To be brutally honest, it's simple economics. If they want to come into cycling, sponsors need to know the team they are funding is clean, otherwise the risk is just too great.

Cycling is based so much on form, on aesthetics, on class - the way you carry yourself on the bike, the sort of technique you have.

I'm an accumulation of every single thing I've done, good and bad.

I might have changed, but that did not mean the sport had.

It seemed romantic but also tragic - people would be winning but then lose it all, or crash but fight on, break bones but get back on their bikes and try to finish. Just getting to the end was seen as an achievement in itself.

Now there are two or three teams who are very ethical in their outlook who have opened up the economic benefits and that is probably going to be a turning point in the sport.

I've been proud to be national champion. I've really enjoyed it. I have very little opportunity to remind people that I'm British and it's a nice way of staying in touch. I'm going to defend it fiercely. I want to keep it.