The Coffee Ride #158, with Reece Homfray

LUKE Roberts is an Olympic gold medallist and former pro but admits even he is an awe of Michael Matthews after what he did at this year’s Tour de France.

Michael Matthews after securing the green jersey at this year’s Tour de France. Picture: Chris Graythen (Getty).

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ROBERTS IN AWE OF MATTHEWS

IN HIS office at home in Germany Luke Roberts has a pink jersey, a green jersey and a polkadot jersey on the wall - all from this year - but he wants one more, well two actually.

The Australian Olympic gold medallist is a sports director with professional team Sunweb which won the men’s and women’s team time trial at the world championships on Sunday.

Now he hopes the second rainbow jersey will be secured by Michael Matthews in the men’s road race in Bergen, Norway, this weekend.

Sunweb has taken all before it this year. Starting with the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in January, it also won the pink jersey at the Giro d’Italia with Tom Dumoulin in May, the green and pollkadot jerseys at the Tour de France with Matthews and Warren Barguil in July and last week’s TTT’s were the cherry on top.

It came as a surprise to some but not to Roberts or the team at Sunweb who had been hatching a two-year plan to nail the discipline with a flawless performance when it mattered most.

“We all worked together to develop our strategy and ideas and ways to perform in a team time trial,” Roberts said.

“We have a sport scientist as well looking into different techniques and ways to perform better, Adriaan Helmantel is our head trainer on the team and he’s invested quite a lot of time into gathering the information and piecing it together.

“In the selection that we made we left out some pretty damn good team time triallists, because we decided to go with some smaller, punchier guys to suit that parcours, as opposed to last year in Doha a flat, fast road.

“We had the idea to include Michael (Matthews) in the beginning, we knew he’d raced with Orica before and can do a really good time trial, and knowing the team time trial is a lot about not only your performance as a time triallist but also pushing the amount of watts you have to on the front, then it’s effort and recovery which is suited well to Michael.

“A couple of people asked me on Saturday ‘who’s going to win’ and I said ‘we will’ and I was hoping for the upset but those guys are good bike riders, had a good strategy and I was not entirely surprised that they won in the end.

“The women’s team set the bar for the men and I think that also played a role in their confidence. The women were not favourites going in and they had a training camp together last week to fine tune their skills and again it’s that shared knowledge of the entire team.”

Matthews has structured his training to target the road race at the world championships on Sunday. Picture: Chris Graythen (Getty).

Roberts, who retired from professional cycling in 2014, joined Sunweb as a director in 2015 and is a key part of the team.

Given he works closely with Matthews who is leading Australia’s men’s team in Sunday’s road race at the worlds, Roberts is flying in to Norway to join Brad McGee as his assistant.

“I’m his (Matthews) responsible coach at Sunweb and worked with him pretty closely with his goals and in particular the green jersey project we had, there was a lot of communication with him, making a plan and structuring the training towards that,” Roberts said.

“Just to give him a really clear idea because the more clear a picture you can paint for him the more confidence he has in himself and then he does perform better.

“It’s something I gave to Brad quite early, I want to help him get the best out of Michael and we decided I would be involved and help.”

Roberts always knew Matthews was an amazing talent but admits he has been left in awe after working alongside him so closely this season.

“I knew he had talent but what I saw on some days of this year’s Tour de France it even surprised me,” he said.

“It was quite unbelievable how well he can climb for a guy you would class as a sprinter.

“He could climb at the beginning of a stage with the best 20 guys, even one of the best.

“It takes quite a long climb or a big mountain stage until he’s dropping out of that select group, it’s pretty amazing what he can do.

“A long hard race won’t hurt him as much as other sprinters, so we hope for a select group there on Sunday and he is very fast so he’ll be in with a good shot at it.

“We’ve structured his training since the Tour de France, the type of training has been specifically for the worlds course and that sprint downhill, as opposed to the stages we targeted in the Tour de France with some being a kilometre uphill.”

Roberts believes Matthews will be at his optimal level come the weekend.

“He went to a three-week altitude camp (after the Tour) and was fifth at Bretagne which was a good sign.

“In Canada looking at that again he was right where we expected him to be, and his form would continue to build towards worlds.

“He is definitely right on track for where he should be and where we hope to have him at the maximum level, I think we can be pretty confident going into Sunday.”

Team manager Luke Roberts, sixth from left, with the Team Sunweb Tour Down Under riders earlier this year. Picture: Dean Martin

The Australian representation at Sunweb will grow even further next year when neo-pros Jai Hindley and Michael Storer graduate to the WorldTour with the squad, joining Roberts, Matthews and Chris Hamilton.

“I haven’t met Jai and Michael in person, I’ve had a little bit of contact with them since they’ve signed with the team but in our group we have one coach who is responsible for the scouting and he came to me asking about the Australians,” Roberts said.

“He has an idea of the type of riders we are looking for, I knew we need climbing support if the team wants to continue to grow as a GC team.

“And at the moment the strength and the depth of the Australian under-23 team is the best in the world so if we could pick one or two guys out of them we would have some good riders in there.”

SEE THE TDU LIKE A VIP

WITH the Beat Cancer Tour out of action for next year there is a new VIP experience at the Tour Down Under for keen cycling fans.

The ‘Platinum Club Tour’ is offering access to the team only areas of the TDU village in Victoria Square, hospitality suites at the finish line of stages, bus transfers, tickets to the Legend’s Night dinner, merchandise and a discounted entry to the Bupa Challenge Tour.

Next year’s TDU will be held from January 13-21 and will again include a world-class women’s race.

Cost of the Platinum Club Tour is $1395 per person for the nine days.

COMMENT: CA CRITICS WERE OFF THE MARK

Dutch superstar Annemiek van Vlueten, who rides professionally for Orica-Scott, is the number one ranked rider in the world. Picture: Sarah Reed.

ONE last thing in this week’s column following the outcry from cyclists and fans who were horrified at Cycling Australia’s decision to end its partnership with the Orica-Scott women’s team from next year.

They were either missing the point or their criticism was off the mark.

For the past six years CA, which is well known to have had its financial difficulties, has contributed up to $1 million towards the Orica women’s team by way of travel, coaching, facilities, equipment and vehicles.

Now it has been decided that that money, taxpayer money via funding from the Australian Sports Commission, could be better spent somewhere else and more closely aligned with CA’s ultimate objectives which are to win Olympic gold medals.

Professional cycling is a business and as much as CA’s money has helped riders such as Amanda Spratt, Gracie Elvin and Rachel Neylan stay in a job with their current team, there is no hiding from the fact that CA’s money has then also been funding the number one rider in the world in Dutchwoman Annemiek van Vlueten.

Van Vlueten almost won the Olympic gold medal for The Netherlands in Rio last year had it not been for a horrific crash in the closing stages.

How would that have helped CA’s case when answering the Winning Edge objectives to which it has been set?

There is no denying that women’s cycling is not as financially stable or secure as men’s and requires all the help it can get.

But is pouring anywhere from $750,000 to $1m a year into a professional team on the WorldTour the best way for CA to meet its objectives?

New performance director Simon Jones clearly doesn’t think so and as tough as it is for the team to accept I’m not sure they can argue.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK ...

It’s been a pretty phenomenal year really from one thing to the next.

- Tasmanian Madeleine Fasnacht after winning bronze in the under-19 women’s time trial at the road world titles.

I don’t feel nostalgia, I’m just happy for the way I finished my career by winning on the Angliru. It was the right time to leave.

- Alberto Contador who retired from the sport after the Vuelta a Espana.

It has always been a dream of mine to join the WorldTour and I couldn’t be happier to be making that step up with an Australian team.

- Lucas Hamilton on signing with Orica-Scott for next year.

Follow @reecehomfray

Originally published as The Coffee Ride #158, with Reece Homfray