Paris-Roubaix Fan Fiction: Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s Dance in Hell
No radios. No orders. Just mud, mayhem, and one perfectly timed Bluetooth hack. A fan-fiction reimagining of Paris-Roubaix Femmes.
Dear readers,
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is back on the road—and back on form. After years of dominating off-road, she’s landed on the podium at both Strade Bianche and Flanders, signaling a serious shot at the cobbled crown of Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift. Her past credentials speak volumes: Flèche Wallonne 2014 winner, multi-discipline world champion, and now, arguably, Visma-Lease a Bike’s most versatile weapon.
I’ve been so impressed with her comeback, I couldn’t help but imagine what it might look like if she did win the Hell of the North this year. What follows is pure fan fiction—muddy, chaotic, a little unhinged, and full of heart. If you’ve ever wanted to see Bluetooth pressure hacks, cobble queens battling demons, or the velodrome turned into a final stage of destiny, you’re in the right place.
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Thanks for reading! 🙏 –Rosael
💥 PFP’s Dance in Hell: A Paris-Roubaix Femmes Fan Fiction Story 💥
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot—or as the cycling world calls her, PFP, short for Please Find Pavé—had retired from mountain biking after hoarding more rainbow jerseys than a unicorn convention. The media said her return to road racing with Visma-Lease a Bike was all about the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. But PFP had a secret.
As if she had never left, the Frenchwoman had already podiumed at Strade Bianche and Flanders this season. And while others studied summit finishes, she had dreams about sliding sideways through Carrefour de l’Arbre and surfing mud like it was Crans-Montana. She didn’t just want to win Paris-Roubaix. She wanted to conquer it.
There was only one small problem: her teammate, Marianne Vos, still had unfinished business with the cobbles.
In 2021, the Dutchwoman had come within seconds of winning the very first edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes—only to watch a bloody handed Lizzie Deignan ride away into the mud-caked history books. Since then? DNFs. Crashes. A fourth-place. No podiums. Just ghosts in the pavé.
Roubaix haunted Vos. And now, her team’s returning legend—the multi-discipline superstar with a suspiciously perfect jawline and blonde ponytail—wanted the same crown she couldn’t quite reach.
The vibe was civil. But Vos was the queen, the boss, the team’s GOAT. And yet, beneath the cozy surface of post-race espressos and tire pressure banter, there was tension. Quiet. Sophisticated. Very European.
Race Day: Saturday, April 11
Weather: Biblical.
It rained so hard the cows in the fields were wearing ponchos. The kind of rain that doesn’t just soak your chamois—it questions your life choices.
Visma’s radios gave up early. Water-logged and useless. The team car may as well have been sending messages by cootie catchers.
And then the chaos began. From the first cobbled sectors, the peloton went full demolition derby.
By sector five, the peloton looked like a scene from Fast & Furious. Bikes everywhere. Dreams shattered. Riders yelling at mechanics in four languages.
Somehow, PFP and Vos made the first elite split. A group of 15 cobble-hardened demons, including:
Puck Pieterse, who laughed in the face of ruts.
Zoe Bäckstedt, born on a cobble.
Lotte Kopecky, riding like she owed the rainbow jersey a second Roubaix win.
Lorena Wiebes, who should NOT be able to ride pavé this well, and yet.
No one could hear their directors. No one knew who was chasing. It was chaos—and PFP thrived in it. Meanwhile, Vos sat tight. Watching. Waiting.
45 km to go. The cobbles were shaking riders loose like change in a dryer.
Marianne Vos was still there, mud-slicked and silent, sitting second wheel. PFP tucked in behind her, both of them floating through chaos with the kind of grace only years of bike-handling nightmares could teach.
Then Vos started fading. Not out of strength, but out of air.
“Something’s wrong,” she told Pauline. “My tyres feel like marshmallows.”
The Gravaa adjustable pressure system had failed. Again. Waterlogged. Dead.
Vos was tapping her bars like they were an old TV remote. Nothing.
Ahead of them, Kopecky, Wiebes, and the others started pulling away. Fast.
PFP pulled up alongside, glanced at Vos’s wheels, then at her own smartwatch. An idea hit her like a crosswind.
“Hold still,” she said. “I’m gonna try something.”
She tapped into her Gravaa app—one she barely remembered downloading two days before Flanders—and prayed the Bluetooth still worked. A faint ping. Then another.
“I think I’m in your hub,” she said.
“You’re what?”
She swiped to the ‘Custom Pressure’ tab and hit the middle setting. Vos’s bike hissed softly.
The Queen of the Classics blinked. “Is this legal?”
PFP just grinned. “It’s Roubaix, babe.”
Vos tested the new pressure with a few pedal strokes, then surged back onto the wheels ahead—but the effort to regain position on the unforgiving pavé cost her. She’d burned a few matches. Maybe more than a few.
PFP looked over. Vos met her eyes. No words. Just a nod.
It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but PFP felt it. Vos was handing over the torch.
She’d missed out in 2021. Fumbled every Roubaix since. But today? Today she’d trust karma and ride for someone else.
Someone who knew how to connect Bluetooth in a thunderstorm.
Someone who was hungry and ready.
20 km to go: Carrefour de l’Arbre.
This is where careers go to die—or get etched into cycling legend.
PFP had heard it minutes earlier, shouted from a moto pilot as he roared past on the shoulder:
“Van Dijk is coming. Solo. She’s flying.”
Ellen van Dijk. Time trial engine. Queen of the long-range comeback. And furious, apparently.
Pauline tucked the information away like a spare gel. She didn’t tell Vos. Didn’t tell anyone.
Because as the breakaway slowed—everyone marking each other, not wanting to work, waiting for someone else to burn their matches—she saw the opening.
Vos was watching Kopecky.
Kopecky was watching Wiebes.
Wiebes was watching her own legs in disbelief.
And PFP? She looked up the road, felt the cobbles buzz under her tires, and made her decision.
No radio. No warning. No glance back. She stood on the pedals and sent it.
With Ellen thundering behind and hesitation gripping the front group like a cramp, it was now or never.
PFP rode like she was being hunted—because she was.
Somewhere after Camphin-en-Pévèle, vision blurred by rain and effort, she risked a glance over her shoulder.
For a heartbeat, she saw goats.
A stampede of them, thundering down the cobbles. Cloven hooves striking stone. Devil eyes locked on her. Ravenous.
They weren’t just chasing her. They were her—peers, past, ghosts. Every version she’d ever outrun or become. Her fire.
She blinked, shook them off, and fixed her eyes on the road ahead.
“Don’t look back,” she muttered. “Not until the velodrome.”
Final kilometer.
She entered the Roubaix velodrome alone. Mud-caked. Shaking. Every muscle screaming. But her face? Calm. Joyful. As if the suffering was just a tax she’d already budgeted for.
Behind her, the fight for second erupted like a tavern brawl.
Kopecky launched first, but her sprint fizzled halfway through turn one—legs gone.
Wiebes tried to come around, her wheels fishtailing slightly on the still-damp concrete.
Puck Pieterse bunny-hopped the blue line and nearly made it stick.
And Vos? She waited. Waited. Then pounced like a chess master who’d memorized the last five moves.
PFP crossed the line and threw her arms up—not in triumph, but like someone saying: I’m back, b*tches.
Seconds later, Kopecky edged out Pieterse for second by half a wheel. Vos, with one final burst, slid into third, just behind them—no fist pump, no gesture. Just a tired smile.
She rolled up beside her mud-caked teammate, stopped her bike, and didn’t say a word—just wrapped her arms around PFP and whispered:
“Hell looks good on you.”
Later, in the post-race scrum, a reporter asked if this meant Pauline was now targeting yellow at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
She smiled, eyes still flecked with grit.
“Yes,” she said. “Now I can think about yellow.”
Epilogue: Post-Race Shower
The steam rose like ghosts in the legendary Roubaix showers—cracked tiles, cold stone, history soaked into every spout. PFP sat on a bench, still caked in mud from the neck down. The water hadn’t quite reached her yet. She was letting it all sink in.
Across the aisle, Vos rinsed off the dirt from her arms. No words yet. Just the quiet drip of victory. And bruises.
PFP finally reached for the handle and turned the shower on. It hissed alive with the pressure of a thousand post-race legends. Then—
A muffled scream echoed down the shower row. One of the soigneurs read the headline aloud before even thinking:
BREAKING: Taylor Swift to Replace Zwift as Title Sponsor of the Tour de France Femmes Starting in 2026
Tour de France (Taylor’s Version) will include surprise stages, friendship bracelet exchanges, and a surprise acoustic set atop the Col du Tourmalet.
Silence. Then—
“I knew I should’ve kept my Eras merch bag,” PFP muttered.
Vos raised her eyebrows. “You’re not even a Swiftie.”
PFP shrugged. “Who said that? The goats? They lie.”
Somewhere down the row, a Alison Jackson muttered, “Guess I better start choreographing a new podium routine.”
PFP smiled, leaned back, and enjoyed the shower.
“I’ve suffered for Roubaix. Next year, I sparkle for France.”
The end.
And she actuall won!!!
I had no idea that anyone else cared this much.🔔🔔🔔