Exclusive: Mark Cavendish talks family, Qhubeka and his love for playing FIFA

To say the past 12 months have been trying times for the former world champion road racer Mark Cavendish would be a massive understatement to say the least.

Not long after shaking off the ill effects of a three-month long battle with the Epstein-Barr Virus, the once heralded ‘fastest man on two wheels’ found himself lying in a hospital bed with a fractured shoulder blade following a race-ending crash with reigning rainbow jersey Peter Sagan on Stage 4.

The collision ultimately sent Sagan home and ended both the Slovakian's chance to win a sixth green points jersey and Cav’s opportunity to improve on his 30-win stage tally to tie or surpass Belgian Eddy Merckx’s record of 34.

It is an incident that still doesn’t sit well with the Dimension Data sprinter, as he told Eurosport.

“I'm still not really comfortable talking about it,” he admitted. “[It weighs on me] every single day.”

Since his Dubai Tour stage win back in February, the 32-year-old Isle of Man native moved on to the Tour of Oman the following week before unexpectedly exiting the opening stage of the Abu Dhabi Tour the a few days later when a neutral zone crash resulted in injury — this time a race-ending concussion.

Bad luck continued to plague the 2011 world champ and 48-time Grand Tour stage winner, crashing out of Tirreno-Adriatico in the opening team time trial before doing the same at Milan-San Remo in horrific fashion when a head-on collision with a traffic divider at the foot of the Poggio sent the 2009 race winner flipping head first over his handlebars before landing flat-backed and breaking his ribs on the asphalt.

With the Commonwealth Games road race (April 10) now off the menu and an Amgen Tour of California (May 13-19) return in sight, the ‘Manx Missile’ will perhaps once again turn to familiar comforts while on his road to recovery.

“You need a good support network around you,” he explained. “I’m lucky my wife – my family – is my rock, they take my mind off what happens both good and bad in cycling.”

According to Cavendish, who says when he’s not racing bikes he can be found at the movies with his daughter or duelling with his son over Playstation titles, the champion cyclist is first and foremost a family man.

“When I’m with my kids I want to be dad, and when I’m with my wife I want to be husband,” he said. “I like to go on cinema dates with my daughter, see the My Little Pony movie or something, y’know. I can’t remember any of the names – is it Applejack or something like that?

"And I like to play FIFA with my oldest boy. I play as Real Madrid normally – I’m not the best. I love my driving sims too, Grand Turismo, Project Cars. But I always drive a McLaren."

However, when it comes to cycling Cavendish says one of the biggest driving forces behind his desire to keep winning is Qhubeka.

The South African charity behind Team Dimension Data raises money to provide bikes to communities with limited transport options to help, in the words of the charity, with: "doing things that are difficult without transport, like fetching supplies, travelling to school or work, visiting a clinic, or providing emergency help after a disaster."

And the cause has struck a chord with Cavendish, who told Eurosport:

"We have a training camp in South Africa every November and my highlight of it is doing a bike handover in rural South Africa, it’s amazing," Cavendish added. "A bike to me is my work tool. A bike is so versatile – it can be used for fun, a mode of transport, exercise, racing. But it is fundamentally something I take for granted. Something I take for such granted can change a life like that.

"It was the reason I came to this team. The charity for me was everything, it something more. It’s refreshing to have something. Everybody’s on board with this project that changes lives in such a way – it’s massive, it’s really important."

Cavendish has been receiving treatment from team physios and recently told the Observer that he is back on the turbo trainer in spite of the pain in order to make a May return.

“I’d like at least to make California,” he said. “I don’t know how my fitness will be but I should be all right. At least if I can come back by then I should be all right for the Tour.”

Despite a myriad of early season setbacks after having to fight feverishly to return to form and hit this year in good nick, Cavendish claims nothing has changed in terms of his passion for racing.

“I had so much time last year off that it could have affected my whole season this year,” he said. “Just trying to fight through those tough days when you are unfit and still sore and knowing that the bigger picture is going to be worth it.”

Although Cavendish recently confessed his love of motorbikes and a desire to race professionally during an interview published by Esquire Middle East in February, the father of two’s appetite for winning is as insatiable as ever.

“I don't think my desire to win has changed at all,” he claimed. “A lot of people said when you have kids you don’t take risks, you don’t want to be away from home, but my job is to take risks and be away from home.

“The thing is now instead of doing that for selfish reasons, I have to make out and if I am away from my family it has to be for a purpose. It has made me – if anything – kind of more hungry, but for completely different reasons. Not for my own ego, it’s for providing for my family and having my family be proud of me.”