Mark Cavendish says that his form is coming along nicely ahead of the World Championships road race in Australia in one week's time. He knows that winning will be hard and isn't promising anything, but remains optimistic that he can have a chance on the parcours in Geelong.
The important part for the Briton is that his form is coming along. "All this month my legs have felt hard, like they're made of steel," Cavendish told British paper Independent on Sunday. "It's like last year before I won Milan-San Remo; you just know when you've got good form, you don't do your legs any muscle damage with a hard ride, you can feel them getting stronger. And that's what's happening now."
Cavendish won't make any predictions, but says he is ready. "I'm not going into it thinking 'I'm going to win this'... but there's a chance." He had heard criticism that he can't climb before making the final selection over the Poggio in the 2009 Milano-Sanremo, where he blasted by Heinrich Haussler with a brilliant late surge. Ahead of the Worlds, it is the same criticism again. "People forget a lot of things. I'll win what I aim to win," he says.
Already a World Champion on the track, he aims to add a road title. "The Worlds has always been a big thing for me. When I was at the Academy, I said to Rod [Ellingworth, the road coach] that I want to be world champion. Even after taking the track championships, the rainbow jersey you get doesn't have solid bands, like the one you get in the world [road] championships. I said to Rod, at least once in my life, I want those solid bands. I need them."
If it comes down to a sprint, Cavendish will act carefully. For one, he does not want to repeat the disaster from the Tour of Switzerland, when he brought down Heinrich Haussler and others (the event even triggered a riders's protest. While Cavendish agreed that he was partly to blame, he felt he wasn't the only one).
Secondly, he says that he is the victim of frequent protests filed against him, which makes him race more conservatively. In the Vuelta, he sometimes would move across the road to get competitors out off his slip stream, for fear of disqualification. "I'm terrified of doing anything now," he says. "I can't make a move like that and it puts me at a disadvantage."
He even has to think twice about horizontal jumps - for his bunny hop to win stage 13 of the Vuelta, he received a warning. He doesn't quite understand the commotion. "I've never protested like that because I want to win sportingly and I always have done up to now."
Cavendish also reminds everyone that he intends to stay at HTC Columbia for the time being, not considering a move to home team Sky. "There are rumors now, and there were rumors last year, but the thing is I'm not somebody who needs to go somewhere because of their nationality. Lots of Italian riders sign with Italian squads because they're Italian, French riders in French teams, British riders in British teams. I go wherever the best place is for me to be. Right now I like where I am and I'm here [at HTC Columbia] next year."