Having finished his seventh consecutive Grand Tour and after taking victory in the seventh stage of this year’s Giro, Adam Hansen is now hastily preparing to go around again in 2014.

Hansen spent a fair portion of his childhood growing up in Hong Kong, leading a lifestyle rather at odds with the one he enjoys today. The seeds for a life as a computer programmer were being sown for Hansen who revealed that he was a little ‘chunky’ as a kid.

“In those times I did not know what sport was,” Hansen told CyclingTips.

School days involved taking the subway from his apartment building to school and back without ever gracing the great outdoors.

Looking back, Hansen now believes the paradoxical nature of his past revolves around the central tenants of dedication and getting the job done.

“I think they go well together,” he said of the culture clash between the computers of his adolescence and the bikes of his present. “Whatever you do at an intense level you always need a break or something dynamically different to keep some type of sanity.”

And sanity is what the computer provides for Hansen. Before he ‘made it’ Hansen enjoyed some notoriety on the Weight Weenies forums where he was known as ‘Zakeen’. Although he still visits the site, it’s only in a lurking capacity nowadays.

Hansen’s late teenage years back in Cairns, Australia, opened his eyes to the sporting world that he has since enmeshed himself in.

“I did triathlons from the age of 17,” he said. “I did a very few cycling races before heading to Europe. Just less than a year before heading to Europe I started to focus more on cycling.

“At that stage my cycling was the worst of the three disciplines. The idea was to do a season or two of racing to improve my cycling for my triathlons.”

And despite later making a name for himself on a mountain bike, skinny tyres were always the default choice for Hansen.

“At the same time I started going to Europe I competed in the Croc Trophy. They complemented each other and the Croc Trophy gave me a better name in Europe,” he added.

Crocodile Trophy organiser Gerhard Schönbacher saw talent being wasted in Hansen’s day job as a computer programmer and coaxed the Queenslander into taking the next step. Schönbacher’s Austrian connections saw Hansen spend four years racing with Austrian continental teams from 2003 to 2006. He was then on the path to the ProTour.