Mark Cavendish: 'no matter how hard I put the throttle down I couldn't go faster'

The man nicknamed the ‘Manx Missile’ is at present holed up in his native Isle of Man - awaiting blast off. The coronavirus lockdown has led to the suspension of the cycling season and the Tour De France postponed until August 29, something many feel to be a somewhat optimistic date given the challenges that lie ahead.

While normally Mark Cavendish would be deep in the racing circuit at this time of year, instead since March he has been at home with his wife and their four young children. In fact, the soon to be 35-year-old admits, it is probably the longest period he has ever spent with his family away from racing.

“When I get away from racing I get itchy feet after a week or so and I wondered spending longer how itchy they might get” he says. “But just being able to spend a continual period of time being a dad, I’ve properly loved it.”

That is not to say the sudden onset of domesticity means he hasn't been on his bike. In recent days Cavendish made headlines after pedalling up the equivalent of Mount Everest (8,848m) over 10 hours on his home turbo trainer. He estimates he is currently cycling about 20 hours a week and putting in a further 10 hours training in the gym.

But in between this strict training routine he is revelling in the simple things that on any normal year are rendered impossible by preparing for a Grand Tour. 

Cavendish describes his current island life as so content it is almost “almost caricatured” – family meals, walks, leisurely bike rides. “Things you see in family movies,” he grins. “That type of thing has been what I’ve had the most enjoyment from.”

His Instagram feed over recent weeks shows the man universally-known as ‘Cav’ cycling with his soon to be two-year-old son on a homemade turbo trainer he built to keep him off his own racing bike; doing family PE sessions with Joe Wicks in the morning and posting a tribute to his daughter on her eighth birthday.

“Sometimes it can be more tiring with the kids than on the bike but I’m absolutely loving it,” he says. “If you can look at the positivity of this thing, to be at home and not travelling every weekend… you can really make the most of it.”

Focusing on the positives has, in recent years, been difficult for the greatest sprinter ever to grace the Tour de France. In March 2017 he was diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus which in his words “wiped out two years of my career”. Cavendish suffered chronic fatigue as a result of the virus and was unable to race. At its worst, he recalls, even walking up the stairs to his bedroom left him needing to lie down. 

“In the long-term it was more like having a limiter on your car,” he says. “No matter how hard you put the throttle down it wouldn’t go past a certain limit.”

In August 2018, shortly after being forced to abandon that year’s Tour De France, Cavendish was also diagnosed with clinical depression. He only admitted his struggle with his mental health in an interview last month and understandably remains circumspect on what is an extremely sensitive point.

“A few years ago I was somebody who – I didn’t poo-poo mental illness – but I thought why don’t you just get over it?,” Cavendish says with his characteristic bluntness. “Actually it is a stark realisation that it is massively misunderstood and is more dangerous than a physical illness in some respects.”

Talking to others who have suffered with depression has helped hugely with his own recovery. “The thing with depression is you don’t realise you have it and even when you do you don’t want to realise you have it,” he says. “Once you can accept that you have a mental illness, that is when you can work on it. That was a turning point for me.”

Once more he credits his family, and in particular his wife, Peta, whom he married in 2013, with helping him through his darkest moments. 

“She has been brilliant,” he says. “Obviously it can’t be easy when you don’t know what the future holds but I’m fortunate she is intelligent and caring and really loved me and my family.”

During lockdown, Peta has been largely responsible for home-schooling while Cavendish trains each day. However, he has worked with his children on a new initiative he is promoting alongside the Institution of Engineering and Technology, encouraging youngsters aged between five and 13 to develop inventions which might improve their favourite sport. His daughter has been working on her own design for the competition (although grudgingly accepts she won’t be allowed to win). When I ask Cavendish about the design he remains tight-lipped. “I can’t divulge…” he says.

Cavendish also refuses to answer when I broach the subject of retirement. After all, he is the last of the so-called “three musketeers” to still be racing; his lead-out man Mark Renshaw and former teammate Bernhard Eisel both recently retired from professional cycling.

But when I enquire whether he is perhaps looking towards this year’s Tour De France as his last, he responds with a death stare that makes the pixels quiver on our video call. “Why would it be my last chance?” he says, menacingly.

This year Cavendish moved to a new team, Bahrain-McLaren, where he is reunited with his old mentor, the former Team Sky coach Rod Ellingworth. The Manxman remains four Tour De France stage wins short of equalling the all-time record set by Eddy Mercx and he admits he is excited about the possibilities ahead.

“He (Ellingworth) knows more than anybody how to get the best out of me,” Cavendish says. “The small amount of time I’ve spent training and racing it’s already a nice environment to be in. And with a nice environment comes results. I do guarantee that.”

Of course the cycling season, like so much else of normal life, remains up in the air. Cavendish insists he would not want to be part of anything which jeopardises the global recovery from coronavirus but at the same time he is clearly itching to be out on the road.

“What keeps athletes going is the optimism we are going to be able to compete again,” Cavendish says. 

That innate optimism has propelled him through the worst years of his career. And now the Manx Missile is ready to fly again.

The IET’s Sports of the Future competition is open for entries for kids between the ages of 5-13 until the 11^th May. Apply here: www.engineer-a- better-world.org/get-involved/