The crazy thing is that I really wasn't under any pressure. My contract wasn't going to expire until the end of 2008, and everyone was satisfied with me. But I wasn't. I always wanted to improve.

I wouldn't call it an addiction. But the truth is, when you join a team as a new professional you encounter a system. As a young rider, older riders let you know how the business works.

I can count off on one hand the number of times I've used testosterone gel - because it doesn't really do much.

Riders called me up afterwards to say that they had had no other choice. I couldn't understand the way they changed their tune.

I rubbed the contents of one bag onto my upper arm on the evening of June 7, just before I went to bed. I thought: Well, it can't hurt. I flushed the packaging down the toilet.

The truth is that things were already going so poorly for me that nothing surprised me anymore. But then the BKA sent 20 agents to search my house.

The patient in the bed next to me told me that the newspapers were reporting on the test, and it was on television all day long.