Prior to starting his final race of the season at the Tour of Lombardy this Sunday, Simon Geschke of Giant-Shimano took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to CyclingQuotes.com about his 2015 objectives, the World Championships and Alpecin.

Geschke finished 39th in the World Championships Road Race, a decent result considering the conditions and length of the race, although what made it more special was that Geschke had spent the day working for John Degenkolb, his teammate at Giant-Shimano, who eventually finished ninth, second place in the bunch kick behind Alexander Kristoff as Michal Kwiatkowski won the Rainbow Jersey.

“The worlds are always special and I’m always proud to represent my home country in this race. This year it was even more special because with John we had a leader who was a favorite for the win.”

Geschke has had a great 2014, winning the GP du Canton d’Argovie, securing his first win since a stage of the 2011 Criterium International. But his real stand out performances came in the Ardennes Classics and in some big Italian races.

The German finished sixth in Amstel Gold and was the first rider across the line that wasn’t part of the leading group that formed over the Cauberg chasing down winner Philippe Gilbert. Four days prior to that he was fourth in the small group sprint at Brabantse Pijl, again behind Gilbert. He backed this up by just missing out on the top 20 in Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and this result would likely have been better had the race been raced in a more aggressive fashion. 

He also showed his powers of recovery in March when he finished tenth in Strade Bianche and the very next day took ninth in Roma Maxima. Both races are tough and are just under 200km and as a result, most riders are only tough enough to do one of the events. The Strade performance was even more special as he helped teammates Warren Barguil to eighth and Tom Dumoulin to 12th. 

He has also been close to an elusive WorldTour win this year, first of all putting in the ride of his career to almost beat Alberto Contador on the insanely steep Muro di Guardiagrele in Tirreno-Adriatico but he just couldn’t stay with the Spaniard’s final acceleration, yet Geschke fought on and was catching Contador again all the way to the line but eventually the German ran out of road. Then, on the eleventh stage of the Giro d’Italia, Geschke won the bunch sprint into Savona. The only complication being that Michael Rogers had crossed the line 10 seconds earlier, meaning that another Tinkoff-Saxo rider denied him his win. 

These results show just how versatile Geschke is and his first WorldTour win is not far away. 

Geschke has been developing over the last few years as a rider who can really challenge in the one-day races and on individual stages. As for his 2015 objectives, he makes it clear that while results in stage races would be nice, but he is focused solely on the Classics.

“(My objectives are to) Mainly develop further. I want to work on my strength in one-day races and hope to score better results than this year.”

The 28 year old also spoke about what it felt like knowing that thanks to Alpecin coming on board his team to become Giant-Alpecin for 2015, the team has secured its safety in cycling while other teams like Vaconsoleil, Euskaltel and, most recently, Cannondale, have all disappeared from the sport.

“It's a relief, after the situation last winter where everything was uncertain with the team. I'm especially happy to see a German company investing in cycling again. There is still almost no public attention for Cycling in Germany. I hope that it will change in the future.”

And if Geschke continues his upwards trajectory in the Ardennes Classics next season, and with the help of his successful sprint teammates Jonh Degenkolb and Marcel Kittel, as well as the progression of Nikias Arndt and the success of other Germans in the WorldTour like Andre Greipel and Tony Martin, cycling is sure to come back to Germany, where it belongs.