Well, you better ride like you stole something 'cause you are about to win a stage in the Tour de Fance.

There were something like 50 good, arduous climbs around Nice, solid inclines of ten miles or more. The trick was not to climb every once in awhile, but to climb repeatedly. I would do three different climbs in one day, over the course of a six- or seven-hour ride. A 12 mile climb took about an hour, so that tells you what my days were like.

Life to me is a series of false limits and my challenge as an athlete is to explore those limits

I take nothing for granted. I now have only good days, or great days.

The body is telling the mind to stop. The mind is telling the body to shut up.

If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them. When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell.

Your past forms you, whether you like it or not. Each encounter and experience has its own effect, and you're shaped the way the wind shapes a mesquite tree on a plain.