“I’ve made no bones about saying I do want to go to the Olympics but then always in the same breath I’ve said it’s not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination,” he told RCUK.

“Both the road race and the time trial are hilly, and there’s that ridiculous Olympic rule where if you do the time trial you have to do the road race as well. It does leave me, with the quality of climbers we have in the UK at the moment, with my back up against the wall at the moment.

“Certainly Froome can do a hilly time trial, but I’m not going to just sit back and say that’s a done deal because I still want to give it a good crack and hopefully get there.”

Ultimately Dowsett’s early-season work is geared around one chief target – the Giro d’Italia – where he was a time trial stage winner back on his debut in 2013.

This time out, he is set to form part of Alejandro Valverde’s supporting cast, as he did at the Tour de France last year, but also target the two time trials again – including the 40.4km Chianti Clasico stage on stage nine.

Victory there – though he’s likely to face stiff competition from the likes of Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) – could be the key to earning him a place on the flight to Rio.

“I think if I can win one of the time trials there, that will give the selectors some fairly substantial headaches on who to take to the time trial,” he said.

“I won the time trial stage of the Giro before, so I’ve proved I can do it. I can beat the world’s best on occasion – a rare occasion, but I have proved I can do it. It’s not out of my grasp at all.

“Tom Dumoulin has said he’s targeting the Giro, and Cancellara as well could well be there so I’ll be up against some real contenders in the time trial world.”

Key to any success will be a good build-up, something Dowsett believes was lacking in 2015 due to the injuries he suffered at key points in the year.

While accepting the year was, on paper, a good one, Dowsett wants even more from 2016 and hopes fitness will allow him to prepare properly for his big targets.

“It’s a weird one. Looking back on 2015, I have to tell myself it’s a good season – I broke the UCI Hour Record, I won a stage race, on paper it was a good season,” he explained.

“But I finished badly. I felt last year like I bit off more than I could chew. The collarbone break really pushed everything back and then I felt like I was chasing my tail the whole season. I could never quite – apart from the Hour Record – prepare for anything properly.

“Everything was done as best I could in the time I had, which was frustrating because I went to the Worlds and I was pretty unspectacular. I know I’m better than that given the right run in to it. I just didn’t have that.

“Second part of the season, the Tour de France happened then I went to the Tour of Poland and ate something dodgy and got horrendous gastroenteritis which knocked me out of that. When you start to rack up a couple of DNFs it can get quite depressing.

“We had a very good team time trial at the Worlds, and that was something positive to take away from it, but from a personal point of view I wanted more from last year than I got.”

Alongside targets from a racing point of view, Dowsett – who has spoken publicly about his haemophilia on several occasions before – also has his charity work to spur him on.

And he says the motivation the Little Bleeders charity and the impact his success story has had on others is even more significant.

“I never really gave it the credit I should,” he said. “I was part of the campaign – Miles for Haemophilia. I’m part of it every year, but the first year was the one where I really gave it [my all].

“I spent my off-season, the time where you’re normally off getting really drunk or fat, I spent it travelling around Europe talking to the haemophilia communities. I didn’t realise the impact my story was having on the wider spread community.

“It’s funny – take the Commonwealth Games, for example. I won that and it was great. I represented my country, came out on top – had done everything I wanted to do – and it’s that feeling of relief afterwards, not so much joy. It’s a bit sad, really, because you’ve achieved something pretty substantial.

“Then two days later, you go and do the road race and get your arse absolutely handed to you and you’re back down to earth again. An old coach used to say, if you win or lose enjoy it or think about it because it only lasts until midnight.

“But then to have a mother or a father come up to you and tell you the doctors have been telling them it’s a doom and gloom future for their boy, it gives them this other story of what can be achieved and that gave me more satisfaction – from a selfish point of view, it gave me more than any race win has.”

Dowsett admits he may not even have started cycling had it not been for his haemophilia and the need to keep fit and healthy while not taking part in contact sports.

But he says the message he is keen to push, and the charity, goes far beyond just inspiring people to ride their bikes.

“I think it’s much bigger than me, much bigger than any race,” he said. “I need the racing to keep sending that message out but suddenly there’s a much bigger motivation for doing well.

“We’ve made some big steps, and there’s going to be a big dinner at the end of the year. In the UK, because of the NHS, haemophiliacs are very well looked after. That’s great, but within the UK we need to keep sending out that message that they don’t need to be wrapped up in cotton wool so much. They can lead, not so much normal lives, but perhaps more normal lives than they thought.

“In third world countries, though… Medication is not cheap, and in many third world countries they just don’t have it. I get emails quite regularly. I had one guy from the Ukraine ask how he could help his son, and I just said you know keep them active and regular medication – the NHS supply my medication and my fridge is stocked with it, I’ve never had any different – but the one treatment this guy needed, he’d have to drive five hours to hospital and then five hours home for just one of what I have hundreds of in my fridge.

“That’s not fair, so that’s the long-term aim of Little Bleeders. You have to physically take it out there, because if you send money it can be absorbed by governments instead.”

As for his own role in pushing that message, he hopes his experiences on the bike – both good and bad – can continue to serve as inspiration for others.

“Doing well pushes that message,” he said. “I’m not sure what falling off does for that message, but it’s a funny one because my parents were told when I was younger if I broke a bone I’d spend a month in hospital. I’ve broken an elbow, a collarbone, two ribs and a shoulder blade and not spent more than a week in hospital and been back on the back pretty bloody quickly.

“Does me crashing send that message out at all? You don’t want to advise a haemophiliac to go and join a rugby club but it’s just that message that while there is all this doom and gloom there’s another side to it as well.”

Alex has recently been appointed as a PedalSure Ambassador. PedalSure cover you and your bike, uniquely their policies cover personal injury, paying out even if an accident is your fault. They also cover amateur racing including track cycling.