You don't suffer, kill yourself and take the risks I take just for money. I love bike racing.

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

If people really want to clean the sport of cycling up, all you have to do is put your money where your mouth is.

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.

It is cycling as a professional sport that represents the problem. It can transform someone into a liar.

It doesn't get any easier; you just get faster.

Racing is a very selfish, self-centred, self-glorifying thing. My wife's life for 14 years was centered around me. It was all about me. It was all for my ego.