AS I stepped out of the station in Monaco on Thursday, through the barriers and into the road, I became aware of a figure in yellow, racing towards me. I stepped back on to the pavement, but as the cyclist got closer, I recognised him: it was Mark Cavendish, out reconnoitring the course ahead of today's first stage of the Tour de France, a 16km time trial.
The roads weren't closed, and so there followed the incongruous sight of Cavendish dodging the clogged up traffic, weaving through cars which were backed up at junctions, like a commuter in rush hour. The only difference was that the cars creating al
l the congestion were Bentleys, Ferraris and Porsches; and the toots were of recognition and approval rather than angry blasts of indignation.
Yesterday, Cavendish explained: "I rode the (time trial] course Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It was quite difficult with all the one-way streets, but I made it round okay, dodging the traffic. It's f***ing hard!"
Today's opening stage is hardly tailor-made for Cavendish. He is a sprinter, and virtually unbeatable in the hectic bunch finishes that tend to decide the flat opening road stages. He is a decent time trialist over short distances, but, at 16km, today may be a little too long for him. Yet it is an indication of his seriousness, and of his meticulous attention to detail, that he went to such trouble to check out the course. Perhaps he aims to surprise.
Later, he insisted not (that he has no chance of winning today). For him, the Tour really begins tomorrow, when the undulating first stage to Brignoles could end in a bunch sprint. Failing that, Monday's stage, from Marseille to La Grande Motte, is pan flat and has his name written all over it.
Cavendish is only 24, but in his two full years as a professional he has become one of the hottest properties in the sport. He is "virtually unbeatable in a sprint finish", according to one magazine, but a true measure of his status here in Monaco, on the eve of the Grand Départ of the 96th Tour, is that he is the second most talked about and in-demand rider – behind a certain Lance Armstrong.
Like Armstrong, Cavendish is an athlete of fascinating contradictions, capable of raw aggression and deep reflection. He eschews sports science – "I don't care about lines on graphs, only finishing lines" – yet can dissect and analyse what he does in forensic, almost scientific detail. He is also incredibly retentive, as can be deduced from reading his recently published book, Boy Racer. "It's not an autobiography," he insists, alert to the criticism that he is a little too young to be penning his life story. "It's a biography of my cycling career so far."
Which doesn't even hint at the extraordinary frankness – and fascinating insight – provided by a book that would be refreshingly honest were it produced by a retired athlete, never mind one in the third year of his professional career.
"There's a bit of controversy in it, and I'm expecting a backlash," says Cavendish, with understatement. As in those frantic – and frankly terrifying – bunch sprints, he appears undaunted. His eyes sparkle at the mention of 'controversy', as they do when he talks, engagingly, about his love for the sport. And here is another paradoxical aspect of his personality: to do what he does he must be fearless and tough, yet he is not afraid to show emotion. On just about every page of Boy Racer Cavendish bursts into tears for one reason or another.
More intriguingly, Cavendish seems blessed with the invaluable gift, for a sprinter, of acting instinctively, almost innately, in the bunch sprints he dominates, making decisions without seeming to be aware that he is making decisions. Yet in conversation, he is deeply thoughtful – his answers to questions often come from leftfield, and they are far more profound than you first appreciate.
On the phenomenal success of his team, Columbia-HTC, Cavendish is effusive. "This sounds stupid," he says, attempting to explain the secrets behind the world's best team, "but it's love; it's community. We're not just team-mates doing a job. We get on so," and here he briefly pauses, "so well. It's a cliché but we really are all for one and one for all. If you want to do something you're going to do it a lot better than if you're told to do something. As a team, they want to put me in the best position for sprints; we want to put the climbers in the best position for the mountains.
"You could say that it's luck that we've all come together. But when we consistently do it for three years, it's something more than luck. I don't think I'd have had the success I've had at another team."
Traditionally sprinters have been the alpha-males of professional cycling. In the 1990s the main man was Mario Cipollini, the Italian stallion with enough charisma for the entire peloton. Cavendish is capable of Cipollini-esque acts of bravado and machismo – at the Tour of California last year, where 41-year old Cipollini made a short-lived comeback, the young pretender caught the Italian legend in a time trial, then rode past him using one leg. Fortunately Cipollini saw the funny side – he probably also recognised that it was the kind of stunt he'd have pulled early in his career.
But there is another side of Cavendish, and it is fitting that he talks unabashedly of "love" in relation to the extraordinary team spirit that exists in his team. When it comes to his sport, he is unquestioningly a romantic – and in deeds as well as words (he was reportedly offered double his million-Euro salary over the winter by two teams, but turned them down to stay with Columbia-HTC; he has also so far resisted the riches apparently being offered by Team Sky, the new British pro' team launching in 2010).
Consider this passage, from his book, where he discusses the double stage-winner Riccardo Ricco's positive drugs test during last year's Tour: "I do it (race my bike] above all because I'm passionate about riding my bike and leaving my mark on races which, for generations before mine, have captured the passion and imagination of millions: the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, Paris-Roubaix, Milan-San Remo… I love winning because I love the pride which comes from knowing how much I've worked, how much my team-mates have worked, how much I've sacrificed and they have.
"How Riccardo Ricco could have hoped to feel even vaguely similar to what I felt 24 hours earlier – while knowing that his were false sacrifices, that his was false suffering – I have absolutely no idea."
In one sentence Cavendish can sound humble, in the next arrogant. He is aware of that charge. But when it is put to him, he responds as though the question has been asked in Swahili. He simply cannot see how you can be called arrogant when you back up what you've said – in other words, when he claimed, last year, to be the fastest sprinter in the world, he wasn't being arrogant, just stating a fact: one borne out by his four stage wins.
"I'm not being funny," he says when asked if he feels more pressure the more he wins, "but I've never known it any other way. I don't know any different. If I spent three years grafting on a pro' team, working for others, then I'd maybe find it strange. But I've got guys who can win races in their own right grafting for me – so I don't know any different (to winning]."
But he insists there isn't any danger that he'll become complacent. "Determination is the secret. It's one thing to appreciate what you've done and another to rest on what you've done. If I do one thing, I have to set another target, or I'm not going to enjoy doing it. I think that's the nature of my personality and it's going to get me what I want to achieve."
As Cavendish sets out on his third Tour de France there is one target that looms above all others, even multiple stage wins – reaching Paris for the first time. He is the bookmakers' favourite to claim the green jersey of points winner – a feat that would match that of Scotland's Robert Millar, who, 25 years ago, became the first and so far only British cyclist ever to win one of the Tour's three main prizes, claiming the King of the Mountains polka-dot jersey – but Cavendish is playing down his chances.
"I'd like the green jersey," he says, "but I think it's more realistic to look for stage wins. I want to win stages and get to Paris: those are my two goals. The green jersey is more special (than stage wins] but I've never reached Paris yet, so to start the Tour saying I'm going to try to win green is a bit optimistic.
"If I don't win a stage I'll have failed. But this is the Tour de France, there are another 198 guys who all want to win a stage. If I win one stage and reach Paris I'll be content. It's the first Tour I've started not feeling nervous. I'm just letting it come to me. In my first year (2007] it completely overwhelmed me, then last year I knew I was capable of doing something and that overwhelmed me a bit. This year I know what I'm doing."
