LIVERPUDLIAN Matt Brammeier has described the disbanding of successful Tour de France cycling squad HTC- Highroad at the end of 2011 as “devastating”.

The 26-year-old, who is from Liverpool, has enjoyed a successful debut year on the squad, which was responsible for helping Mark Cavendish win the prestigious green jersey at this year’s Tour.

Drawing to an end its five-year spell in the sport, HTC has consistently been ranked as the number one team in the world but struggled to attract new sponsors.

Team owner Bob Stapleton announced last week that the squad would fold at the end of the year and encouraged riders to find new homes for 2012, including double Irish national champ Brammeier.

Brammeier, who as a junior rode for Liverpool Century, said: “I slotted into the team perfectly this year and was looking forward to a few more years working with this amazing team. Tuesday morning everything was looking good and I had an agreement in place with HTC to stay for another two years, but as you know now this all fell through at the last moment. Pretty devastating to say the least.”

It’s not all doom and gloom for Brammeier. This year, he managed to retain his Irish national road race championship and also add the national time trial champions jersey to his collection.

He added: “I’m pretty happy with my first year with HTC. My main goal of the year was to win something. I feel like I have played a good role in the team and done my job to the best of my abilities.

“To win the two national jerseys was pretty special. I really didn’t think that I would win even one this year, so to come home with both shocked me quite a bit and I was obviously pretty made up.”

With those two national jerseys to his name, Brammeier will certainly attract the attention of many other teams keen to sign him up for 2012. Especially after an impressive performance in the Tour of Austria, where he was in many of the important breaks, gives him a perfect build up to his next major race – the Tour of Eneco.

Brammeier said: “I’m feeling pretty good. I had a few good blocks of training after a good rest post Tour Of Austria. Fingers crossed that I can have a good showing.”

Brammeier will then turn his attention to home soil for the Tour of Britain (September 11-18), where he hopes to turn a few heads but also fine-tune his form to the UCI Road World Championships in Copenhagen (September 19-25).

He said: “I have a couple of one-day races before and I think a couple of time-trails in the UK before the Tour of Britain, as preparation for the Worlds.

“After that, I’ll head into the Tour of Britain in what I hope will be my best form ever. I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself, but I will be keen to show myself good in my home tour.”

Brammeier certainly has the pedigree to possibly make his mark on the Worlds. After all, his childhood friend and training partner was none other than Britain’s most successful cyclist and adopted Scouser, Mark Cavendish. He added: “I actually don’t have any races left with Cav this year. Our programmes are totally different. The next time I line up with him, I’ll be on the other side at the World Championships.

“Every time I see him win something big it makes me sit back and realise just what he has achieved. First was Milan San Remo and now the green jersey. Those two wins were pretty amazing stuff.”