Nine months ago Michael Rogers was a man in black, a lonely rider on the quiet roads around Canberra.
It was April 27 last year and if you passed him in your car out on the way to Tharwa, you'd think he was just one of this city's thousands of keen riders out for a Sunday ride.
There were no team embellishments on his gear, nothing to remind you that six months earlier he'd been leader on the road in the Tour de France.
Canberra photographer Greg Long was out shooting the ACT time trial championships that day.
Thirty minutes after the last rider had passed, and as he was packing his gear into his car, Long saw the rider in black coming towards him and fired off a few frames.
''I thought 'who do I know rides in black? No one','' Long recalled this week.
''It wasn't until he'd passed that I checked the shots. It was Rogers.''
By rights Rogers shouldn't have been anywhere near Canberra. He should have been in Europe preparing for the Tour de France.
But chronic fatigue had taken hold of him in early 2008, around the time of the Aussie road championships.
The 27-year-old needed time to recuperate and decided his former home town (he lives with his wife and two children in northern Italy) was the place to do it.
''It was starting to bite me then, although I had no idea what it was,'' Rogers told The Canberra Times.
''I just didn't have any strength, any energy. I was struggling.''
As he proved in Beijing with a sixth-place finish in the road race, Rogers made his way back.
Today he is in fine health, back home and preparing to compete in the national championship in Ballarat next week.
That event is a taster to the far more significant Tour Down Under, beginning in Adelaide on January18.
Rogers's team, Team Columbia, will field seven riders in the six-stage race. But it will be one of his rivals who will dominate the event, if not the racing itself.
The most successful Tour de France rider of all time, Lance Armstrong, is making Australia the venue for his comeback to professional cycling after three years in retirement. Rogers doubts whether Astana's Armstrong can be a contender so soon after his return to serious riding. But he admits the peleton will feel the seven-times Tour de France champion's presence with every pedal stroke.
''I've raced with Lance before and I know him quite well,'' Rogers said.
''He's very aggressive and when he puts his mind to doing something, he doesn't stop until it's achieved.
''Certainly, I don't think anyone in the peleton has replaced his shoes in the way he races and his outlook to cycling in general.''
Asked to comment on the impact Armstrong's return would have on a sport still battling the blight of doping, Rogers took a moment to consider his answer.
Many in the cycling world particularly in France were convinced Armstrong was a drug cheat during his dominant reign over the Tour. If he was, he was never caught and he now undergoes rigorous testing to prove he is clean.
''He's got fans and also people who aren't so supportive of him,'' Rogers said of Armstrong.
''He may have made some bad enemies in France because he won seven Tours in a row and took records away from some popular riders. Anyone that popular is going to have fans and enemies. That comes with his success and stature.''
This year's Tour Down Under will enjoy unprecedented coverage internationally thanks to the Armstrong factor. It is a race Rogers won in 2002.
While he missed most of last year's racing, Rogers's surprise sixth-place finish in Beijing proved he was back as a major force.
''Beijing was a race I put all my eggs into one basket for. As soon as I got back on to the healthy trail, that was the only thing I thought about,'' he said. ''I came back in good condition in a relatively short time so I was super happy to finish with the front guys and it gives me confidence for the future, that I can still go with the best guys in the world.''
As he rides down the scorching roads around Adelaide this month, the main game the Tour de France in July and August won't be far from his mind.
He had to sacrifice last year's Tour to ensure he could ride at the Olympics.
''If I was a kid, 22 or 23, I would have said 'damn it, let me race' last year and I wouldn't have been able to perform well at the Olympics.
''When you haven't got a base built up during the year, there's no point going in the races. I'm too experienced now to try that stuff.''