Fresh off the high of delivering best performance by a New Zealand road cyclist, Julian Dean talks to Dylan Cleaver about the rapid comedown.
It is the silence that Julian Dean finds toughest to take.
Nestled away in Gandia, just south of Valencia, Spain, Dean should be contentedly resting on a bed of laurels as his family - wife Carole and kids Tanner and Val - go about the business of having their
husband and father back home.
But there's something missing.
"It's very, very strange," Dean says. "`One of the things about the Tour is it's a constant barrage of people, a constant barrage of noise. There's always cars, traffic; there's always something going on. The moment you step outside your hotel door, you're surrounded by people.
"It's not until you get home that you realise how adapted to that hubbub you've become.
"I live in a small village in Spain. It's really quiet and tranquil. It is a big adjustment. I don't have helicopters circling constantly, there's no-one yelling at the side of the road at me all day. I find that adjustment difficult to make. It makes you realise how intense the Tour de France is."
At 35, Dean has in some ways enjoyed a breakthrough Tour when others are contemplating a pipe and slippers. There's been a simmering awareness that Dean has always been good at what he does, but it wasn't until Tyler Farrar went down and Dean was given the opportunity to show his wares, that we realised just how good.
His three podiums in this year's edition of cycling's greatest race have him pegged by some, including New Zealand's trailblazer in terms of professional road cycling Tino Tabak, as this country's greatest peddler.
"There were obviously guys before me, guys like Tino Tabak and Stephen Swart. They came through in a different generation and it's difficult to compare, but they were very successful as well. I'm not the sort of person who'd come out and say `I'm the best cyclist ever' but yeah, it's nice to be getting recognition at home."
Part of that recognition comes with exposure. Cycling has never had it so good here. The efforts on the track of Sarah Ulmer, Greg Henderson and Hayden Roulston in recent years have boosted the profile and Sky Television has brought every stage of the TdF, plus many of Europe's other big races into our living rooms.
Where once Dean's 157th position and four-hour time lag behind winner Alberto Contador might have led to disparaging comments, there is now an appreciation of the tour's nuances and the specific roles of the riders.
We know now that when the general classification is being thrashed out in the alpine stages, it is all the likes of Dean and his fellow sprinters can do to get to the end of the stage.
You have to wonder what Dean is thinking when he comes off the flat and sees a sign that tells him he has 20kms to go to the summit? As it turns out, the key phrase is small steps.
"We have detailed profiles of the stages and the climbs in our race books. You might know there's a flatter section after three k's of the climb, so you'll focus on getting to that flatter section where you can take it easier for a while.
"It's actually the way to get through the whole of the Tour de France. It's day by day, climb by climb, kilometre by kilometre."
The non-climbers group together in an autobus, their sole aim to get to the end of the stage before the time cut-off that would see them withdrawn from the tour.
It's in complete contrast to the frenzy of the bunch finish, the time of the race when Dean earns his corn.
Usually he would be the penultimate rider in the train, trying to get Farrar into a great spot to contest for a stage win. It is a skill Dean is so adept at he was once described by former green jersey winner Thor Hushovd as the best lead-out rider in the world.
While the hills are a time for contemplation, the last kilometre of a flat stage is no place for thinking.
"One of the things with sprinting is that's it's dynamic and you have to be impulsive in everything you do," Dean says. "Rather than saying 'I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that', you have to react to situations as they happen. If you think about doing something in a sprint, normally it's too late because you've missed your opportunity. You have to be very spatially aware, instant and assertive in your reactions."
There's assertiveness, of course, then there's Mark Renshaw. At the conclusion of stage 11 Dean was head-butted by sprint king Mark Cavendish's lead-out man three times, a tactic that saw him kicked off the tour. It was, however, nothing Dean hadn't seen before.
"It's one of those things that happens, but the commissaires have to make their decision. They obviously took the situation pretty seriously."
The Australian left for home the next day before Dean had a chance to talk to him about it, though he discussed the situation with Cavendish. In truth, it was just one of a catalogue of weird incidents that have followed Dean over the past two Tours, which include being shot in the hand in 2009 and tackled by a member of the gendarmerie before this year's stage 16.
"It's quite bizarre. The last two years there's been some strange happenings going on, but there's always a lot of drama in the Tour de France and anything that happens out of the ordinary becomes global news."
Dean will be hoping the rest of the year is just as successful, if less controversial. He plans to ride two weeks of the Vuelta, the third of the year's grand tours, before departing early to prepare for the world championships and Commonwealth Games.
Those two events will give him another chance to witness first-hand the tremendous depth that has developed in New Zealand cycling. One of the reasons it has developed, Dean believes, is there are so many more opportunities to race overseas than there was in the past.
"That's the amazing thing about those guys of yesteryear, the Tabaks and Swarts, for them to get into teams was very, very difficult. It was a closed shop really unless you were European. Foreigners were not really seen as good enough or capable," Dean says.
"The generation I came through was the first mass wave of Australasian and American riders. Now it is accepted that we're good enough to be part of this circuit."
How much longer Dean remains on the circuit is a moot point. He has one more year on his Garmin-Transitions contract, then it is a step into the unknown, a step Dean candidly admits holds real fears.
"It's daunting. A lot of guys my age have already retired from the sport. For me personally, it's frightening. I've been abroad now for the best part of 15 years. It's tough and it's one of the reasons, in a broad sense, why I haven't already retired.
"What would I do?"
For the next year the answer is simple: keep peddling as fast as you can.
