Cadel Evans

Talking with Cadel Evans

I’ve interviewed dozens of ‘famous’ people but today’s chat with Cadel Evans was certainly one of the highlights of my radio career.

I’m a cyclist but Cadel is cycling royalty.

He started cycling when he was 2 on a 16” BMX bike. Began riding competitively in 1991 on a cross country mountain bike. In 1994 he started competing in criteriums and road races to help with his mountain biking. Since then he has become one of Australia’s greatest ever road racing cyclists.

He was the first Aussie to ever reach the podium in Paris in the Tour de France, coming runner up in 2007 and 2008 and he recently became Australia’s first world road race champion.

His book which describes his journey so far – Close to Flying – was released just days ago and it’s already being reprinted. Cadel Evans joined me live in the studio this morning at 98.5 Sonshine FM. You can hear our conversation by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

We spoke about the Tour de France, his move to BMC, his involvement in the 2010 Tour Down Under, the new book, Lance Armstrong and a few other bits and pieces.

Cadel was generous with his time and his answers were honest and informative. I only wish that I could have sat down with him for a couple of hours over a coffee rather than just conducting a quick radio interview in the middle of a very busy promotional schedule.

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Cadel moves to BMC

Nov 2nd, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

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News broke last week that the reigning world road race champion, Cadel Evans, was leaving his Silence-Lotto team. Today we’re hearing that Cadel has signed with US team BMC.

It seems that in the rush to get the news out some media outlets have mixed up a few of the details.

On his website today Cadel gave fans the real story.

Yes, it is true… BMC! I have chosen to ride with the BMC Racing Team for 2010 and beyond. A small but growing team of experienced staff and riders that I see has a lot of potential, and a mentality that fits nicely with my own, both on a sporting, technical and social level. I look forward to working with a new team, in a new environment, towards my same goals; honouring the Rainbow jersey at the highest level of the sport, and ultimately at the highest step of the Tour de France podium.

I would like to thank the Silence-Lotto team for the opportunities they have given me. The last five years have brought some great experiences whilst working alongside some great individuals. Thank you.

BMC, which has already signed riders such as George Hincapie, Alessandro Ballan, Marcus Burghardt and Karsten Kroon, is extremely pleased with its latest signing.

“Cadel brings a wealth of experience in the Grand Tours to the team.” BMC Racing Team co-owner Jim Ochowicz stated. “As I said earlier, our team will have multiple chances to measure ourselves against the greatest teams in the world. We are pleased that we will have the opportunities to send out our most successful riders, now including Cadel Evans, to tackle these challenges,” Jim Ochowicz added. Cadel Evans compliments the current team roster that consists of seasoned professionals and young emerging talents.

I’m looking forward to asking Cadel about the move later this week when he will be my special guest on my morning radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM.

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Can Cadel Still Win?

Jul 9th, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

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I’m conflicted. Every fibre of my being wants to see Australia’s Cadel Evans peg back the three minutes he needs to stand in yellow on the podium in Paris but I know that it’s incredibly unlikely.

Being a few seconds outside the time of the leaders is one thing, but being 2:59 down from names like Armstrong and Contodor makes the task almost impossible. Cadel is a great climber but we’ve never seen any evidence that he is good enough to put three minutes or more into the other climbers that stand between him and the yellow jersey.

The wheels came off Cadel’s campaign to win the 2009 Tour de France in the team time trial where his team was well and truly outclassed by the teams of the other favourites.

Thankfully Cadel hasn’t given up on his hopes of winning and if there’s an opportunity to do something spectacular, he’s still in the right frame of mind to take advantage of whatever situation might arise.

I’ve never been in this position at the Tour de France ahead of the mountains stages, so we’ll see what happens, but I’m feeling good. The Tour is not over for me yet.

So to the question, can Cadel Evans still win the 2009 Tour de France, I’d have to answer it’s not a big possiblity, but there’s still a flickering flame of hope, and I’ll be cheering him on whatever position he’s in when the peleton reaches the streets of Paris.

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Let the race begin

Jul 2nd, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The Tour de France is about to begin. It starts this Saturday in Monaco and I’m looking forward to watching one of the most interesting battles in years. Lance Armstrong is back and so is his team mate Alberto Contador who won in 2007. Can Australia’s Cadel Evans beat his second placing from the last couple of years to win? What a race it’ll be.

I thought that to prepare for the great race I’d revisit some of the basics of the race over the next couple of days.

If you have only started following the Tour de France recently and you’ve heard the commentators talking about different coloured jerseys, you might be wondering what all the different colours represent and why it’s so important to be wearing a jersey other than your team jersey.

Each team wears their own uniform but there are a number of special shirts or jerseys awarded each day. While it’s considered very prestigious to wear any of these jerseys throughout the race, it’s obviously even more so to be wearing one of these jerseys after the final sprint down the Champs-Élysées in Paris on the last day of the tour.

Many people know that the Yellow Jersey or Maillot Jaune is the most coveted of all the jerseys but here’s a quick rundown of what it’s all about.

Yellow Jersey

The Yellow Jersey is worn by the leader in the general classification. That means that whoever has the lowest overall time at the end of each stage of the event will be awarded with the Yellow Jersey. It was first awarded in 1919 and its colour was chosen to match the yellow paper of l’Auto magazine, founder of the Tour de France in 1903.

Green Jersey

The Green Jersey is given to the leader in the points classification, rewarding the best sprinter. It’s sometimes called the points jersey or sprinters’ jersey. During each stage, points are allocated for several intermediary sprints and for the finish. The jersey was introduced in 1953.

Polka Dot Jersey

The Polka Dot or King of the Mountains Jersey is awarded to the rider who earns most of the points at each summit. The winner is known as the King of the Mountains. Although the award was introduced in 1933, the red and white spotted jersey was not introduced until 1975.

White Jersey

The White Jersey is given to the best rider in the general classification under 25. The jersey was abandoned in 1989 but reintroduced in 1999.

So now you know a little more than you did a short while ago. I hope this brief explanation helps in your enjoyment of this year’s tour.

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Cadel Reignites Car versus Bike Debate

Dec 12th, 2008

by Rodney Olsen.

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If you want to get emotions running hot there’s nothing that works quite as well as talking about cyclists on our roads.

Cycling star, Cadel Evans, has stirred things up by claiming that Australian drivers are far too agressive, especially towards cyclists. He has been quoted by News.com.au in an article titled, Australians drive cyclist star Cadel Evans to despair.

I drive on the road and I don’t like people just not having respect for other road users.

I spend half my year in Europe so I know what the traffic is like there.

It is really strange, to be honest, the way Australian drivers are.

Our roads have much less traffic, are far larger, and the drivers have much more space, but they are much more aggressive and negative to other road users.

When you ride a race in Italy or Switzerland or France, the roads are much narrower and there is much more traffic, but the drivers are much more tolerant and easier to deal with. It is a bit of a shame.

His comments have started a flood of comments on the article with both drivers and cyclists throwing insults.

I see the main problem being the lack of education for road users. Many drivers are unaware that it is perfectly legal for cyclists to ride two abreast. Unfortunately some cyclists will ride two abreast even when it isn’t safe to do so.

I’m currently cycling about 250 km a week and I’d admit that the majority of drivers are courteous but it would only take one errant driver to put me in hospital or a morgue so it concerns me that there are many drivers still don’t get it.

The argument from a lot of drivers is that cyclists break the road rules all the time. Let me tell you something, it not only annoys you, it annoys me. For some reason we all get tarred with the same brush so when some cyclists do the wrong thing, there are motorists who take that as a license to harrass the rest of us.

Common sense tells us that not all cyclists break the rules. Common sense also tells us that even though I’m seeing more and more motorists running red lights and making other dangerous and careless errors on the road, I don’t have the right to make blanket statements about ‘all drivers’.

Some drivers are dangerous. Some cyclists are dangerous.

Some drivers complain that cyclists slow them down. I wonder what those drivers would do with the extra 10 or 20 seconds they would gain if they didn’t have to slow down to pass a cyclist. (And lets face it, you probably don’t even lose that much time. You probably just get to the next red light a little later.) On the other hand, if the thousands of commuter cyclists in each city decided to jump into a car instead each day, could you imagine the extra traffic chaos? Could you imagine how much longer the daily drive to work would take?

Thankfully, most of my new commute is on a well built and well maintained cycle path. I have great joy in whizzing past rows and rows of cars which are stuck in peak hour traffic.