It’s the 100th Milan-Sanremo, in March 2009, and Mark Cavendish, aged 23, is sprinting towards his first Monument win. He’s managed to latch on to the slipstream of Heinrich Haussler, who is riding for Cervélo TestTeam, and is starting to zip round the big Australian, a fast flash of yellow and white in that iconic Team Columbia kit. He lunges over the sun-baked finish line just two centimetres ahead of Haussler, through the middle of the Italian tifosi and shouts of “Vai! Vai!” and he raises his arms. Later, on the podium, Cavendish is in tears, his baby face shaded crimson. He hugs his team-mates. He will win 165 races in his career, but this 2009 Milan-Sanremo victory will remain one of the best.
Sixteen years later, in his first few months officially in retirement from professional bike racing, Cavendish is telling the story again. He’s reminiscing about that dreamy day on the Italian Riviera alongside two of the men who helped it happen: Bernie Eisel and Mark Renshaw. As he speaks, the Manxman is gesticulating with excitement, regaling his audience with golden memories of teamwork and success.
“God it was special how we did that. Were you there that year?” Cavendish asks Eisel who is sitting next to him.
“I was in the break!” replies the Austrian with a grin.
“Yeah, fucking right you were! Bernie was in the break and they got 15 minutes,” laughs Cavendish. “When they get to the climb of Le Manie, he sits up from the break, goes for a wee and waits for me so he can help position me into the Cipressa. We had a plan. We were, like, the first team to really break the race down – that type of stuff which is normal now. We didn’t go around gung ho, shouting that we were changing the game, or about marginal gains and stuff, we just did it.
“We used to sit in a room and look at Google Maps to work out the race route. Do you remember when Street View came?” laughs the Manxman. “We were the first. We used to sit in the room and it didn’t load for ages.”
“We paid 25 euros or whatever it was for a day of internet, which didn’t work and when you clicked on it, it took, like, an hour,” adds Eisel. “It worked in some towns in France, like that stage at the 2010 Tour de France when...”
And the conversation goes on like this: Renshaw, Eisel and Cavendish reflecting on the good old days, from the defeats to the victories and everything in between. The trio are in ownership of a lifetime of bike-racing knowledge. They were the lead-out train that changed the sprinting game and left their rivals in the dust. The fastest men in the world. But that was then.
In 2025, the three men are in very different chapters of their careers. Renshaw is working as an assistant sports director at XDS Astana Team and Eisel is in the same role over at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. They both retired after the 2019 season, while Cavendish went on to race – and win – for another five years, until he called time on a historic career at the end of last season. He broke Eddy Merckx’s Tour de France stage win record with his 35th victory in Saint-Vulbas before bowing out of the sport which has both given and taken so much from him.
Cavendish is now learning to navigate life without bike racing. He’s taken up running, he tells me, with plans to compete in the Paris Marathon. The three are all in Australia for the Tour Down Under, and this is the first time Cavendish, Eisel and Renshaw have been reunited in one place since 2020. Cavendish, a close friend of race director Stuart O’Grady, is an ambassador for the event, while Eisel and Renshaw are here to do their day jobs. On the afternoon before the first stage, they have come together for an afternoon of wine tasting at Seppeltsfield Winery – one of the oldest and highest regarded estates in the Barossa Valley.
“I haven’t been to Adelaide for 14 years – it was hard for me to do the Tour Down Under because I was always so focused on July,” says Cavendish. “For me, during my career, it was never possible for me to just ride around a race. There was always an expectation. As a professional, I always wanted to live up to that so it was difficult to come here and then still be good in July. I missed it because I spent a lot of time in Australia when I was young and have really good memories. When Stuart called me and asked if I’d like to come back now that I’m retired, it was a no brainer.”
One of the benefits of no longer racing, says Cavendish, is being able to really see the places he’s in. He’s basking in golden afternoon sun and sipping a glass of 2024 Grenache sourced from vineyards on the western ridge of the Barossa. Life in retirement doesn’t seem all too bad for the greatest sprinter there has ever been, who will have turned 40 by the time this magazine is published.
“When you’re riding, you’re not focused on your surroundings,” he says. “I’d be lying if you say you didn’t see it, but you don’t notice it as much. You see the aeroplane, a hotel, a dinner room, but it’s hard to get away from that. Now I can slow down a bit and take more time to appreciate the places I’m in.”
Just as he was during his career when he was searching Google Maps for the curves and narrowings on quiet roads that would be home to Tour de France finishes, Mark Cavendish remains curious. He’s eager to learn more about the places he’s in, and South Australia is no exception. Throughout his day at Seppeltsfield Winery, the Manxman has not stopped asking questions. Famous for having the world’s only unbroken lineage of single vintage tawny port, dating back to 1878, Seppeltsfield is a treasure trove of history and culture. Cavendish, Eisel and Renshaw spent the afternoon sampling the 1925 100-Year-Old Para Vintage Tawny, which has spent a century of seasons maturing in oak.
“In 1878, the first purpose-built winery was completed and that was when the first vintage was made in six-slate open fermenters. It was then that Benno Seppelt decided to lay down a barrel of his finest tawny port to commemorate the completion of the winery and honour his father,” Fiona Donald, the chief winemaker at Seppeltfield Winery, tells Cavendish in response to his questions.
“He decreed that it wasn’t to be opened for 100 years, so in 1978 the Seppeltsfield family opened it and released the first ever 100-year-old tawny. Every year subsequently one is laid down. Now the current custodians look after the longest unbroken line of tawnys in the world.1878 to 2024 are in barrels and our job is to look after that and release one every year.”
Cavendish nods in appreciation as he sips the port, describing an explosion of flavour as he does so: amber toffee with notes of plum pudding, dark chocolate, cold tea and espresso. He’s eager to become an expert in tasting, as he was eager to be the best bike racer in the world – Cavendish doesn’t do anything in half measures. Even though he has stepped away from professional cycling, he’s still got an itch for pushing his mind and body to their limits.
“You know, I still really love my bike, but retirement is a chance to discover other things,” he says. “It’s like doing my running – it has been refreshing. I got roped into entering the marathon with my brother and now I’m training for that every day.
“It’s in my nature to try hard at everything I do. I always said when I was riding, if you do more than you think you can, or do more than anyone else, you get better. My philosophy is that if you haven’t seen improvement every day, you’ve wasted a day. That’s how I view life. If I suffer doing the Paris marathon and I know I’ve not done everything, I’ll always have an excuse. I don’t want an excuse.”
One absence that Cavendish admits he does feel now he is outside the travelling circus of the WorldTour is spending time with his team-mates. The banter and jokes that fly around between him, Eisel and Renshaw are a clear example of how important relationships with his colleagues were for Cavendish, but there is no sprint lead-out train to guide him through his next chapter away from two wheels.
“I miss being with the boys,” says Cavendish. “I always knew I’d miss being part of a team and that family, getting to know people who you wouldn’t ever usually meet in real life and getting to work together. That’s what I always did in my career, I’m proud that a lot of my team-mates have become friends, even when I’ve left teams. There’s a few that you’ll speak to for the rest of your life. You’ve been through experiences together that people couldn’t even comprehend. You bond in a certain way.”
If there is one thing that Cavendish is familiar with after two decades as a professional sportsman, it’s sacrifice. While there are elements of bike racing that he misses, in the spaces that they leave lie new opportunities. One of the biggest of these is more time with his wife and children – something that Cavendish didn’t have as much of as he wanted while spending days and weeks on the road. He tells stories of taking his six-year-old son (now seven), Casper, to the local velodrome and reflects on the luxury of not having his own stringent training regime to stick to.
“It’s the little things, like coming to lunch without feeling guilty about eating nice food or having a glass of wine. Over Christmas and New Year with the kids, you could wake up easily with them, without having to go out riding every morning,” says Cavendish. “It’s different when they’re young and they’ve got that excitement about Christmas morning. I’ve never really seen that – it’s those things you take for granted. They make you feel real. Even being here in Australia, doing this. I’m very fortunate that my life has given me a position where I’m able to do this.”
Maybe it’s the magic in the wine, but the Mark Cavendish that sits among the palm trees at Seppeltsfield Winery seems at peace. He still has the playful puppy dog energy that made him such a canny cyclist, but he’s calm and balanced. His answers are reflective and grateful, and he continues to stress how lucky he feels to be here in the sunshine, sharing wine with his best friends. Renshaw and Eisel are two men to whom he is inextricably linked, through both the hardships they navigated together as team-mates and the extreme highs of their shared success. Cavendish is a different person now when compared to the stocky, emotional sprinter who stood on the start line in Sanremo almost two decades ago. That chapter is closed, and he’s living through the next one.
“I’ve grafted hard for 20 years and I’m lucky that I did what I did in my career,” says Cavendish with a twinkle in his eye. “To be here now, tasting that tawny port and sitting with my closest friends, it’s all worthwhile. I’ve been shown here in Australia everything that you want to do but you can’t do as a bike rider. The pride and pleasure that the Adelaide people have done that with – it’s been an amazing thing. It’s refreshing, it’s nice. This type of stuff is when you feel human."
To find out more about South Australia and it’s many wine regions, visit southaustralia.com
