About half an hour before the third stage of the Vuelta a San Juan, Egan Bernal slithered out of the shed, bike in hand, protecting the Ineos Grenadiers team from the blistering afternoon sun beating down on the Billikum Motor Racing Circuit. [It was neither a warm-up nor a bike test. Instead, Bernal pedaled with leisurely strokes through the team paddock, watched the gentle bustle of cyclists preparing for the next day in the saddle, and then slowly returned again. It is a very ordinary day of bicycle racing, but Bernal's presence here is still special in itself.

Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of Bernal's crash while training in Bogota, in which he suffered a broken vertebra, a broken femur, a fractured patella, and a perforated lung. In the hours immediately following the accident, his life was in danger. In the weeks that followed, it seemed wild to even consider whether he would be able to resume his career.

But day by day, stage by stage, Bernal was on the road to a comeback. By the end of spring, he was riding his bike again. In early summer, he resumed training with his Ineos teammates. By the end of the summer, he returned to the peloton in the Deutschland Tour.

Bernal hopes that this season he might be able to return to the level he was at when he won the 2019 Tour de France and the 2021 Giro d'Italia. But while his focus is on the future, January 24 did not pass without pondering the distance he has traveled this past year.

"This stage itself is nothing special for me, but this day is a day of reflection. I'm happy to be in this position one year after my crash and I'm enjoying this race."

On Tuesday morning, Bernal gave a television interview at his hotel to mark the one-year anniversary of his accident. Bernal's friend and former training partner, Oscar Sevilla (Medellín-EPM), marveled this week at the path he has taken over the past year and a half.

"Egan is a special rider and champion, but what he has accomplished this year is worth more than any race. I think this accident also served as a little analysis of his life as a whole."

Bernal himself admits that he sometimes struggled with the pressure of being Colombia's first Tour winner while basking in the afterglow of his youthful victory in 2019, but Sevilla believes he had already begun to come to terms with the magnitude of the feat before the accident.

"Maybe riders who win the Tour at an older age, like Indurain and Froome, are better prepared for the changes that come, but Egan had matured anyway as the years passed," Sevilla said. 'He was already a very intelligent and mature person, but I think the accident matured him even more. He is very focused and emotionally calm.

Bernal also echoed his friend's assessment. The crash and its aftermath may have given him time to think, but the burden of being Egan Bernal had already lightened over the years.

"When I won the Tour, I was only 22, and now I'm 26. But for someone who wins the Tour, it's not easy to manage everything calmly. But like I said, after four years, four years of change, and now with a bit more experience, it's easy to manage these things."

Bernal plans to return to the Tour this year, but for now he is understandably tight-lipped about any ambitions beyond a desire to "be competitive." "I'm not sure how I'll do in San Juan this week or how I'll fight with Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) and Miguel Angel Lopez (Medellin-EPM) and others in Alto Colorado on Thursday, but the early stages are encouraging.

"On these flat stages, I'm working in the finale for Elia [Viviani], trying to bring him to the front and finish in a group," Bernal said. 'On the flats so far, everything is in the right place. The first stage was good and normal."

After the year Bernal has had, normal is really good.