Amongst the golden generation of Australian road racers, Henk Vogels may never have enjoyed the profile of Stuart O’Grady or Robbie McEwen, but the muscular sprinter has seen it all when it comes to the bizarre microcosm that is the professional cycling tour. Born in Perth of Dutch stock, Vogels powered his way through the Australian ranks before heading to Europe in the mid-90s. There, he promptly proved his worth with strong lead-out work in the ’97 Tour de France and a pair of tenth-place finishes in the brutal Paris-Roubaix – “The Hell of the North”.

But Vogels’ career was never going to follow the beaten path. In 1999, wearing the green and gold bars of the Australian road race champion, he turned his back on the hectic schedules and heady atmosphere of the European tour, instead signing on with US outfit Mercury Cycling Team. After four years of consistent success in the States, his career took another swerve when he suffered a sickening crash in the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic, fracturing his neck and shattering his right ankle. After a year of recovery, he returned to Europe for a last blaze of glory with McEwen at Lotto, the pair combining for a string of stage victories at the Giro d’Italia.

Since retiring from the saddle in 2008, Vogels has tested his wares as a team director at Fly-V and a salesman at BikeSportz. More recently, he’s set up a cycling tour company, Vogels TS, while also lending his voice to SBS’ cycling coverage. Affable and earthy, this is a bloke who has truly examined the cycling enigma from every angle. With the 100th edition of the Tour de France casting a long shadow, we sat him down for a strong espresso and a good yarn ...

The route for this year’s Tour looks amazing – particularly stage 18 ... Yeah, going up Alpe d’Huez twice

in one day. Never been done before ... Ever.

Your thoughts on the route?

Look, like any three-week tour, it’s ridiculous-hard. They’re also going up Ventoux in stage 15. And that’s brutal: it’s just like a moonscape, ridiculously steep. Riders have died on that mountain. I think it’s the hardest climb you’ll ever do. There’s always one specific day in any three-week tour that will crack anyone, but more than that, it’s just the day after day after day after day nature of the thing ...

But surely that Alpe d’Huez stage will be the highlight?

Oh, that’ll be special; probably the best day ever to watch the Tour live. They say 800,000 people can fit on the Alpe during the Tour. Imagine that: fill the MCG, now do that eight times. Good luck getting off that mountain at the end of the day ...

What’s the atmosphere like going up Alpe d’Huez?

I’ve ridden up it twice in the Tour and the atmosphere’s absolutely unreal. I did it the year Pantani set the record for the fastest ascent. That was pretty cool because we just rode the flat all day, along the valley at 45km/h. Then we hit the climb and these blokes just went warp speed up it. I cruised up at my own pace because I wasn’t a climber, but it’s just an awesome climb. For instance, the Dutch have a “Dutch Corner” there and they spend the day having a rave. Seriously. There’s 10,000 of them going nuts to doof-doof music. And that’s just one corner! You’ve got everything going up that mountain.

Is Chris Froome your favourite for this year’s Tour?

You’d have to say he’s the favourite. The way he’s climbing at the moment ... You know, he could’ve won last year’s Tour. Wiggins was faster in the time trials, but Froome was stronger on the climbs. And I reckon this year he’s going to be let off the chain. But it’s such a shame we won’t see Wiggins. He had a chest infection, but he was still sitting fourth at the Giro. He only lost 30 seconds to the best climber in the world on some serious mountains – with a chest infection. That’s scary-good.

With Froome and Wiggins such dominant riders, could you have seen a fight over the leadership developing at Sky?

Oh yeah. Now there’s only going to be one showdown at this Tour: Tejay Van Garderen and Cadel at BMC. But that’s a good thing for a team. It means they’re in a good position; means they’ve got two arrows to fire.

Can these showdowns destabilise a cycling team?

Well, there are seven guys helping those two riders, so it just comes down to how good your management skills are. It always sorts itself out. }One bloke will get dropped or he’ll crack physically, and the other bloke will step into the lead.

Like Evans cracked last year ...

Well, he was crook. He’d had a virus in his body for a long, long time. He threw one attack down last year, but it was reeled in pretty quickly. He was never in with a shot. But he looks so much better now. He looks like the Cadel of two years ago ...

You retired at age 35. Can Cadel seriously compete for the yellow jersey at 36?

Yeah. You have to remember that Cadel started late with his road cycling. He spent his early years mountain biking – which is really good preparation for the road because it’s high-intensity, but it’s short and sharp. When I was racing, we were on the road 110 days a year. Across 15 years that’s over 1600 races. Mountain bikers don’t do anywhere near that amount of racing. They’re doing four or five serious races a year.

Cadel looked strong at the Giro. Are you concerned he’s peaked too early?

Nup. No concern. If he’d been flying six weeks before the Giro, and he was still flying at the end of it, then

I’d be concerned. But six weeks before the Giro he was on the fringe of the top group. Now he’s consistently in the top five. He’s only just starting to hit his straps.

A guy like Cadel should be able to hold that form through the Tour.

If Sky can put Froome on top of the podium in Paris, that would be two different Sky riders winning the Tour in consecutive years. No team’s done that since Team Telekom in ’96-97. How strong is this Sky team right now?

Look, there’s no doubt Sky has the best team in the world. It has the best structure and the best riders. No doubt. It’s doing something right over there ...

What is it doing right?

For a start it has a ridiculous budget. It can do what it wants; it can hire who it wants. But any joker can get a lot of money and put a team together. Sky has used its money very, very well. It’s got the structures that GreenEDGE doesn’t. And you can quote me on that.

Can you elaborate?

Sky looks after its amateur riders far better – it grooms them for life as a professional far better. I think its national team funding is so much more effective than ours. It’s got better coaches than us and certainly better riders than us at the moment.

Do you think GreenEDGE is failing Australian riders?

No, I think it’s doing a good job. I just don’t think it’s anywhere near Sky. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not having a dig at GreenEDGE. I just think there needs to be some changes. I mean, I don’t want the Poms to beat us at anything ... it’s going to hurt me to watch the Ashes.

I don’t want to see their cyclists doing it to us every year at the Tour de France. And you know what? One of our boys – Richie Porte – is on Sky. He just signed for two years during the Giro. What does that tell you?

How important is it having an Australian team in the top flight of UCI competition?

I think it’s imperative. It’s funny: GreenEDGE only started two years ago, but I can’t imagine Australian cycling without it. I couldn’t fathom it ... Look, Team Sky started two years before us. It was put together in preparation for the London Olympics, and that tied in really nicely with what it wanted to achieve on the road. Look at its results – that tells you all you need to know.

Can you see one of the GreenEDGE boys pinching a stage at the Tour?

Well, on form right now, with Sagan and Cavendish dominating the sprints, it’s going to be tough. I mean, Goss is always there – second, third, fourth – but he’s just struggling to get one across the line. And Gerrans is always a threat in the other stages. They might pull one off ... But, to be honest, they were really disappointing in last year’s Tour.

Are you convinced we’re watching a clean Tour now?

[Pauses] ... I’m not convinced any sporting event in the world is clean. But I reckon, at this point in time, cycling would have to be one of the cleanest sports. I mean, how many sports force their athletes to carry a biological passport? Look, I think there’ll always be one. But those riders generally don’t last long. They’ll hang around for 12 months, then they’ll get caught. But in general, yes, I think it’s clean.

You left Europe in 1999 and moved to the United States. Why?

I had a big falling out with Stuart O’Grady. We grew up together and we’d been living together as racers. But after we fell out, I just realised I’d had enough of Europe. I wanted a new lifestyle in America. And what a life it was! Racing $10,000, $20,000-crits twice a week. I won the US pro championships in Philadelphia in front of 400,000 people; I won 20 races a year for four or five years. I just wanted that lifestyle change. It was pretty cool ...

Then you had that horror crash ...

Yeah, I’d just beaten Boonen at Ghent-Wevelgem. I was flying. Then I had a race at Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and crashed at 104km/h. And I was fucked. I ruined myself. I’m honestly lucky to be walking. I broke my neck, my head opened like a cut orange, my right ankle looked like a broken windscreen. The doctors called it an “aviator’s fracture” because when the B52 bomber pilots had to crash-land their plane, the first thing to break would be their ankles, which were braced on the floor. And their ankle bones would literally explode. When they X-rayed my foot after that crash, they said, “We’ve got to operate on this in five hours or this foot’s going to die of necrosis.” I took the surgery and they put six 9mm screws in there. They’re still in there ...

Then Robbie McEwen got you into the Lotto team, so you went back to Europe ...

Yeah, I went back to Europe for two years. Robbie rang the boss of Lotto and said, “I want another lead-out man. I want Vogels.” It worked out for me, but it worked out for Robbie, too. I looked after him for six Giro stage wins. Freddy Rodriguez was his lead-out man in the Tour, I was his lead-out man in Italy. Great fun. Really cool days. Some of my best years, actually.

− Aaron Scott

- Main image courtesy Henk Vogels  other images by Getty Images