Words Anthony Sharwood Photograph Michael Klein

“I might have won the Tour by now if it was a solo race.”

In a world where one sports star sounds a lot like the next, it’s a breath of fresh air to speak to Cadel Evans. It’s kind of like riding a bike through the Alps instead of battling the traffic on the daily commute. With apologies to champion 1980s road cyclist Phil Anderson, sprint king Robbie McEwen and Australia’s 13 track gold medallists, Evans is easily the most famous cyclist Australia has produced – and arguably the best. A dual runner-up in the 2007 and 2008 Tours de France, the former Olympic mountain biker had a shocking race in 2009 when, as he tells us, “everything went wrong”. The 32-year-old rebounded to win the 2009 road racing World Championship, and heads into 2010 with a new team and a range of new goals.

Your website greets surfers with a weird country and western song. What’s with that?
It’s a song written about me. It summarises things pretty well. The lyrics go “just let me ride, all I wanna do is ride my bike”. That’s me, really.

With a wife who’s a classical pianist, it’s surprising country music is your thing.
Actually Chiara and I are both into Australian music like Hunters & Collectors and Paul Kelly. She’s always playing classical music but she actually prefers listening to mainstream music. She’s a harsh judge, though, because she has a very well-trained ear. Some singers you think are pretty good are actually pretty bad. I’m taking her to see the Choir of Hard Knocks in Melbourne tonight. Don’t spoil the surprise, will you?

OK. She’s Italian and learning to swim. Are you helping her become true blue in any other way?
Why would you take a beautiful blonde Italian woman and try and change anything? I would never change anything about her.

Very good point. Are you going to win the Tour Down Under?
The Tour Down Under doesn’t suit my characteristics as a rider. This race is about beating the heat and the best sprinters [gaining] time bonuses. My main goals come later in the year. One of the younger riders from my team could do well, but at this early stage Team Columbia-HTC is the team to beat.

Why not extend it out along the Murray, then into the Victorian Alps or the NSW Snowy Mountains and make it a truly grand tour?
The thing that makes the Tour Down Under such a great event is it suits the start of the season. It suits riders to train and race in good weather on a course that is not so hard. A mountainous race at the start of the year would make a season that is already long even longer, and that wouldn’t be of long-term benefit to the race or any of the riders.

Tell us about your new team, BMC.
It’s a Swiss-backed America-registered team, which I didn’t know a great deal about a few months ago. The team owner is the manufacturer of BMC bikes and he has a vision for the team. His goal is to win the Tour de France and that’s what we’re all working towards, ultimately. The mentality and the work ethic is very professional. Everything is as it should be.

But you’re not actually qualified for le Tour yet, right?
That’s right. [Qualification] depends on us performing well in the races leading up to the Tour, which we should do if everything continues to be run as a professional operation.

You plan to ride the Giro D’Italia, one of the “Grand Tours”, before le Tour. Did you know no Giro winner has won that year’s le Tour since 1998?
I’m never one to stick to traditions, to preconceived ideas. I’m going to aim to do a very good Giro and a very good Tour de France. I’m not going to let history decide what can and can’t be done. The first step is to take the Giro D’Italia seriously.

What went wrong at the Tour de France last year?
Nothing went right for me at all. It fell apart from the team trial onwards, where I lost 2½ minutes. I could see from early on in the season that the team had lost a bit of faith in me from losing the Tour the year before. I prepared for the Tour as well as I could have, but overall the team focus and preparation wasn’t as good as the previous year.

How did you turn it around to finish third at the third Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana?
I went away and had a quiet holiday with my wife and got stuck into training in an Italian town called Udine, north of Venice.

And then you triumphed after seven hours of hell in the World Championships in Switzerland.
It was a pretty tough race that one, something I’ve been thinking about for a few years. That’s why I rode the Tour of Spain, and on the day of the World Championships, I felt good and I knew it was a good course for me. When the move came in the last 30 or 40km, it all came together. Then, when I made the final move with 6km to go, everyone was on their own and I knew I was the one who had something left in the tank, as I’d just been sitting there quietly for 200 kays.

And you cleared out to win pretty easily.
Yeah, the margin was 47 seconds if I remember. It was the first world championship won solo (without a group breakaway) in 10 years.

Do you think you might have won the Tour by now if it was a solo race?
That’s an interesting question. I’ve never been asked that before. Possibly, yes.

A strong win like that must give you confidence for 2010.
It does, but it just reinforces what I’ve always thought about myself, which is that I sort of go alright on a bike. Nothing really changes for me. I have a job to do and I like to do it well. That’s the likeminded mentality that BMC have.

At least you get to wear the world champ’s rainbow jersey this year. Do you look good in rainbow?
I reckon I do, actually.

How many kays do you ride in a typical training day?
Sometimes up to 200 for a training ride. My focus is more on mountain passes, and so we look at how many vertical metres you ascend in one ride. We might do 3000m vertical or on a really big day, 4000m.

Sounds like hell. Why, then, is your new book called Close to Flying?
We’re trying to describe the sensation you get when everything goes well on the bike, on a good day. You forget about the pain. You even forget about the bad days, eventually.

The book’s selling well. Any Andre Agassi-style revelations?
If you want to read about all the trouble I’ve been in, then my book’s not for you. My book’s about being honest and working hard and the struggles pro cyclists face. In any profession there’s people you do and don’t like to deal with.

How many languages do you speak?
I speak Italian at home and I can obviously speak English reasonably well. I can understand French and make myself understood, sort of. For a bike rider that’s pretty normal.

You love Italian food. What’s your favourite pizza topping?
Bresaola. It’s a special kind of dried beef from Valtellina in Italy.

Sounds delicious, though we’re tipping Pizza Hut doesn’t have it.
It’s a bit hard to find, but there’s a little place in Barwon Heads (Victoria, his Australian base) that has it.

You’re well known for your support of the Tibetan people. What’s the latest?
I was just over in Nepal where we sponsor a kid in a Tibetan school. [The Tibetan cause] is something I feel for personally. It’s a similar situation to what the Aborigines had in Australia in the 1800s. I don’t want to see their culture lost, so I’m doing my best to raise a bit of awareness. I get letters [from my sponsored children] every few months, and they follow me in the cycling. They were very happy when I won the Worlds.

Do you subscribe to any Buddhist beliefs?
I don’t know what happens after death. I hope I’ve got a bit of time yet before I find out.

Enough time to win the Tour de France?
I hope so, yeah.