Chris Jenner's achievements in cycling have not been aided by performancing enhancing drugs like many of his competitors. Photo / Getty Images

Chris Jenner's achievements in cycling have not been aided by performancing enhancing drugs like many of his competitors. Photo / Getty Images

It is eight years since Chris Jenner rode the Tour de France, five since he retired. His life may have moved on but cycling is in the blood and so his words pour forth, bumping elbows.

Jenner is one of eight New Zealanders to have contested the Tour, one of the world's great sports events, which begins its 96th edition this weekend.

After closing the book on life as a professional cyclist, Jenner and his wife Christele moved from France to New Caledonia, back to where they had first met - she, the pretty local girl, he, the slim young bike racer from New Zealand.

A video and DVD business puts bread on the table. Their children - nine-year-old Anais, and five-year-old Lucas - are healthy and happy.

The weather is warm and, yes, Jenner has time to talk. We speak of how a 7-year-old kid who loved to ride his BMX around Upper Hutt grew into a young man whose talent, determination and ambition took him to the top echelon of road cycling.

We speak of the hierarchy he discovered, about the secret and about the choice faced by those who rise to the top of road cycling.

Two things prompted me to find Jenner. It was Olympic Week and Jenner had represented New Zealand in the road race in Sydney in 2000, but there was also the public lecture given by Graeme Steel, head of New Zealand's anti-doping body, Drug Free Sport New Zealand.

Steel spoke about the myths of drugs in sport. One myth he sought to explode was that athletes cannot win at international level without doping.

As evidence, Steel offered the examples of Hamish Carter in triathlon, Sarah Ulmer in track cycling, and Barbara Kendall in boardsailing all Olympic champions, all athletes Steel is as sure as he can be are genuine.

But there are sports Steel hesitates to say can be conquered clean. He mentions track sprinting (athletics), cross-country skiing and, Jenner's sport, road cycling.

The other reason to speak to Jenner this week was a conversation we had in 2001. Back then he was contracted to a team sponsored by French bank, Credit Agricole.

He'd recently taken up French nationality in the hope it would improve his chance of making his team's nine-man Tour squad. (The team favoured French riders for its national tour, something that counted against its Kiwi).

Jenner made the cut, finished the tour and made a little history along the way.