Millar is thrilled to be about to start his first Tour

"The fact he was plucked from relative obscurity from the rafts of amateur riders....really shows how gifted he could prove to be."

With the afternoon sun glinting off rap-around shades, Millar leans casually against several thousand pounds of designer road racer.

His trousers are baggy, the stubble is just under control and he's constantly on the move.

Standing a little over six feet, David Millar is all cheekbones and angles.

"Always 24/seven worrying about it," the need to train he confesses is almost an addiction.

"If I've been out and partied, I only get about one or two hours sleep - I wake up paranoid."

"For about three months a year I get monk serious, where it's no partying, living by myself...becoming a lunatic about everything."

Millar admits he likes to party - within reason

"A lot of the French journalists say I come from a bourgeois background - which isn't common, a lot of them come from farms - that's the continental attitude the bourgeois kids won't do it."

"I'm frightened of him falling off, I'm frightened of him not achieving what he wants," says David's mother Avril as she sorts through his kit at her home in Berkshire.

"I just hate seeing him with six and a half per cent body fat and finishing with less, but its what he's chosen to do and nothing else will give him that buzz."

"Within a month you could be the mum of a super star with his face on posters all across Europe," I say.

The 23-year-old is a different breed to many continental pros

Avril Millar pauses, "I'd love him if he was sweeping the streets. It would be lovely for him, but he will still just be the nicest son."

As for his first tour, Millar says: "I'm so excited. Clearly for everyone in the UK it's the only cycle event in the world.

"It's always been decided I'd do it this year and that's been sitting at the back of my head, but now that I'm actually doing it, it's like Woah!"