Teen tyro Caleb Ewan's decision to leave the track and take to the road is paying off

CALEB Ewan, at 166cm, decided he was too small for track work and his decision to hit the road is now paying off.

THREE years ago Caleb Ewan was one of the most exciting track cycling prospects in Australia.

A junior world champion in the omnium - six events rolled into one to test a riders's sprint and endurance - speed and power were never a problem.

But according to 166cm Ewan, size was, and his decision to leave the boards for the road full-time because he was too small is about to pay off big-time with a start in this week's Santos Tour Down Under and a WorldTour contract with Orica-GreenEDGE.

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"The only reason you'd stay on the track is to go the Olympics and the Australian team is so focused on the team pursuit," Ewan said.

"I'm good at team pursuit but whoever is sitting on (behind) me doesn't really like it because obviously I'm too small. Everyone has to be around the same height and I'm a bit msaller.

"So there was no real future for me on the track. It was good to win a world title but then you have to take the next step and I've been on the road since.

"It's always good to get back on the track for training, but I'll never do it as seriously as I used to."

Tonight, Ewan will line up in his first ever WorldTour race as part of national wildcard team UniSA-Australia, and sprint against superstars and Tour de France stage winners like Andre Greipel, Marcel Kittel and Matt Goss in the People's Choice Classic in the CBD.

Caleb Ewan wins the under-23 men's road race at the national championships. Picture: Cycling Australia.

As staggering as it seems, the 19-year-old won't look or feel out of place and those who know him well won't be at all surprised if he podiums.

He showed he was on form earlier this month by winning one of the Bay criteriums then claiming the criterium/road race double in the under-23s at the national championships in Ballarat.

"It's going to be hard for me being a UniSA rider and not getting as much respect as Greipel and Kittel will have, and at the moment it's all for experience," Ewan said of his TDU debut.

"(But) I'm there to race and I'll do my best to get the best result I can."

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The pocket-rocket would have been a walk-up start to ride the TDU last year had Cycling Australia broken its own rule of not selecting first-year under-23s for the UniSA team.

But that has only made his debut even more exciting, not that Ewan has high expectations or puts any pressure on himself to perform.

"At the moment I'm more looking at it as purely a development thing," Ewan said.

"I'm not putting pressure on myself to win the races or anything like that, but I'd like to be up there in the sprint to feel the speed so I get a good idea of what it's like."

It will probably take a superhuman effort or near miracle for Ewan to upstage the likes of Greipel and Kittel who have their own dedicated lead-out trains controlling the front of the bunch, while Ewan's UniSA teammates have been training together for all of one week.

But Ewan has been defying the odds and holding his own when racing against men ever since he was 16.

By 2012 he realised he had what it took to match them, and in some cases even beat them, when he won two stages of the Bay Cycling Classic.

"The first year when I won those two stages, that was the first real time that I thought 'oh I can actually compete against these guys' because the year before (2011) I think I only finished one of the races there," he said.

"It wasn't until the next year that I got a bit stronger and could compete against them."

The following year in 2013, he went back to the event stronger again and became the youngest ever winner of the series.

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It must be a good feeling coming into the hectic final few hundred metres of a bike race knowing you've got a burst of speed to unleash at your fingertips, much like a racing car driver stepping on the accelerator.

"I know I can get myself into a good position and that's the hard part," Ewan said.

"And I know if I'm in a good position then I have a good chance of winning.

"You're so focused on the sprint that you're not really thinking about anything else.

"Everything is focusing on being in the right position, in the right place at the right time."

Ewan, from the NSW Southern Highlands, lives and breathes cycling. When he's not riding his bike, he's either "eating, sleeping or resting".

He has a younger sister and older brother but neither of them are into cycling, meaning Ewan was the only one to follow their father into the sport.

"When he (father) was my age he was a cyclist but then he went into the army," Ewan said.

"But when we moved down here (Moss Vale from Sydney) about 10 years ago he started riding again and I just followed from there."

His first ever bike race was on the track - on of all things, a mountain bike.

"It's pretty good the local club racing here on the track, you can take any bike there," Ewan said.

"I did a bit of mountain biking but it was mainly just track and the road.

"Then I got into NSWIS when I was 15 and have been there ever since."

Three years ago he took himself to Europe to race in France for two months which was part of his progression to the AIS team which toured Europe for six months in 2013.

In a hugely successful season, Ewan won stages of Thuringen-Rundfahrt and Tour de l'Avenir, the nation's cup La Cote Picarde, and was fourth in the under-23 road race at the world championships.

His performances proved he was much more than just a bunch sprinter with a serious burst of speed and was quite a talented, punchy climber.

"When it goes into the real mountains, like 15 or 20km climbs, that's when I start to struggle," Ewan said.

"But if the climbs are 4 or 5km, I should be able to get over them.

"Like at the worlds the climb was 4.5km every lap and I got over that, it's more the really long mountains that I struggle on."

Following the world titles, it was decision time and although several pro teams showed interest in signing Ewan, he decided to join Orica-GreenEDGE and will come on board full-time in the second half of this season.

"It takes a lot of pressure off me," he said.

"If I go into (this) year and hurt myself and I can't race for a few months, then you have to really stress to get back in form to get another contract.

"But because I've already got it set in place, it's a big weight off my shoulders."