Richard Moore: Shooting from the lip

ALOT OF professional athletes have performance anxiety or whatever psychology wants to call it, but winners, born winners like me, they just want sunshine blown up their arse."

So says Mark Cavendish in the first few pages of his book, Boy Racer, which was published on Thursday. It continues in this refreshingly frank and entertaining fashion, which is exactly as you'd expect from the boy racer they call Cav, who is currently the hottest property in world cycling, even if, to one teammate's horror – "f***ing ridiculous! It must be a conspiracy by the British government to kill road cycling" – he was omitted from last year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist. That is one bone of contention; there are plenty others.

He is an utterly fascinating case, is Cavendish. At the same time typically British and yet so un- and occasionally anti-British, he is one of those sportsmen – like Andy Murray – who divides people, and prompts the question: how do you like your sports stars? To be nice, or to win? To be charming, or successful?

But it isn't true to say that Cavendish isn't charming, for all that he describes himself as a big-mouthed "scally" and an "occasional arsehole." It's just that the 24-year-old from the Isle of Man exudes an unusual charm, and reserves it for those he feels deserve it. Towards others – certain journalists, mainly – he reserves scorn, demonstrating this with a scowl, narrowed eyes, and wildly gesticulating hands. He does not, as the saying goes, suffer fools.

Neither does he have much time for flash Harrys. On the Italian playboy Filippo Pozzato – "my least favourite rider in the peloton (with] his over-moisturised smug mug".

Then there is the former British head coach, Simon Jones, named coach of the year by UK Sport in 2004, and savaged by Cavendish, who implies in his book that he had a role in getting Jones sacked in 2006.

When Cavendish came to London last week he insisted that the location for a day of media interviews was an authentic Italian bar-come-restaurant in Soho. But I begin our interview by admitting that I'm relieved not to be standing on a beach wearing tartan. In his book, during a discussion of the peculiarities of the self-governed Isle of Man, he writes that one of the island's laws permits a Manxman to shoot a Scot, as long as he is standing on a beach wearing tartan. "We've still got the death penalty as well," he smiles. "But I think we'd be f***ed in the European courts if we did it."

Well thank goodness for that.

The fact that he comes from a place that is a bit different, that defines him as something of an outsider, seems appropriate. Like Scotland's Robert Millar, who Cavendish is bidding to emulate at this summer's Tour de France by winning one of the three major jerseys, 25 years after Millar won the polka-dot jersey of King of the Mountains, he seems to crave recognition in his home country, while at the same time thriving as a consequence of not receiving the acclaim that he gets in continental Europe.

In Italy, where he lives during the season, Cavendish now enjoys sporting god-like status, having recently added three stage wins in the Giro d'Italia to victory in the Milan-San Remo classic in March. Quarrata, his adopted home, promised him the freedom of the town if he won the Giro stage into Florence. He did, and, turning serious, admits his success is "big there. They appreciate what I've done, and I can't eat breakfast in the local bar now. I was in a restaurant the other night, and they brought out a plate of prosciutto, and said: 'That's for your achievements in the Giro.' "

"Over here," he continues, "you can be famous for being on Big Brother, where you don't have to do anything. Get your tits out and you're famous. In Italy, they appreciate what I've achieved. Not my face, but what I've done. It's kind of nice."

In saying this, he doesn't rant. He is measured. He is also complicated and contradictory. He says he has inherited ice from his father, fire from his mother – "an emotional volcano" – and if he erupts one moment, or bursts into tears – as he does on every second page of his book – he can be deeply thoughtful the next. His answers to some questions appear to come from leftfield, but have clearly been well thought out. He is asked, for example, whether the success of Britain's cyclists in last year's Olympics has had any real impact on the profile of the sport in this country.

"I was in a taxi last night," he responds, after thinking for a couple of seconds. "The driver said, 'That guy Chris Hoy must be a millionaire by now, eh?' and I was like, 'Yeah, perhaps.' And he said, 'So the sponsorship's good in cycling now?' But I said, 'Well, that's got more to do with the Olympics than cycling.' If you ask people, what three events did Chris win his medals in, 90% of people wouldn't be able to tell you. (As cyclists] we're more likely to be rammed off the road than applauded riding through London."

The irony in the taxi driver's question is that Cavendish's earning power is arguably greater than Hoy's, with the glory, prestige and money heavily concentrated in road rather than track cycling. "The Mozart of the 11-tooth" he was recently dubbed by L'Equipe after his virtuoso performance at the Giro, which has set him up for a tilt at the green jersey for points winner – or best sprinter – when the Tour de France starts in Monaco three weeks on Saturday. (The reference to "11-tooth" refers, incidentally, to the number of teeth on the sprocket favoured by sprinters in the bunch finishes.)

Cavendish insists, though, that his priority is not the green jersey, but to make it to Paris, which, in two starts, he has so far failed to do. "I'd love to win the green jersey, but I'm realistic in my targets. I don't have dreams and hope they'll happen. Realistically, if you challenge for green you take a different view on the race, trying to place consistently on every stage, whereas I've always been a rider who's all or nothing; for me, it's win or nothing. Maybe it's too early in my career to base my Tour around green. In the future, yes."

He says he refuses to set long-term goals, and that his target at the Tour is simply to win stages. After winning four last year he has set a high benchmark, but you don't get the impression that Cavendish is going to run out of steam. What separates him from others, he says, is "determination." He was written off by the coach he slams in his book because he "didn't hit the numbers" in the lab tests that supposedly determine potential. He was "short and pudgy," rather than chiselled and lean, like most top road professionals.

How he overrides any physical shortcomings, and what he has in abundance, he keeps insisting, is passion: a very un-British passion for a sport that, he points out, is "not just understood and appreciated, but in the hearts of people in Europe."

Midway through the first of the four stages he won during last year's Tour, Cavendish dropped back to his team car and ordered his director to place a £1,000 bet on him. It is evidence that he also possesses the un-British belief that he is a "born winner" and can win races that have been dominated for over a century by continental Europeans, even as, in typically paradoxical fashion, he insists that: "I just want to be told I'm the best… I just need sunshine blown up my arse."

• Boy Racer, by Mark Cavendish (Ebury Press), £18.99

• Mark Cavendish will be in Edinburgh to start the Right to Play Edinburgh-London cycle ride on 17 August. Two hundred riders will take six days to complete the route, raising funds for Right to Play, an international organisation that uses sport and play to help children and youths in disadvantaged areas, and which is supported by Cavendish.