Picking rocks: Alison Jackson's journey from farm to Paris-Roubaix champion

For Paris-Roubaix avec Zwift winner Alison Jackson, Saturday's race represented something of a full-circle moment, despite the Canadian rider not having scored a top result in a cobbled Classic before the race.

Instead, the EF Education-Tibco-SVB rider evoked memories of her childhood on the farm back in Alberta in the post-race press conference. Clutching big rocks – such as the Paris-Roubaix cobblestone trophy – isn't a new experience for Jackson.

"I grew up on a farm in rural Alberta and one of the things I had to do as a kid was to go to the field and pick rocks by hand and put them in the truck," Jackson said inside the Jean Stablinski velodrome just across the road from the historic outdoor velodrome which hosts the race finish.

"Lo and behold I'm picking another rock today. My nephews, they'll go into the backfield and look for rocks to pick and have their own rock collection or just make sure that they're out of the field so that the farmers don't run into trouble. I think that they will really love and appreciate this trophy."

Jackson had spent the race out in the early breakaway which went inside the first 15km of action outside Denain. Usually, a move like that has little chance of staying away to the line at most major Classics, but this one was different.

With Canadian road and time trial titles plus a stage of the Simac Ladies Tour on her palmarès, Jackson was the most decorated rider in the 18-woman break, the move gaining six minutes on the peloton by the time they hit the first cobbled sector at Hornaing with 82km left to run.

It was a large gap, but one most would expect the likes of SD Worx and Trek-Segafredo to deal with ahead of a blockbuster finale. For a while, it looked as though things would turn out that way, though a mass crash in the chase 39km from the finish put paid to that briefly.

A resurgent chase group came within 10 seconds of the break in the final kilometres, but Jackson and the remains of the original move held on to contest the win in Roubaix.

"We were being chased down pretty hard in that last 5km," Jackson said. "Probably just four of us were actually working in in the group of seven or whatever we had. We came into the velodrome pretty fast.

"I was riding in second wheel and started my sprint at around 300 metres, another girl came around, but I could basically use that as slipstream and go a little higher on the track. Then I had the legs for it to come away with the win.

"I always say I love bike racing. I think it's so fun but there's a special type of fun when you win. And to win at such a big race with we're just building the history of it. Also as a Canadian, to win this race is pretty monumental for cycling in Canada.

"It's the biggest win of my career and a dream come true."

'Hopefully we can teach this little rock some dance moves'

Jackson's win cements a dream comeback from a crash at the Ronde van Drenthe in mid-March that left with a deep cut in her knee and four stitches to the wound.

She returned to racing for the Flandrian Classics of Gent-Wevelgem, Dwars door Vlaanderen, and the Tour of Flanders, though her injury still isn't totally healed. Bike racers have to be tough, Jackson explained.

"It's still healing," she said. "That's why I wear knee warmers while racing. I just have a patch and I have to keep it clean because it's not totally healed yet.

"But bikers do have to be tough. Crashing is a part of it, but we learn to be resilient, and you've got to keep going."

Jackson, who returned to EF this season having raced with the team in 2018 and 2019, certainly showed no signs of lingering injury as she raced in the breakaway on Saturday.

It was a move designed – astutely given the events that unfolded behind her – to avoid the carnage, crashes, and riding in the gutters that can come in the peloton.

"In Paris-Roubaix always getting ahead to the top positioning into the cobbles is going to be better and when you're in a smaller group there's less fighting," she said. "It had rained earlier this week so some of the cobbles were going to be wet, the gutters were going to be muddy. So just to get ahead, you're saving yourself from the the chances of bad luck or crashes, flats.

"In Paris-Roubaix, to ride in the break that early - if you watch the men's history, they can go really far. I just wanted to get ahead of Lotte Kopecky basically before some of these sectors. It's always a gamble."

Jackson was among the riders contributing to the work at the front of the break all race long and also put in a tester attack 21km out before later coming out on top in the final dash for that famous finish line.

Describing that finishing sprint, she said that she wasn't confident in taking the win, but she played the velodrome and its banking to her advantage.

"I was not so much confident in my sprint," Jackson said later. "I know I had a good sprint. I tried a number of times on the cobbles to really pull hard, and even some of the girls in that breakaway were telling me that I'm riding really strong. I knew that I would be one of the strongest in that group.

"But when you are that also means that you've got to play your cards and actually commit to using some of that energy to keep it away. So, I know that I have a good sprint. But, in the end, once you've been out in the breakaway for so long and you've been fighting for that 140km before you get there, to give it up at the end by playing it safe – that wasn't going to sit well with me.

"I'd rather get my heart out fully and then end up mid pack in that group or shy of the win than sit in and allow the group to catch us and still have minimal results. It's just the gamble of what sport is."

Away from racing, Jackson has documented her racing life, and shown off her own brand of dance moves on social media via TikTok, as well as dancing on the infield after crossing the line.

But will her new favourite rock feature in any upcoming videos?

"Oh, boy!" she exclaimed. "Well, this little rock here, hopefully we can teach him some dance moves.

"I'm going to do a few more push-ups to include it in some dances. But I think that we're just going to fully enjoy the win and then we'll see what comes up after that."