That vision is focused on retaining his Tour de France title in 2014 but if he gazes far enough, the end of the tunnel sees a cycling pantheon and himself as not just one of his sport’s all-time greats but, above all, as a multiple champion who is demonstrably clean.

“It’s a personal ambition, I’d love to be up there with those legends, the true greats like [Eddy] Merckx, to become someone who can challenge and win the Tour on multiple occasions. I’ve got time on my side. I think I could,” Froome told English newspaper The Telegraph at the training base that Team Sky hire for their sole use over the winter in Majorca.

The post-Tour madness is history – he still cannot quite credit the crazy fan who chased his taxi on foot for two miles through central London just for an autograph – and now the relentless, unforgiving road to Paris begins all over again.

Froome acknowledges that to some degree he lost focus amid all the demands made upon him instantly after he crossed the finish line in Paris in July but now, he claims, his appetite is back with a vengeance and he whooped when doctors told him he has finally kayoed his long-standing, debilitating affliction, bilharzia.

Froome is currently submitting to a rigorous training regime on the Spanish island. Just after 7am, he does 45 minutes in the gym before breakfast, working on leg strengthening and exercises to battle a weakness in his lower back. “Then it was back out there riding on the roads, an hour before everyone else, to get six hours in. That extra hour is important because I’m so hungry. I really want to sink my teeth into next year’s Tour again,” Froome told the paper, underlining his desire to pound the opposition into submission in France in 2014.

“I still think I can get much better. I’m obviously a decent climber but there are things I can do to improve. Like I’m not the smoothest rider. I’m rugged, all elbows and knees. I’ve heard Christian Prudhomme [the Tour director] say I was Paula Radcliffe on a bike! So, I can work on improving my position on the bike, as well as improving tactically in stage races. Each time I ride a Grand Tour at the front, I’m learning. Otherwise it would be demotivating.” A man who has famously mocked his own lack of interest in the sport’s history even now admits to thirsting to learn from old heroes such as Merckx, the greatest of them all.

“I have started actually speaking to some of these legends. Eddy stays just down the road from me in Monaco and, having been out for a couple of meals with him, it’s been fascinating to be able to pick his brains about how he did it again and again. A lot of guys have struggled to back it up after winning the Tour. Basically, the last guy who was able to was [Lance] Armstrong and we all now know what he was doing. So there’s a bad perception around multiple winning. I want to try to change that.”

Froome has already learned to his chagrin in the 2013 Tour, following the exposing of Armstrong’s fraud, that seeing is not necessarily believing any more. He flew fantastically up Mont Ventoux only to be met with as much cynicism as awe. It hurt him.

“That was a really special day for me, so to basically have the media try to take that glory away with the same questions I had already kept answering for two weeks – ‘how can you prove you’re clean?’ – felt really insulting. I felt it disintegrated all my hard work.”

“I genuinely believe people want to stop talking about doping now. They want to have someone to believe in,” says Froome. Like him perhaps? “Well, I definitely feel a responsibility to show people the sport has changed. I understand why there are still a lot of critics, cynicism and doubters out there. Of course, no-one can actually know 100 per cent if I’m clean or not, except me. And I know I am, that my results will stand the test of time. We can’t force people to believe, it’s going to take time. I know I have a big responsibility but it’s not hard to be clean and to be a champion. Doping has never ever crossed my mind. It’s not an option. I’d rather go and scrub factory floors for a living than cheat to get where I am.”

No doubt, the Tour de France is the central focal point in Froome’s life at present, and might continue to be so for years to come.

“Let’s see, I’m 28, so in theory I could, if technically and physically it’s possible, be riding it for another 10 years,” Froome added. The opposition has been warned.