The first-year professional cyclist - who last month fulfilled a childhood dream by competing in his debut Grand Tour, at the Giro d'Italia - began dating Sarah English in May last year.

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"Growing up in the same town together, we've always known each other for quite a while," he said.

"It's fine, it's been good," the 24-year-old said of the relationship.

English did not travel overseas with her man in 2020, in what was the biggest year of his life, because of COVID-19 restrictions.

"It was pretty hard," he said. "I had to get a special exemption to the leave the country for work reasons."

Sunderland is currently in Inverell visiting family and friends, while English is on the Sunshine Coast.

Sunderland lives at Mooloolaba and will soon return to the idyllic Sunshine Coast beach destination to be reunited his long-term flame (he also lives in Spain).

At the Giro d'Italia he finished in 114th place in the general classification, playing a key role in his NTT Pro Cycling teammate, Italian Domenico Pozzovivo, finishing in 11th place.

Initially, he said it felt "surreal" competing in the prestigious race. But once it "sunk in" that he was riding alongside the world's best road cyclists, he realised he had "achieved a major goal".

Just finishing the 21-day torture test was a huge achievement (his previous longest race was 10 days).

A fall on stage eight resulted in a "massive" hematoma on his quadricep that left him feeling like he had "a broken leg".

"It was a few tough days trying to get through it," he said, adding that he "bounced back pretty well" and "did the job" for his South African team, who will have a new major sponsor in 2021 and will be known as Team Qhubeka Assos.

"Yeah, I definitely feel satisfied," he continued. "But there's always things that you know you can do better.

"But it was just such an unknown - racing 21 days straight: it's not something that everyone does, and it was a big difference [compared to] the previous races that I've done."

Sunderland said he had received "a few very positive comments" from his team management.