I become a happier man each time I suffer

Chasing records doesn't keep me on my bike. Happiness does.

Obviously, I come from one background, and the people that design fitness equipment have been doing it for years and years, and they know what works and doesn't work.

What makes a great endurance athlete is the ability to absorb potenial embarrassment, and to suffer without complaint. I was discovering that if it was a matter of gritting my teeth, not caring how it looked, and outlasting everybody else, I won. It didn't seem to matter what sport it was-in a straight-ahead, long-distant race, I could beat anybody. If it was a suffer-fest, I was good at it.

I know what happened to cycling from 1999 to 2005. I saw its growth, I saw its expansion.

Nothing goes to waste, you put it all to use, the old wounds and long-ago slights become the stuff of competitive energy.

Cycling is a sport of the open road and spectators are lining that road.