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 ...