Hindley (BORA-hansgrohe) was there in person at the Giro d’Italia 2023 route presentation to witness the unveiling of a tough course that will decide the next winner of the Italian Grand Tour.
The Australian is yet to announce his plans for next year but has raced the Giro four times, the Vuelta twice, and is yet to ride the Tour de France, a fact the 26-year-old is looking to change in the next few seasons.
"I haven't made up my mind, and we haven't had too many discussions about next year already with the team, so it's hard to say," Hindley said on his plans for 2023.
"Ultimately, it will come down to what the Tour route is like a bit and then we'll see from that. But it's also something to go into the Giro as defending champ, I've never done that before so that's also a big factor."
Italy has long been the centre of Hindley’s cycling life, not only is it where he took his best results as a professional, he also took his best wins here as an Under-23 rider, and also spent years racing as an amateur. The Grande Partenza from Abruzzo is where he rode as an amateur back in 2015, and the summit finish to Campo Imperatore was where he won a stage of the Baby Giro in 2017.
"Whenever I go back there and I smell the arrosticini (street food) on the road, it sort of reminds me of home a bit," Hindley said.
Hindley recently completed his first return to Australia in years, competing at the world championships before being feted back in Perth for his Giro d’Italia victory, where he later visited his home club, the Midland Cycle Club, to encourage the juniors.
The Giro d’Italia win in 2022 is the peak performance of his career, but lining up as the defending champion may not be on the agenda, with over 70 kilometres of time-trialling lending itself to someone more specialised in the discipline than the Australian.
"That's probably three more than I would like," Hindley smiled when asked about the amount of time trialling in the route. "But it's not me organising the route, so I just take it as it comes. There were three time trials in 2020 and I was still second, and I think I'm also a bit better at time trialling since then.
“I'll continue to work at it and try to make it more of a strength. For sure, it's not ideal for me, but you can't always get what you want."
The opening two time trials are flat, but the battle against the clock on the penultimate day contains the ascent of Monte Lussari, the steep slopes of the 7.5-kilometre climb to favour climbers rather than more traditional time triallists.
"That time trial at the end, I like the look of that. Uphill time trials have sort of been forgotten about over the years and they're actually pretty cool," Hindley said of Stage 20.
"If you run out of legs in the final TT, that could cost you the race. I think those two stages (Stages 19 and 20), coming on the back of the three weeks, will be pretty crucial.
“It's like every year on the Giro, those are the stages where guys can come unstuck. This year will be no different. This will be a race of attrition and you either have it or you don't in the last few days."
