After starting 2015 on fire back home in Australia, the Classics didn’t go to plan for 31-year-old National Champion Heinrich Haussler.

“In Australia I felt really good and was hoping and thinking I’d come back to Europe and it would just continue going on like that,” he said in an interview with SBS Cycling.

“Normally in the really cold weather and bad conditions that’s where I kind of thrive, that’s where I really get my best results and I feel good. I don’t know maybe spending so much time in Australia during the European winter wasn’t such a good thing for me. I’m not blaming the weather, but every single race from Paris-Nice right through up until before the Tour of Flanders was just terrible conditions, really cold, always raining. Normally I can handle that stuff but I just didn’t have anything.”

His infamous bad luck returned in his final Classic of the season, Paris-Roubaix, where he flatted in a cobbled sector and in that moment the race slipped away from him.

“In Roubaix I was absolutely flying, I had excellent legs and then three (cobble) sectors after the Arenberg I got a flat tyre, had to finish that section on the flat tyre and then change wheels,” he said.

“I was just coming back to the group and then my derailleur snapped off and went into the wheel and then my frame broke. If s---t like that happens in Roubaix in the last 50-60K and you’ve got to wait a few minutes for a wheel or for a new bike it’s over.”

Having seen how compatriot Michael Matthews trained all Europe in Winter before racing at Paris-Nice and after taking a stage there, he has excelled in all races, winning a stage in the Basque Country and finishing second at Brabantse Pijl and third in Milan-Sanremo and Amstel Gold.

“I’ll probably mix it up a little bit different next year because I felt actually the best at nationals and at Tour Down Under, and I wasn’t racing before that,” said Haussler, who is based in Freiburg with his German partner and infant children also considered.

“I’d love to just concentrate totally on the one-day races but it’s also very difficult, and every year it’s getting harder and harder,” he said.

“Everyone is getting more serious, training camps are starting earlier and the races are faster. You have to look at your training and look at different ways to mix it up just to try and get an extra one or two per cent out of yourself.”