KEY POINTS:
It's one of those questions to which Julian Dean will never know the answer. For three years, New Zealand's top professional cyclist was known as the best lead-out rider at the Tour de France, the guy who put sprinting ace Thor Hushovd in the right place at the
right time to win six Tour stages.
Dean wonders now what he might have achieved had he been the sprint ace for Credit Agricole when he was at his racing peak.
He recently turned 34 and only last year had his first chance of claiming a stage win, as the top sprinter for his new team, Garmin-Slipstream.
He claimed six top-10 finishes, including a career-high fourth in one stage. But without a rider like himself to lead him out in the sprints, he was battling against the might of other highly-organised teams.
Despite the fact it was a series of commendable placings, Dean felt hollow and realised then how valuable he had been to Credit Agricole.
"By now it's possible I would have had a stage win at the Tour de France," Deans says just before boarding a plane on Friday to return to his home in Valencia and another season of racing in Europe. "Especially during my years with Credit Agricole, because they were years when I was riding really well. I was at a good age, 27, when I started with them. You still have that hunger of being young and you start to get that experience and strength from being older.
"But I decided to forgo all that. I chose to do what I did and I spent four years with that team and I enjoyed that as well. But there is always that wondering, 'what if?'
"For someone like me, a stage win at the Tour de France is the ultimate. To be able to retire having done that, or to have done it already, you would feel you have achieved at the top level of your sport."
Dean's chances of claiming a stage win in what will be his fifth Tour improved with news Garmin-Slipstream signed a handful of new riders, including triple Olympic pursuiting gold medallist Bradley Wiggins. He might be employed as Dean's lead-out.
However, the team, which is built around being clean and conducts its own drugs testing, don't put a great emphasis on sprinting and Dean said it was usually up to him to "try to organise the boys as best I can".
He will get a chance to do that at this month's Volta ao Algarve in Portugal. He will then ride May's Giro d'Italia, the second-biggest race on the calendar, in the hope of getting himself in the best shape possible for July's Tour de France.
At his vintage, he admits it could be his second-last Tour.
"I'm hungry for the Tour de France," Deans says. "I got quite close to some good results last time and I'm really motivated to get that elusive stage win."
While New Zealand interest will centre on whether Dean can achieve that, most attention will focus on Lance Armstrong's comeback.
Sir Lance-a-lot won a record seven tours between 1999 and 2005.
He has said he is returning to raise awareness of cancer and that he won't be paid salary or bonuses. But, with a drugs spectre hanging over him, you sense he wants to prove he can do it beyond any reasonable doubt.
Dean knows Armstrong well, from when they were team-mates in the US Postal team from 1999-2001. He believes Armstrong's presence will benefit a Tour that has ridden into a few potholes in recent times largely because of drugs.
"The Tour is big in Europe anyway but it will bring interest from outside true cycling fans," Dean says, "and that good for the sport. Cycling has had its problems over the last couple of years and Lance coming back is probably just what it needs at the moment. It will be a distraction, something positive instead of drugs.
"Knowing Lance, having raced with Lance and even talking to him in Adelaide [at the Tour Down Under] last week, he wouldn't be coming back if he didn't think he could win it. The determination is there and when he wants something it's very hard to stop him. It's going to make for a really interesting Tour."
Dean will have to do it without the New Zealand jersey he has worn for two years as national champion.
He ceded that title to Gordon McCauley, who won a record fifth national championships thanks largely to a strong team effort. Dean was riding solo and was powerless to drag back the Subway team who broke away en masse.
An easy way for Dean to more than make up for that disappointment is win a stage at the Tour de France. Unfortunately for him, 200 other riders want to do exactly the same thing.
