After saying he wants to return to the Cobbled Classics, Philippe Gilbert has said he will ride them once again, but not in 2015.

“I said I would like to go back to the pavé before I retire, but not in 2015. I am not finishing my career next year,” Gilbert said at a team camp in Spain. “My best choices now are doing the explosive races, like Lombardia, Sanremo, and Liège. When I start losing that, then I go to the northern classics. It’s impossible to do both. If you go hard in those races on the cobbles, I don’t know if you can be at the top for the Ardennes the next week.”

Gilbert hasn’t participated in the last two Flanders and missed the last seven Roubaixs.

“My dream is to win Liège another time, but I will always do better at Amstel Gold Race. I love the Cauberg. It’s my favorite climb in the world,” Gilbert said of the finishing climb at Amstel Gold. “If the finish was still in Maastricht, I would have never won it. You can take the Cauberg with the big ring, with big power, and high speed. It’s perfect for my characteristics.”

One race the 32-year-old thinks could suit him once more, is Milan-Sanremo, with the changes to the parcours being more suited to an attacker.

“I would like to do well in Sanremo, now they’ve ‘fixed’ the parcours to the one I like the most,” he said. “It’s a better race when we go faster. When there were more climbs, everyone was waiting. A faster race is harder. And without the La Maniè, it’s harder because the group really has to chase to bring back the breakaway.”

Gilbert has always been an attacker and he says he will not change that style in 2015, regardless of what people say about it.

“My way of racing is attacking. I like it when riders go on the attack, and try things,” he said. “I like the way [Peter] Sagan is racing. He receives a lot of criticism, because he lost a few stages, but that’s what people like to see, riders attacking. … A rider like [Alejandro] Valverde, he never wants to go on the attack. He is always defending, and staying with the others, but he is always hard to beat.”

“I don’t race to show people anything,” he said. “I do it for myself, and for my team. I still enjoy it. I can play on the bike, and when it’s time to train and race, I still really enjoy it.”