After the highs of taking his biggest ever win at Milan-Sanremo, John Degenkolb has hit a low so far in the Classics, crashing hard in E3 and not finishing Gent-Wevelgem, a race he was defending champion in.

“I’m not perfect yet but I still have some more days to get better. My leg and my hip and my knee are still sore, so it’s not really comfortable but I’ll be alright,” Degenkolb said. “I haven’t done a big training ride yet. I did two hours on Tuesday, three hours on Wednesday, and then I’ll do a longer ride on Thursday,” he told Cyclngnews on Wednesday as he traveled from his house in Frankfurt back to Belgium ahead of the Tour of Flanders tomorrow.

Degenkolb says that the weather was terrible in Gent-Wevelgem, and while bad weather comes as part of the Classics, what was experienced that day was over the top and the race should have been abandoned or not even started.

“It was really on the limit or over the limit. In other sports, you consider the weather conditions and then you make a decision about whether it’s a calculated risk to make a competition or is it just stupid,” Degenkolb said. “And in my opinion, on Sunday it was just stupid.”

“We are professional cyclists and we are all crazy of course, but people should not forget that we are also normal people and we have family at home. I was fighting to stay on the bike, I wasn’t thinking about fighting to be in a good position. I was just busy trying to stay alive.”

Degenkolb is perhaps better suited to Roubaix than to Flanders, as he showed last year by finishing second in the Roubaix velodrome. He is looking to end a bad streak that has lasted since Sean Kelly in1986, where a Sanremo winner then went on to take another Monument in the same season. His chances have been bolstered by the absences of Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen.

“When you see the last two editions of the Tour of Flanders basically everybody was waiting until Fabian attacked on the Kwaremont, so tactically it’s going to be more open,” Degenkolb said. “There can be an opportunity for other riders to attack earlier and maybe go with an advantage into the final. It’s really important to be in the right move and not to miss the right move.”

He knows his ideal situation of a group sprint is not going to happen, meaning he will need to be prepared to follow the moves on Sunday.

“The super perfect scenario of course would be a big group going together to the finish but I’m pretty confident that if it won’t happen. But if I recover and I’m 100 percent on Sunday, I think I can follow the best guys in a small group and be there also in the final,” he said, ruling out the prospect of finding common cause with fellow fast men such as Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo).

“Of course in the beginning it could be the case that our teams work together but as soon as we come closer to the finish, every team is trying to create the perfect situation for themselves. It’s not easy to work together then.”

The 26-year-old German has been getting better every year and proving that as he has improved, he has distanced himself further and further away from the label of being a sprinter.

“It’s gone step by step: I’m getting older, I’m getting more experienced, I’m getting stronger,” he told Cyclingnews. “I think in general I would say that Paris-Roubaix suits me better than Flanders because I don’t have to lift up my heavy body over the steep climbs there. But this year I’m a little bit lighter so I really can’t say which is better for me now. I love them both and I’m just going step by step. This weekend I am 100 per cent for Flanders, and then next week I’ll think of Roubaix. It’s always step by step.”

Degenkolb is hungry to end the Monument drought after Kelly’s double and is not resting on his laurels after Sanremo, showing his drive and determination to add a Cobbled Monument to his palmares.

“I would be pretty stupid if I just leant back on the chair and said ‘I’m a really good guy, I won San Remo and now I will stop developing’ because pretty soon some other guys would overtake me,” he said. “That’s how it is. That’s also my mentality.”