I know too that we Americans like to think of ourselves as cleaner than clean, a healthy nation who would never take anything when a recent poll suggested that 65 per cent of the population would risk dying in 10 years if they would be guaranteed Olympic gold.

I rode in a nine-day charity ride recently, averaged 43km a day and still finished in the lead group. I'm 38, not quite finished yet.

There are so many people who have died of cycling, and that didn't happen when I was racing.

I'm lucky that mountian biking wasn't around when I was 20, because I wouldn't have won the Tour de France. It's my kind of sport - hard, individualistic, and not a lot of tactics.

I have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle, it's not going to be satisfying.

There are few things that you can't do as long as you are willing to apply yourself.

Sincere apologies are for those that make them, not for those to whom they are made.