
His house is surrounded by a high fence so the paparazzi can’t take photographs of him, but is the 2004 Giro d’Italia winner hiding from the reality of a potential that remains unfulfilled? Cycle Sport went behind the fence to find out.

Nicknamed ‘the perfect athlete’ at HTC-Columbia, four-times Italian time trial champion Marco Pinotti, 33, outlines how to be the ultimate bike rider. Marco Pinotti is probably the last person in the world who would call himself perfect. Anyone who says, like Pinotti, that he’s taken 10 years to become a ‘good’ rider, clearly isn’t a man with a huge ego.