Matt Brammeier appears in good form and has raced and trained very well of late. He's now looking forward to the cobbled classics and hopefully the Tour de France.
By Shane Stokes
Matt Brammeier has spent recent days taking things a little easier than usual, using a break after Paris-Nice in England to help get things ready for his upcoming wedding.
He’s not slacking off, though; the Dimension Data rider dug in deep in the French race to help get himself ready for his first big season goal.
Riding strongly in the Classics is a priority for him, and he feels he is in a good place.
“Paris-Nice was good. It was a good, hard race,” he told stickybottle.
“From the team situation we didn’t have a big leader there, and we obviously lost Nathan Haas.
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“He was up for a couple of stages but had a couple of crashes. So it was a bit shit results-wise.
“Personally I was happy. I had a good few hard days in and got in a couple of breakaways, which should stand me in good stead for the next few weeks.”
Brammeier is a multiple Irish road race champion and is now back competing at WorldTour level after his team – formerly known as MTN Qhubeka – stepped up to the top ranks this year.
He is an important part of the squad, having both the ability to go on the attack from far out and also to slot into the lead-out for sprinters such as Mark Cavendish.
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The latter joined the team this year and will be one of the big sprint contenders in the Tour de France.
Brammeier has never ridden the race, but told stickybottle earlier this year that he is aiming to be part of the selection this July.
Riding well in the Classics would do that goal no harm at all.
“Things are going very well,” he said, talking about his build-up. “Hopefully I will come out of this next recovery block feeling pretty good and going into the next block strong.
“I will be doing all of the WorldTour one day Classics on the cobbles. Like Harelbeke, Wevelgem, Flanders, Roubaix and possibly Scheldeprijs.
“So yeah, fingers crossed for them. This is the first time I have had a chance to do a big tough stage race like Paris-Nice before the Classics.
“Hopefully I can do a good job and we can get Edvald Boasson Hagen his win in the next few weeks.”
Brammeier will also hope to show well, not least after riding prominently in last year’s Tour of Flanders.
He attacked early on and won a very unusual prize, netting his weight in beer when he was first to a specially-designated intermediate sprint.
This time around he believes he will be in better condition thanks to riding Paris-Nice and, fortunately, is feeling no ill effects at all from a very severe crash in the Tour of Utah last August.
He’s fully recovered from that and things are back on track. While his thoughts are at times on wedding plans, the 30 year old is very much focussed on showing his Classic ability next month on the cobbles.
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