Romain Bardet will return to the Tour de France in 2023. Granted, he was there last year, and there in 2020, but you'd have to go back to 2019 for the last time his heart was truly in it. This year, he returns refreshed, focused, and wanting to "empty" himself on home roads.
But he also returns realistic. Runner-up in 2016 and again on the podium in 2017, Bardet was once the biggest threat to the Chris Froome era and the most likely successor to Bernard Hinault as the long-awaited home winner of the Tour.
Things have changed a lot in that time. Now 32 and nestled into the rhythms of Team DSM, Bardet says he's better than ever. The problem is that the competition has evolved at an even greater rate.
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"It's been quite a shift. It's going faster. The guys are stronger," Bardet said during a press conference this week.
"Back in the day, when it was Team Sky, for sure they were super strong and I will not say that Sky in 2016 and 2017 were weaker than Jumbo-Visma today, but nowadays you not only have Jumbo, but also UAE and Ineos and so on. There's much more density at the top.
"We also have super talents, like [Tadej] Pogačar, [Jonas] Vingegaard, [Remco] Evenepoel, who can make the race on their own. When [Bradley] Wiggins won the Tour, when Froome won the Tour, they really relied on their team to build their success, but now there are guys who can race around with some crazy attacks because they're so strong."
Bardet was keen to deny the idea that his form has receded in any way since his Tour de France podiums. "It's definitely better," he said firmly.
It's for that reason that his ambitions at the Tour have shifted. Top of his priority list is a stage win, which would be his first since 2017. After that, it's about "doing the best GC result possible", but knowing it's difficult to pin a number on it.
What he wants, in a somewhat surprising and incongruously poetic comparison, is to do a "Tour de France à la Geraint Thomas".
While Vingegaard and Pogačar knocked chunks out of each other last summer, sprinting away seemingly at will while others were already in the red, Thomas clung grimly to his own task and ended up 'best of the rest'. The 2018 Tour winner became the subject of numerous internet memes but also of admiration from a fellow professional.
"I think his performance was brilliant," Bardet said on Tuesday. "He was super fit, super lean, really focused on his own race, just giving his best every day. For a guy who already won the Tour, to really fight when the other two guys went, when he was getting dropped every time... he was just like the last survivor of the fight. It was a really inspiring performance to see.
"You now have to admit that cycling is going faster. You also have to pick and find your own references in your performance. It's not only about victory, but doing your best, and you see in the end what result it can bring. He showed that, even at 36, he can reach his best. For me he was even better than when he won the Tour, but you can't control how fast the others are going."
'It's becoming a bit of a game'
During his time at the AG2R team, Bardet's season was defined by the Tour, and the pressure became such he needed to break out of the cycle. He finally managed to engineer a switch to the Giro d'Italia in 2020 but the pandemic had other plans, and he had to wait until 2021 to make his debut at the Italian Grand Tour, placing seventh and going on to win a stage of the Vuelta a España in his first Tour-less season.
Last year, he returned to target the Giro but had to abandon due to illness while looking very promising in the podium hunt. He went to the Tour without huge expectations but managed seventh place overall - since upgraded to sixth after Nairo Quintana's disqualification - despite a couple of off-days.
With the Giro containing 70km of time trialling to the Tour's mountainous 22km, Grand Tour planning for pure climbers was easier than ever, but Bardet indicated he's ready all-round to give the Tour another true crack.
"I don't think I lost some love for the Tour. I'm thankful for what it has brought to me, what I've learned from all my experiences in the Tour, good and bad. There's more positive than negative but I came to a point – 2019 was not good, 2020 I crashed out – where I was going nowhere there. I was doing every year the same. I needed to find a new focus and discover myself a bit in a different way.
"Now I go to the Tour with the same mindset as I went to the Giro last year. I try to take it as a normal race and that's the sort of mentality I've been learning in this team. I mainly focus on the process - not about the consequences that a bad result can have on your life."
Bardet would be forgiven for feeling dispirited at the way the competition has risen to the level that effectively puts beyond reach what was once the central aim of his career. But even if he has no real desire to continue racing beyond 2024, he appears energised by the landscape in which he now finds himself.
"My mindset has changed a bit. I had more pressure before because I knew I could maybe be the best at some point, but now it's obvious that when I go to a race like the Tour I won't be the best guy or among the two or three or four top favourites. That keeps me pushing all the way - in terms of tactics and in training, to raise my level to match the young guys.
"It's becoming a bit of a game," he added. "I know on paper when I line up for a mountain-top finish with the guys winning Grand Tours these days, I will be beaten. I need to find another way to gain some time. It's interesting.
"It will be very difficult to rival Vingegaard and Pogačar, but at the same time, it'll be about trying to create an opportunity, and find a way. There's that uncertainty. Given the route and its difficulty, being an outsider on the second rung can make things exciting.
"Even if I've been there before, being on the podium would be an enormous achievement. I know I can't do that by riding the same race as 2017. That leads me to think about different paths. Even if I'm at 100% physically, compared to 2016 and 2017 that would not suffice now. I need something else, given the competition."
