Auchy-lez-Orchies à Bersée
Cobbled sector · Roubaix
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part of: The pavé of Paris–Roubaix
Auchy-lez-Orchies à Bersée is a 2.7 km cobbled sector in Roubaix, essentially level (+14 m over its full length). It is 2.3 km of cobbles, the rest asphalt.
Sector 12, 2.7 km at four stars, three cobbled stretches strung together deep in the finale. Cancellara accelerated here on the way to his 2013 win, and the 2026 race was decided on it: Pogačar came across to Van Aert just before the entrance and the two were clear with 53 km to go. Riders describe it as the passage that punishes hardest this late in the race.
2.7 km · level · +14 m · 2.3 km cobbled · 42 → 56 m
Route and surface read from OpenStreetMap, elevation from satellite data — approximate.
Download GPX ↓Navigate to the start ↗
Elevation is drawn to the same scale on every segment, so a level sector looks level. The bands beneath the line are surface, not gradient.
History
Sector 12 in the modern race, 2.7 km at four stars, strings together three separate cobbled stretches: the pavé de Metz (800 m, Auchy-lez-Orchies), the pavé du Bar (400 m, Cappelle-en-Pévèle) and, after 100 m of asphalt, the pavé du Nouveau Monde (1,400 m along Bersée's rue du Nouveau Monde). The pavé du Bar has carried Paris-Roubaix since 1980, while the Nouveau Monde stretch fell out of the route three times, in 2001, 2007 and 2008, when its condition was judged too poor to race; Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix rebuilt it and the race returned in 2009, and further renovation at Bersée has since been used to lengthen the cobbled distance of the finale while keeping the same line. Fabian Cancellara accelerated hard here on the way to his 2013 win, and the move cost him as much as it gained: it shed most of his own team and left him isolated for the rest of the day. In 2026 Wout van Aert attacked just before the entrance to the sector, Tadej Pogačar came across and went past him, and the surge was too much for Mads Pedersen; with 53 km to go the two were clear and were never caught, Van Aert winning in the velodrome. The Nouveau Monde has served the Tour de France too: on stage 5 in 2014 it was ridden the other way, from Bersée toward Cappelle-en-Pévèle, and it was there that Jurgen Van Den Broeck and Andrew Talansky crashed while Lars Boom and Sep Vanmarcke slipped away, Boom going on to win the stage.
What it’s like to ride
Auchy-lez-Orchies to Bersée is two stretches of pavé with about 100 m of asphalt between them, 2.7 km in all, rated four stars, and the two halves ride nothing alike. It starts badly: the first 1.2 km through Auchy and Cappelle-en-Pévèle is a false flat rising on degraded stone that shakes hard, the part that hurts legs and bikes, and its back end is irregular enough to be genuinely difficult to ride. The Pavé du Nouveau Monde that follows, 1.4 km along the rue du Nouveau Monde into Bersée, is wider, less broken and fast enough that amateurs who ride it call it fairly rolling, but it runs a chain of right-angle corners through open fields, and the curves at the end force you to keep relaunching when your arms are already gone. The approach is narrow and above all windy, and coming this deep into the race it is the passage riders describe as the hardest physically and the most punishing mentally. In the wet you have to stay up on the crown of the stones: the gutters fill, and there is standing water on the inside line at the 90 degree left. The one to know is the right-angle turn over a yellow brick speed bump in Bersée, the trap of the sector.
Surface and what to expect
2.3 km of cobbles, the rest asphalt.
- Cobbleskm 0.0–1.1
- Cobbleskm 1.5–2.7
More to ride in Roubaix
Common questions
- How long is Auchy-lez-Orchies à Bersée?
- Auchy-lez-Orchies à Bersée is a 2.7 km cobbled sector in Roubaix, essentially level (+14 m over its full length). It is 2.3 km of cobbles, the rest asphalt.
- What is the surface like on Auchy-lez-Orchies à Bersée?
- Auchy-lez-Orchies à Bersée is 2.3 km of cobbles, the rest asphalt, measured from OpenStreetMap surface tags along the route.
- Is Auchy-lez-Orchies à Bersée flat?
- Effectively, yes. It gains 14 m across 2.7 km — an average of 0.5%.