Irish road race champion Matt Brammeier is ready to continue playing a supporting role in the upcoming Amstel Gold and Liège-Bastogne-Liège Classics, and is enjoying a strong race programme with the HTC Highroad team.
“I’m doing Amstel and Liège for the team,” he told VeloNation. “They will be one for the climbers, so I will probably just be playing a support role early on in the races. I am not too sure yet what the team will want me to do; maybe they’ll ask me to try to get into an early breakaway and then help the guys out in the latter stages.
“I’m not sure exactly who will be the protected guys, but we have quite a lot of good climbers on the team. Tony Martin and Kanstantsin Siutsou are pretty good at that.”
The 25 year old is in his first year with the squad and has got a vote of confidence in being asked to ride some of the biggest single day events in the sport.
He finished his first Paris-Roubaix on Sunday, and while several factors meant he was outside the time cut, he said that he was very satisfied with the experience.
“It was awesome…it was some experience,” he told VeloNation. “Just the atmosphere around it, just how crazy it was and the stress and everything. It was everything that I expected it be, really.”
The first part of the race went precisely to plan, although he said that it was unusual for him not to be trying to get into the early breaks, but rather to wait and support Matt Goss and Bernie Eisel. He stayed out of trouble early on, then things started getting trickier for him. “I managed to avoid everything until we hit Arenberg. I got there in a real good position, 15th position or something, in front of Cancellara and Hushovd, and thought ‘I’ve made it,” he told VeloNation. “But some guy crashed right in front of me. I hit him and my front wheel blew out.
“I didn’t hurt myself, but I had to stop. I tried to get going again, then I crashed again because I had a puncture. I had to wait quite a while for the car to come, then I got going. However Boonen punctured and the whole world stopped there; his team car stopped and they opened all the doors, all the motorbikes were there too, so I couldn’t get through. I had to stop and wait again.”
The rest of the race was by this time speeding ahead, and so he knew that he would face a big chase to get back on. Things might have been okay but he was then asked to play the team role and to support one of the three protected riders on the HTC Highroad squad.
“I came out of the forest and was in an okay group…I was with a few guys who did get back on to the peloton, but I had to wait for Matt Goss as he had snapped his chain. By that time it was too late…it was all over. Me and one of my team-mates, Gatis Smukulis, then rode to the finish together.”
Brammeier hopes to continue improving at the race in the years ahead, and hopes to get to the point where he can target strong results in it. “It suits me well, I felt really comfortable on the cobbles themselves. I felt strong,” he said, clearly having enjoyed the experience. “It is definitely something I would like to focus on in the next few years.”