Tour of Britain Feature: Matt Holmes (Madison Genesis)

Matt Holmes of Madison Genesis showed in the Tour of Yorkshire (5th 2017) that he can ride with the World Tour riders and in the Tour of Britain his goal again is a good GC ride – we speak about the race

Tour of Britain Feature: Matt Holmes (Madison Genesis)

Matt has ridden the Tour of Britain three times and in 2016 had his best GC result with 66th. In 2018, Matt has spent a lot of time out with injury. I remember an interview at a race in July where he mentioned he was on the way back and got in a breakaway even though the legs were not quite ready for it. They are now. His second place at the GP Lucien Van Impe was a sign he is ready for the GC challenge at the Tour of Britain.

The winner of that race, GP Lucien Van Impe, was former Belgium champion Oliver Naesen who anyone who has watched the classics will know is a classy rider (6th in Gent Wevelgem). Word from someone watching the GP Lucien Van Impe was that when Naesen attacked, the only rider to go with him was Matt Holmes. A good sign of good legs for sure.

“It wasn’t a very big race”, Matt explained at Ryedale, adding “there were a few World Tour riders there though and I felt really strong. I felt strong in all the races we did there and I think it was only positioning that let me down because I didn’t know the roads.”

“I felt strong today too (at Ryedale) but I had teammates up the road so I didn’t have to do anything”.

So how was the injury I asked? “I am really good now. I attacked on the last lap today and just rode off although I don’t think anyone chased! In the Tour of Britain, I’ll just ride for GC and I think the only challenge we’ll face is the team time trial. I’ve not ridden my time trial bike yet but it’s only 14k so I shouldn’t lose too much time and we have a strong team for climbing so we should be good”.

“We’ll know after the first few days how I’m going to be for GC.”

Matt, from the North West, then explained how we went to look at the finish climb (Whinlatter) for the Cumbrian stages in the Lake District adding that he was glad he’d seen both sides of it. Asked how he’d like the race to be – controlled or a free for all, he replied “I need the race to be hard and I think it will be just that this year. If the race gets blown to bits, that will be good for me to move up the GC”.

Having been injured, Matt hasn’t as yet had a close look at the route as he didn’t want to get his hopes up and then not get selected but with an easy week ahead, he says he’ll be checking a lot of it out this week. And the team he says have been very good in the lead up to the race.

“Colin has been good in saying if I can get my fitness back, I’ll be in for the Tour of Britain. So the preparation has been really good and I’m just hoping now after today (in the rain) I don’t get a cold or anything. I’m feeling strong after the racing too and I needed that so we’ll see. If we stay healthy, we’ll have a really strong team for the race. ”

Good luck to Matt and the Madison Genesis lads …