CADEL EVANS INTERVIEW – RISING FROM THE DUST

By Steve Thomas

It’s only been in the past few years where mixing World Cup-level mountain biking with WorldTour road racing has become acceptable, and yet former Tour de France champion Cadel Evans was doing it way back in the 1990s, and his origins are very much to be found in the dirt.

Even now, in an era where it’s become a little more accepted, mixing top-level road racing with elite mountain bike racing is something of a rarity. It’s a cross-mix area where only a few exceptional racers manage to thrive, names like Tom Pidcock, Mathieu van der Poel and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot headline that exclusive list.

That said, many top pro road riders past and present were indeed raised on flat bars and mud, including Sepp Kuss, Jakob Fuglsang, Michael Rasmussen and Ryder Hesjedal. And, of course, we can never forget the ultimate two-wheeled cocktail king, Johnny T, a rider who was an inspiration and hero to Cadel Evans, who is arguably the most successful rider to date to combine road and dirt, having won the Tour de France, the World Championship and WorldTour outright on the road, as well as two overall MTB World Cup titles.

Cadel’s early life was spent living in a remote aboriginal community on Australia’s Northern Territories, a very humble beginning. He started mountain biking at 13 years old when he and his mother moved to Melbourne. Initially, as with most kids, it was as a means of transportation and a key to escapism and freedom. It didn’t take long for him to get competitive and start making a name for himself on the local racetracks, but with the transport and financial burdens, it was no easy task to get to domestic races in such a big country, and Australia was still half a world away from Europe and the U.S., where the relatively new sport was beginning to thrive. Thanks to help from a local bike shop and Apollo Bikes, he eventually got the break he needed.

How did the opportunity to race at the world level come around?
Going overseas to race my first World Championships in Vail (Colorado in 1994) was a big step, but thanks to my results in Australia, particularly at our first World Cup, we had Cairns in July 1994 (Bart Brentjens’s first WC victory, if I remember right). We had support from the Australian federation and my own sponsors. The following year the federation started the MTB national team, and that allowed me to compete in some World Cups in the U.S. and Europe. That was my big chance to show what I could do and to attract the attention of professional teams.

Diamondback was the team that really wanted me, and the manager at the time, Keith Ketterer, had a good heart. As I was going overseas for five months at 19 years old, that (big heart) probably counted for a lot back then. I started with Diamondback in 1996, along with Scott Sharples (DH), as the first two Australians to make it professionally in MTB. While I had not felt that I had “made it,” this was certainly a huge step forward in my career at a time when most thought I was crazy for even trying to make it professionally.

 

There was an amount of support from the AIS for mountain biking back then, which seems to have faded away. Do you think this is an error on their part?
If you look at the success now of the British cycling system, where they’ve invested in the road and track over the last number of years, it really shows how much that it pays dividends, and the same goes in Australia.

In terms of my own career, I don’t know if I could have made it overseas if it wasn’t for the AIS. The big thing for us Australians is that it’s so expensive (to travel overseas). I was from a single-parent family, and we just didn’t have the money to travel as a family, and as a single mom there just wasn’t the money around to make that big step to travel to Europe or America.

Just for the air ticket it would have cost $2,000, and then there were the ground costs and the accumulative amount (with regular racing). It was (and is still) a big issue for young and up-and-coming Australians.

When you started riding/mixing it on the road with Saeco, how was that transition in an era where it was very rare?
Later, I moved to the Volvo-Cannondale team who, through Cannondale, had connections with the Saeco team. Previously, I had been racing with the Australian U23 team in Italy, a small but well-organized project established by the national coach, Shayne Bannan.

I had the experience of racing in Italy with the generation of Ivan Basso, Danilo Di Luca, Rinaldo Nocentini, et al., so the racing was not such a big deal. The bridge between MTB and road was a challenge, though. Fitting into an established team mid-season and organizing the training to fit in with the two disciplines was a challenge. At this time, only a few had come from MTB to the road. Dario Cioni was probably the first, followed by myself, Lennie Kristensen, and later Michael Rasmussen and Miguel Martinez.

 

You rode the VTT (Mountain Bike) Tour de France, and won the real Tour de France in 2011. How would you compare the experiences?
Very different! The Tour VTT was probably the closest race I did to Cape Epic. The Tour de France is racing on a true world stage, not just the level of the racing, but also the whole circus surrounding the race.

When you turned to the road, was it a career move, something you really wanted to do or did you feel your soul was still in the dirt?
I was introduced to cycling through mountain biking, but when I was younger, I would also watch the Tour (de France) and the big races.

I started road racing for MTB training, and the more I rode, the more I wondered if it would be possible for me to cross over disciplines.

During the MTB World Cup season I was doing a lot of road racing in between (World Cup rounds) for training, while most of my competitors were going home and having a rest or something. I would go and join the U23 National road team and race with them (mostly in Italy), and that was the basis for my transition to the road and why it came (comparatively) later in life. That experience made the (full-time) move much easier, and it was always something that was in the back of my mind.

 

When you came back to mountain biking with the 2017 Cape Epic, how different did you find the overall feel of the sport?
We were riding in the second category, starting behind the professional teams. But, I saw that the professionals were very well organized, and had a lot of staff, backup and resources, which helps a lot to maximize the performance of the riders.

Obviously, there are GoPros, the internet and lots of other things around now, which is a lot more developed than when I raced mountain bikes. This has its price, but that’s not a mountain biking issue, that’s life in general. I still think it has the same feel (as before) with the closeness between competitors.

The big thing (for me after years of road racing) was that even at the Cape Epic, where you race for five hours, you’re finished by midday, and so you have the rest of the day to relax and socialize with your competitors. On the road you race for five hours, but you finish at 5 o’clock, and then you go back to your hotel. Your day is very full on the road, so you don’t actually have much time outside of the race to talk to your competitors.

 

How different did you find things technically with the bikes compared to when you raced mountain bikes?
The biggest thing for me was the change in wheel sizes. Crossing over from the road to mountain biking actually made it easier, because the bikes handle so much differently (with bigger wheels).

Comparing something like my 2000 Olympic bike to what I rode in the Cape Epic, there are a lot of differences. As well as the larger wheel sizes and going tubeless, the lower weight and the lockout (suspension) are what stood out to me.

I had electronic lockout, which is so effective, and I ended up using it as much as I did the gears. Back in 2000 this was all mechanical.

The descents, too, back then, you always had to take it easier because of the risk of pinch flatting, but with tubeless, you can push the tires so much further and the 29-inch wheels roll so much better (but they aren’t quite so maneuverable on a technical descent). Although, I don’t take many risks on technical descents anymore. If it’s too technical I get off and run. I do a lot of riding by myself at home (so I don’t crash in the wild).

At the Cape Epic we rode BMC Fourstroke full-suspension bikes with electronic lockout, which was incredible. The conditions were very extreme, and I didn’t have any equipment issues. The only thing that got to it was the drought; it would dry out on longer stages. I took a little bottle of lube with me and oiled the chains halfway through the stages.

How has the ride position changed for you?

The position on the bikes is very different now. The handlebars are much wider; they’re about 4cm wider than they used to be, and they’re too wide for me.

As a trained time trialist, I can produce my best power when I’m sitting low and a long way behind the bottom bracket, which is completely different to how mountain bikers are riding now—really upright, forward and with wide bars, which is great for downhills but not so good for powering on the flat.

There are now a whole bunch of multi-talented younger riders around who all have some form of off-road background, such as Wout van Aert, Pidcock, Mathieu van der Poel. Do you think the mixing of disciplines has played a big part in how good they are, has it highlighted the benefits of mixing it, are they just freaks of nature, and can any of them potentially win the TDF at some point?
There have been more and more athletes that came into the sport via MTB or ’cross who have made it to high levels on the road, bringing attention to this crossover. I always believed that any discipline of our sport is a great introduction to cycling, as long as people are riding and enjoying it. I am sure it will only be a matter of time before we see another mountain biker winning the Tour de France.

Editor’s note: COVID floored Cadel’s plans to take on more MTB and gravel epics, but he is still intent on making a soft return to the dirt in gravel and possibly the odd MTB event, but, obviously, more for fun and as part of his ambassador role with BMC.