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Svein Tuft is the oddball of the pro-cycling world. While his pampered counterparts were whizzing around Europe on their Bianchi bikes, Mr. Tuft, born in Langley, B.C., was testing his mettle in years of extreme backcountry skiing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and a 6,000-kilometre solo bike trip to Alaska as a teenager.

He dropped out of high school at 15, and spent several years riding through the wilderness on a $40 thrift-store bike, hooked to a trailer he welded himself. It carried food, camping gear and his 80-pound dog, Bear.

Some say he was destined for competitive sports because his grandfather, Arne Tuft, was an Olympic cross-country skier from Norway. But Svein (pronounced "Swayne") didn't enter his first cycling race until he was 23 - over the hill by European standards.

For the burly road racer, now 31, the normal rules don't seem to apply. He used to train by disappearing back into the mountains each winter, leaving his teammates to wonder where he went. Nevertheless, last year he won a silver medal in the time trial at the world cycling championships in Italy - the first medal for Canada in that event since Steve Bauer's bronze in 1984. He also finished seventh in the time trial at the Beijing Olympics, and won four gold medals at the 2008 Pan American Road and Track Championships.

Recruited last fall by the American squad Garmin-Slipstream, Mr. Tuft is now a paragon of discipline and team spirit, but he's still got a wild ride ahead of him.

We caught up with him a few days before his first race of the season, the Tour of California, which starts tomorrow and runs until Feb. 22.

You're about to compete in North America's largest cycling event, the 1,207-kilometre-long Tour of California. What's the toughest thing about this race?

There's a lot of climbing - two or three kilometres undulating non-stop - and as you do that over miles and miles, it takes a lot of zap out of everyone's legs.Lance Armstrong retired in 2005, but he's back this weekend for the California tour.

How do you feel about racing against a seven-time Tour de France winner?

You know, as much respect I have for him as a rider, it's a very top-calibre race and there are going to be so many other world champions there. We [as a team] don't look at just one specific guy - we focus on what we're here to do.

A day after your silver medal at the 2008 Road World Championships in Varese, Italy, an Italian newspaper dubbed you the "Canadian Rambo." What's it like to be Rambo?

I cracked up when I read that.

How did you get over your flat tire in that race?

I was lucky - we had a great mechanic who's been working with the Canadian team for years. His name's Chad. He was so quick on the [bike] exchange.

You spent most of your life training on your own by running, skiing, lifting weights and doing martial arts. Is it hard to deal with coaches and a strict routine?

I've always liked regimens anyway and cycling is still a very individual sport. I'm never, like, "Oh, I just want to do things my own way."

What's a typical workout these days?

This last month has been a huge training block - a lot of five- or six-hour rides in the mountains at altitude.

While roughing it in the Yukon at age 18, you once ate nothing but potatoes and flour for 10 days. What's your diet like now?

In our team we've been on this no-gluten diet; it's basically a lot of rice and vegetables and meat. Gluten for some people causes congestion and bogs down the immune system. I find it's a really clean diet and it works well for me.

You've taken a very public stand against performance-enhancing drugs. Why, then, are you planning to compete in this year's Tour de France given the recent doping scandals at that event?

I personally believe things are changing for the better and I see teams taking their own stand against doping. That's the No. 1 reason I was excited to go with Garmin [-Slipstream] because they're a team that's taking that stance and I can't imagine wanting to ride with any other team.

What should Canadian cyclists be doing to kick some serious Euro butt?

I think it's going really well now that we have four riders in the pro tour - Christian Meier, myself, Michael Barry and Ryder Hesjedal. What we need, though, are more programs like my previous [all-Canadian] team Symmetrics to farm guys to this level. Our team folded last year from lack of funding. In Canada, there's just not the huge corporate sponsorship behind the sport.

The media tend to focus on your days as a hobo teenager. Do you get tired of being portrayed as the mountain man from British Columbia?

I don't really mind because I still look back at that as some of my greatest years. It's nice to remember what I came from.

Were your outdoor survival experiences in Alaska anything like the movie Into the Wild?

There were a lot of similarities. I wanted to find who I was and I found that just being quiet, not being distracted by so many things, that was a really good way to do it.

So who are you?

That's a never-ending question.