If people are looking at me in my hometown, then every woman that races against me in the peloton is as well. I can tell you, every one of them now believes that they can do it. When I go to a Cascade or Nature Valley and they race against me, the girls that are say 30 seconds from me at the races are all of a sudden saying 'I'm 30 seconds from gold I mean why can't I do this.'

In high school you just kind of go with it, you belong to a sport and you're lettering and there is a very social part. With cycling, a lot of people will steer away because you can't letter, and lettering is still cool and it's very important for scholarships and other stuff.

If we write our dreams and goals down, we dramatically increase our odds of realization. If we share them with others, they become potent and alive.

The best thing to do when you find yourself in a hurting or vulnerable place is to surround yourself with the strongest, finest, most positive people you know.

The first day I was told that I had osteoarthritis, I thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me; I was done. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't run so my life was over. But because I'm a competitive person, I wasn't going to let anything slow me down and I turned it around and made it a positive.

I think USA Cycling really needs to ride this wave and start looking at growing the sport. It's a tough one because cycling is such an endurance sport.

The way the Europeans work, most girls get paid by their federation; their country pays them. Essentially the federations say go represent our country, race on whatever trade team you want, and here's your money. So you don't really make you're money on trade teams. Europeans make money through their country's federation. There's not a lot of money for women in cycling in Europe either.