One that knows this first hand is Werri Beach's Kevin Poulton - who is fresh off his best season to date on two wheels.

He first guided Team Katusha Alpecin to an 18th place finish at the Tour de France.

"Last year's Tour de France was amazing," Poulton said.

"It's more than a bike race for the French.

"We covered 3000km of racing during the event and each day, the course was full of spectators along the roadside having their picnic lunches and parties watching the race go by."

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The former Nowra High School teacher then headed to the World Championships in Yorkshire in October.

"As a coach, I had some good success there with my riders picking up a bronze medal in the mixed team time trial event," Poulton said.

"But perhaps the most satisfying result was fifth place by Alex Dowsett in the individual time trial.

"It's not quite a medal, but Alex hasn't been inside the top five in this event for the past 10 years, so it was a satisfying result.

"Alex is British, and this result also secured Great Britain an extra position at the Olympics."

Since then, Poulton returned to Europe in March, this time to hold a training camp for his riders in Spain - in a hope to build on last year's success.

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"I have riders spread across three teams this year, so this was an opportunity to get them all together," he said.

"This camp was to put the finishing touches on their preparation for the spring classics racing, which is held across Belgium and France starting in April.

"Training consisted mainly of motor-pacing, where I am riding the scooter in front of the athletes, for periods of up to six hours each day."

All this training was all going to plan for the Poulton until the COVID-19 outbreak put the brakes on that.

"Before I flew over to Spain, I was obviously aware of the coronavirus outbreak," he said.

"It was about this time that there had been a race in the UAE abandoned after four days when there was a positive test for coronavirus from some riders and staff.

"In this situation, they actually locked all teams in the hotel for almost 10 days under quarantine.

"But at that stage, there had been no other information of races being cancelled, so we had to prepare as if the season was going ahead.

"At about this time, Italy became the focus of the virus and went into lockdown, but things were still as normal in Spain."

But with the fast-changing nature of the epidemic, Poulton's training camp was soon put in danger.

"It was quite a surreal experience in Spain," he said.

"Every morning we would wake up to more bad news from Italy and rumours that Spain would close its borders and go into lockdown.

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"After about six days of training, we received news Spain was becoming one of the worst-hit countries and that they would be closing their borders.

"At this stage, we were still able to train outdoors, so we continued our camp as normal.

"Then we learned that other European countries were closing their borders and we started to realise that it might be best to get out of there.

"Just 100km away from where we were based, they actually prevented anyone from leaving the town because they had experienced a severe outbreak.

"I was supposed to also travel to Switzerland and Germany but this quickly became not possible."

Thinking on the fly, Poulton's team quickly transitioned their training to indoor sessions.

"There was a lot of confusion about whether or not we could train outdoors still," he said.

"In Italy, professional riders were still allowed to train outside as long as they carried their professional license with them.

"But then we soon found out that in Spain, all outdoor activities were banned.

"This was for good reason and something that we completely supported.

"It's not that the athletes would be at risk of spreading the virus, but more the fact that if there was any sort of accident during training, they could be taking up valuable resources that were needed to fight the coronavirus.

"This is when everyone started looking at alternative training methods, and we are very fortunate now that indoor training has really progressed in recent years.

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"There are online virtual training platforms such as ZWIFT which allow riders to meet up with other riders from anywhere in the world and train together."

Not long after this, Poulton made the decision to return to the South Coast.

"Once we knew Spain was going into complete lockdown and that we weren't able to train outdoors, we knew it was time to leave," he said.

"But then this became more urgent as flights were starting to be cancelled and some airlines would not fly through Dubai or Singapore."

One thing that impressed Poulton overseas was how everyone embraced the coronavirus lockdowns.

"The way that everyone, from all walks of life, accepted the lockdown was very impressive," he said.

"There was no panic or anger against the decision.

"I think after seeing how things were escalating in Italy, the rest of Europe knew it was coming and absolutely necessary.

"But then to see everyone out on their balconies at night chatting and being friendly among each other was really uplifting to experience.

"All the athlete's knew it was necessary also.

"At this time, we were learning the season had been cancelled until at least June but the response from the riders was this issue is bigger than any sporting event and they were fine with the disruption to their season."

Unfortunately, Poulton acknowledges Australia hasn't embraced the lockdown the same way European countries have.

"Australia has definitely made the headlines in Europe for some of the poor behaviour that we have witnessed," he said.

"They can't believe we fight over toilet paper.

"I'm not political at all, but every day there was action taken and rules imposed that affected their [Europeans] way of life, but the locals could see they each had a role to play in slowing down the spread of the virus, so they happily obliged.

"Thankfully, Australia is finally starting to follow suit."

After arriving back in the country last week, Poulton is currently in self-isolation.

But that hasn't stopped him from working hard with his cyclists.

"With my riders still training indoors and with races being cancelled, there is still a lot for me to do," he said.

"With technology, I'm able to continue coaching remotely without any real disruptions.

"With the indoor training platform ZWIFT, I'm even able to ride with the athletes in this virtual training world and communicate with them while they complete the prescribed training."

Poulton and his team have continued this training in a hope to return to the roads by June but know it'll all depend on the government's travel guidelines.

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"With the entire world currently in a 'do not travel' phase - it certainly is a strange scenario," he said.

"Like most sports, cycling will try to postpone the racing until later in the season.

"But with a full calendar of racing already planned for the second half of the season, it will be difficult to find a place for everything.

"We are being told the Tour of Switzerland in June could be the first race back.

"But like all sports, I really don't think anyone knows what the future holds.

"It certainly has been hard to keep athlete's motivated during this period.

"Every time we have ramped up training to peak for a race, it has been cancelled at the last moment.

"In many ways, it was a relief to get a definite answer that the season is cancelled until June."

Poulton will remain on the South Coast until he is given the all-clear to return to his team in Europe.