Originally, the Giro d’Italia didn’t feature on Cadel Evans' 2013 itinerary. However, the Australian has since rescheduled his season and will now ride the Italian Grand Tour as part of his preparation for the Tour de France.

His ambitions for the corsa rosa seem modest: "ride a good race," the BMC rider told media before hitting the road in Naples on Saturday.

"I really don't know whether I'm at the level to be with the best guys here" Evans admitted. "They come here thinking about this race, preparing for this race for six, seven months, eight months ago - I come here on a few weeks’ preparation but that's okay. That doesn't mean we can't do a good race."

Questions abound as to Evans’ possibilities in the Giro, with even Evans himself riding into unknown territory.

"I come here seeing what I can do on a little more than a month's concentration and preparation so I come here with high hopes but not high expectations," he explained.

"I'm very pleased to come back here again. I'm a little bit better prepared, a lot more experienced and over the next three weeks, we'll see what I can do."

In 2002 Evans was the first Australian to wear the maglia rosa when he took on the Giro for the first time wearing the Mapei colours, since then, he has ridden the Italian Grand Tour only once in 2010 when he won the stage to Montalcino having donned the leader's jersey for a second time earlier on.

"The Giro for me is about the passion of the people in the Giro, the passion of the people who come and see the Giro," Evans explained. "It's certainly a very different ambience [to the Tour de France].

"I've only won one stage of the Giro, more than a few second places but the one stage win was pretty special."

Asked to pinpoint the crucial stages over the next three weeks, Evans was deliberately evasive.

"Every stage is going to be decisive in the Giro," he said. "There are particularly hard mountain stages, particularly hard time trials - a lot can happen even in the transfers in between.

"Most of all I see the stages here, even the time trials are hilly, steep climbs," Evans continued. "There's really not much flat in even the Gabicce Mare time trial. It's going to change things around a bit. A lot of people come here with climbers’ teams and that makes the flat stages more interesting as well. It's a tough course like the Giro always is, maybe not as extreme as some years but a very, very good quality field."