionals do consider it the toughest one-day race in the calendar. It was called the ‘Hell of the North’ after some journalists travelled the route in 1919 to find how much of the route survived after the First World War, and they were shocked at the devastation they saw.

In 2015 there are a number of riders who will want to add cycling’s oldest race to their list of Palmares, Britain’s Geraint Thomas not least amongst them. Britain has never had a rider win the race.

Thomas won the Junior Paris-Roubaix in 2004 and came seventh last year, and he will be hoping to complete with the likes of John Degenkolb, Sep Vanmarcke and Zdenek Stybar for the crown of the cobbles.