After his breakthrough successes at the GP de Denain and the Volta a Catalunya, Matthew Brennan's race program will now include the Limburg Classic and the Tour de Romandie this sprint.
The Visma-Lease a Bike rider's boosted schedule comes after the 19-year-old took multiple successes in France and Catalunya, first winning the GP de Denain, then taking the opening stage win in the Volta, as well as second place and maintaining the race lead on stage 2.
Brennan told Cyclingnews that he was also very satisfied with how he had handled the mountainous stage 3, where despite losing the top spot overall, he was nonetheless dealing with the most climbing in a single day of his career to date.
The British racer is also thinking about going for the win again on the flat stage 5 of the Volta a Catalunya. But as he pointed out to Cyclingnews, there will be no pressure, given he's already achieved more than enough to make this week a major achievement - and not just in the sprints, either.
"We didn't expect too much yesterday [stage 3] in terms of how far I'd get but we got a lot further than I thought I would," Brennan said about a day with 5,000 metres of vertical climbing. "We just decided best to switch off the engines, pedal easy, once you're you're home. It was a good sign of good form.."
Brennan had never previously tackled so much climbing in one day as on stage 3 of the Volta, including the 22-kilometre ascent of the hors categorie Col de la Creueta and the 12.2-kilometre summit finish at La Molina.
"I've done hilly stages with long climbs, but never something quite like that. The first hour was pretty hard and once everyone stopped it chilled out a bit, but then once we got going again, there was no rest."
"It was always pedalling, always on, that wore you down quite a lot. Then two to three hours in, you think to yourself 'Ach three hours left, we're halfway to go, that's still a long way."
Fortunately, time passes once you hit the climbs, so you focus on that, and it ends up being ok."
Stage 5's flat run through the Empordà in southern Catalonia is very exposed throughout, so the opportunities for echelons - already briefly present late on stage 2 - are once again possible. As Brennan says, while it's very hard to know how the stage will play out, and he'll be looking for a second win, the race could well end up overlapping with the ongoing GC battle.
"We had a little look already at the stage, there'll be a lot of wind around so it's going to be pretty chaotic," he said, "But the idea is to go for a sprint again. It depends a bit on other teams wanting to do that as well."
"It's also going to be quite competitive as a GC day as well, so it could be quite a hectic bunch sprint. But as long as everyone stays safe that's the main thing."
Come what may, he agreed, the pressure is definitely off after such a dramatically successful ten days, starting at GP de Denain and then continuing with the Volta a Catalunya.
"I spoke to someone back at home - Paul, a guy I've grown up with, who's been a really good mentor following my journey - and he said no matter what happens now, you can tick off what you needed to do here, look back and be really happy with what you achieved."
"My first pro victory, first World Tour victory, my first World Tour lead and to be in the leader's jersey for three days since started. So far I've never been in the normal Visma kit in this race, and that's quite an achievement already."
As might be expected, so much success is inevitably leading to a raising of the bar and when asked if his race program had been tweaked as a result, Brennan said that rather than what was originally planned, he's now looking at doing another WorldTour race, the Tour of Romandie.
"We'll do the Volta Limberg, and then head to Romandie. It's got a similar profile to here, so there's a few stages where maybe I can do something," he said, "I'm looking forward to it."
