The 40-year-old is making the transition from athlete to coach but does not appear to be slowing down too much.
The Dunedin-born rider was in Australia with his team, United Healthcare, recently, competing in the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and the Herald Sun Tour. With his next commitment not until later this month, he took the opportunity to pop over to New Zealand and visit his parents in Dunedin.
Henderson signed a one-year deal to ride for United Healthcare this year. There is an option to tack on another 12 months but he wants "to see how it goes".
"I didn’t want to just stop cycling after having done it for so many years. It seemed like a nice, natural progression," he said.
So far he is loving his new team. His family — wife Katie, daughter Charlie (7) and son Lachlan (4) — have relocated from their base in Spain to Boulder, Colorado. It is where he got his start as a professional and the family has spent a lot of time in the region. Henderson returns there regularly, to get in some altitude training before the Tour de France.
"I’ve done that full circle back to Boulder. Katie and I met in Boulder — we love Boulder; the kids love it as well."
Henderson has started the Tour de France six times. He crashed out of two of them but his combination with sprinter Andre Greipel proved a fruitful partnership.
Greipel has collected 11 stage wins on the Tour and Henderson was there for most of them. He was the key man in the Lotto Belisol sprint train, leading out the powerful German so he could slingshot past and make a dash for the finish line.
Henderson forged a reputation as a fearless and smart lead-out man and that knowledge will serve him well as he moves off the seat and into a coaching role.‘‘I found my niche in Europe leading out [Andre] Greipel and it was something I was very good at.
"Now I’m starting to find I’m actually good at relaying those orders on to the guys behind me as well. I’ve fitted into the team very well."
"It is a good group of guys who are willing to learn, as well. I think they can see the benefit that I bring to the team. And I’m still very passionate about my racing, no question. I wouldn’t be riding for seven hours if I wasn’t still into the sport."
Henderson has been collecting clients. He has 10 riders in his stable, including New Zealanders Shane Archbold and Tom Scully and talented Australian rider Nathan Elliott. Elliott won the Melbourne to Warrnambool race in October.
"He was a nice success because it took us a while to work out what would actually work for him in terms of training. Once we did, he went on to win the biggest bike race in Australia, the Melbourne to Warrnambool."
Henderson got his start in the sport on the track and has a Commonwealth Games gold medal and three bronze medals tucked away somewhere. He also won gold in the scratch race at the world championships in Melbourne in 2004, improving on the silver he won a year earlier in the madison.
It was that track experience which helped him build the raw speed he needed to be successful during his professional career in Europe. He will return to the track when he finally makes the leap and retires but in a different capacity.
He has accepted a coaching position with the Malaysian track team to help prepare the team for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
In the meantime, Henderson is quietly building his coaching business. He will launch a website in the next couple of weeks. A lot of thought has gone into it.
"It is not a copy-and-paste job," he said.
But on Monday he will head over to Melbourne to catch up with some friends and no doubt squeeze in a couple of more long rides before linking up with his team for Le Tour de Langkawi, in Malaysia, which gets under way on February 22.
