We all knew Matthew Brennan was good. His breathtakingly fast rise to cycling’s top table has been well-documented and almost impossible to ignore – the young Brit has demanded attention with his five race wins already this season, including in the prestigious one-day race GP Denain, as well as two stages of WorldTour race Volta Ciclista a Catalunya. Robbert de Groot, head of development at Visma-Lease a Bike, told Rouleur a few weeks ago that Brennan had “blown the team away” with his performances. Even back then – before what happened in Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix – their amazement at their young talent was understandable. Now, after Brennan showed what he could do at the Hell of the North, Visma-Lease a Bike will be even more certain that they have a future Monument winner in their ranks.
It's understandable that despite Brennan's year so far, Wout van Aert was ‘plan A’ for the Dutch team at Roubaix – he’s finished on the podium in this race before and proved with his fourth place at the Tour of Flanders last week that he can still compete with the best in the biggest one-day races. On paper, he should have been the rider in the front group when the race really kicked off. There should have been no question about who Visma-Lease a Bike would support for victory. But Matthew Brennan, with his extraordinary talent, is defying the rules.
To the surprise of many, the yellow jersey at the pointy end of Paris-Roubaix when it started to split as crucial attacks came in the opening half of the race was not that of Van Aert, but instead it was his 19-year-old teammate. Brennan, the youngest rider in the entire race, was well-positioned when he needed to be, riding the cobbles with the same skill and souplesse as a seasoned professional, despite being in his debut participation.
“To be in the position that I was in when you’re left with 20 guys and you look around and they're the best guys in the peloton, then you know you've done something right,” an exhausted Brennan smiled after the race, his face stained with dust and grime.
“It was more of a plan just to see how far I could get and then try and support Wout, but I think he maybe struggled on the sectors earlier on whereas I felt a little bit better. He told me to go for my own opportunity which was really nice and he started to work a bit for me in order to keep the pace going.”
Eventually, Brennan’s inexperience and age made the difference that was to be expected, and after 200 kilometres of racing he was definitively distanced from the front group: “The parachutes came out a little bit and unfortunately I couldn’t continue at the pace they were going. I said to Wout that I didn't feel great and I couldn’t go on anymore and he should look after himself,” he admitted. “But that's part of the game, I’m still young, so to be in that position is really quite a confidence booster for the future.”
Right now, Matthew Brennan’s future looks blindingly bright: he may not have been able to hold on to Van Aert’s group at the end of Roubaix, but he’s already emulating his teammate who has close to a decade more experience in the professional peloton than he does. The British rider can excel on such varied terrain already, be it an uphill sprint of a stage race or the hardest one-day Classic on the calendar – what he will be able to do with more endurance and race miles in his legs is an exciting and frightening prospect.
“I think this is the furthest ride I've actually ever done. I think to be able to do that and race is something different. It's completely different to race 200k compared to 260k – that last hour is always a killer, and especially on a course like this,” Brennan said. “It just never ends until the finish line. I think you just run out of bullets, explosivity and get generally tired – if you don’t, then you're a weirdo! Once you drop, it’s the mental aspect of 50km on your own to try and get back home.”
Although Brennan might not have been rewarded with the result he was looking for after he battled to the iconic velodrome, the gravity of what he had completed was not lost on him. He’d ridden at the front of the hardest, most epic, brutal Classic on the calendar, mixing it with the likes of Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel – two of the greatest cyclists of this generation. Paris-Roubaix, Brennan admits, is a remarkable bike race, and he’ll be back for more.
“All the way it was special, you’ve got hundreds and thousands of people shouting your name. When you’re on your own you get loads of people cheering you on, it’s so nice to see,” he grinned. “I knew it would start to bite at some point, but still, it was such a nice day.”
Cover image: Visma-Lease a Bike
