Even though Paolo Bettini still refuses to reveal more detailed information about the role he should play in the Fernando Alonso Cycling Team, the former World Champion, turning 40 this spring, is ready to start the new chapter of his career in professional cycling and return to day-to-day life within the peloton, as he admitted Cyclingnews.com in an exclusive interview during his stay in Madrid.

After an extremely successful career as a professional cyclist, highlighted by two World Championship titles and impressive number of victories in major one-day races, Bettini took over the position of Italian Team head coach after his close friend Franco Ballerini passed away in tragic circumstances, and played that role for six consecutive years. Now the Italian Champion is ready to move his career forward and return to the life within the cycling peloton, as he was encouraged to make such change by his age – Bettini turns 40 early this spring, as well as by an exceptionally catchy offer made by Alonso.

"It all happened really quickly. We'd talked a little bit but it all happened and came to life between December and Christmas. It felt like a great train was passing by and so I decided to jump on it," Bettini tells Cyclingnews in an exclusive interview.

Bettini considered his decision as a huge step forward and another milestone of his career in professional cycling, and as he admits an offer was presented to him just in a perfect timing.

"I've always made important decision about my career after speaking to my family," Bettini explained.

"I'm going to be very busy and I’ll be back on the road but after plenty of time at home, my wife and I agreed it was time to do something new. I'll be 40 in the spring and the idea that I'm getting 'old' in some way made me want to get going again and take on a new challenge.

"I feel like I'm making a comeback in the peloton in some kind of way or preparing for a new world championships. We'll be starting from scratch and building something special. It's an innovative, ambitious project. That's what convinced me to accept the role, to roll up my sleeves and jump back into the world of professional cycling full time."

In an interview for Cyclingnews.com former double World Champion shares some more general reflections about the world of cycling in its current shape, and makes some prognosis for the nearest future. Bettini believes, that shaking off the problems concerning coping cases, attracting more prominent sponsors and introducing both scientific approach and advanced technologies to the discipline should begin the new era for cycling, clean and attractive more than ever for fans.

"It's good that there's the new Alonso project, that a businessman like Oleg Tinkov has bought Bjarne Riis' team, that Sky has invested so well and so heavily in cycling. We've also got new leadership at the UCI. Cycling is in a good place as the global economy recovers," he points out.

"If people and companies are getting on board and still love cycling despite everything that has happened, it proves that cycling will always be strong and confirms that the worst is behind us. I think the sport will grow rapidly in the future."

Even though Bettini was never linked to any major doping cases, he raced and achieved all of his impressive victories between 1997 and 2008, which has to be considered as the darkest decade in the history of the discipline.

According to many circulating rumors surrounding the new Fernando Alonso project, the team is being built with a total transparency and no tolerance to doping, thus the team’s roster is told to consist of cyclists that have never been connected to any scandals concerning doping. It is not certain, however, whether the Fernando Alonso Cycling Team anti-doping policy should resemble the one applied at Team Sky, or they aim to develop their own methods.

Bettini also reflects on the former cycling stars that have been linked to some major doping cases, sharing his trust in the reconciliation of those and in building the future of the discipline rather on learning from the past mistakes than on denial and excluding them from the professional peloton.

"We've got to look to the future but also learn from the mistakes of past. I think cycling is doing that. I don’t know what kind of Truth and Reconciliation process will be done by the UCI but we've got to move forward," he said.

"It's difficult to find a perfectly fair solution because each case is complex and different in many ways.

“Riis confessed to doping and offered to give back his yellow jersey. That was a big step for him. He's a team manager now and has built a great team over the years. Millar confessed, served his ban and is back racing and is a great advocate for the sport. I think they're both doing their best for the good of cycling now. Why shouldn't they both be allowed to play a role in building a better cycling?"

Bettini is not sure if Lance Armstrong should also be given similar treatment, however.

"It's difficult to judge Lance but perhaps his situation is more complex," Bettini said. "I don’t want to judge his case. We never raced much together but he was very arrogant in the peloton. I don’t want to say anything else because it’s a complex subject and it's out of our control."

Even though numerous rumors suggested that an atmosphere between Bettini as the Italian national coach and the Italian Federation was increasingly tense and lacked any field of common understanding in developing projects presented by the former World Champion, he took a classy approach and thanked Renato Di Rocco for their cooperation and all the experience he was allowed to gain in the process.

"I've got to thank the Italian Federation and the Italian president Renato Di Rocco. They trusted me after the tragic death of Franco Ballerini and gave me a chance," Bettini said, turning the other cheek.

"I've learnt a lot while working with the Italian Federation. It's not easy to manage a team that doesn't exist for the rest of the season. I tried to do my best even if the results perhaps don’t reflect the good work we did. I could have done better in certain moments but we went close to winning medals several times with Pozzato in 2010, with Pinotti in the time trial in 2012, and in 2013 at home in Florence.

There was a lot of pressure on us but we had a really united team and if Nibali and Paolini hadn't crashed, things would have been very different."

Since many of present and former Italian riders, still working in the discipline, made the similar move as Bettini recently did, an Italian cycling has been left poorer than ever before. However, Bettini believes it is rather a natural consequence of the stagnation and decay in the homeland of cycling than a primary cause, while the lack of the vision and funding forced the highly qualified staff and riders to leave the country.

"Italian cycling is suffering financially but it's not only a financial problem. It's about plans and projects not being activated and implemented," Bettini said.

"Unfortunately some of the traditionally strong cycling nations have sat on their laurels and the success of the past. The new cycling countries like Great Britain, Australia and the others have overtaken us. We've known and talked about the problem for five or six years but we still haven't done anything. That's why other nations have overtaken us. We're perhaps slowly changing now but we've got a lot of catching up to do."

Bettini revealed that he tried to do his bit but has now thrown in the towel, giving up the prestigious but frustrating role of Italian national coach to play a key role in Alonso new team.

"Last March I presented a four-year project for Italian cycling that covered the Rio 2016 Olympics. I knew that money was tight in the Federation but it was based on ideas rather than big budgets," he explained with a hint of sarcasm and satisfied irony.

"I expected that I'd be offered a four year-contract to carry out the plan. It didn’t happen and I was given a one-year contract. Now I can only thank the Italian Federation, because if I'd been under contract perhaps I wouldn't have been able to accept the huge chance I've been given now."