They do say now in cycling that there's no such thing as bad weather - it's bad clothing.

I know the freedom that cycling gives you in terms of being able to just jump on and go.

A lot of the bikes are carbon wheels now, and you don't have as good a braking surface on a carbon wheel in the wet weather as you do on the old aluminium rims.

When you see it from the outside, then you see just how great the Tour de France is.

I always compare myself to the best.

I can train harder and put myself through more punishing efforts now than I used to do, having done the Tour de France, and come off the road now.

Doing 40-minute track sessions is easy money compared to what we were doing on the Tour. What you used to think was hard now feels like a walk in the park.

How does Ronnie O'Sullivan play snooker the way he does? You can't explain it.

Pace judgement is everything in the hour record. If you can ride 16.1 or 16.2-second laps constantly for 221 laps, and not go 15.9s or 16.4s, it's keeping it on the line every lap, lap after lap.

I certainly don't hope to live forever, but on the other hand, I'm not reckless.

I can get obsessive with my training, but it makes you who you are.

Wives are around a lot longer than your sporting years.

People think sport is life and death - it's not.

I came to the conclusion that I'm not going to give up cycling because some people are cheating.

When you are suddenly standing in front of a bunch of journalists being asked what it's like being a British Olympic legend, it's a bit much to take in.

It was what I've always wanted, more than anything: to be an Olympic hero rather than a Tour de France star, something I had from childhood.

The more time I was spending with the British team, the more of a laugh I was having with them. It's clean, their way of cycling; it's more about what you can produce as an athlete.

When you're in the heat of the moment, you need guys you can trust and who have been there for you.

I still look back and think, 'How did I win the Tour, going day to day under that pressure?'

On the Tour, you live in a bubble - your team, the other riders, the press - so you don't know how it looks from outside.

You speak to the press at the Tour every day, but most often in a negative sense. Ninety per cent of the questions you are asked in the post-race press conferences are challenging or provocative, so you have to justify yourself; you have to try to give the right answers about every topic across the board.

I said at the start of the race that the Tour is about being good for 21 days, being consistent every day, not having super days and bad days.

When you get into the final week of the Tour de France, it becomes a different kind of race. As the distance and the fatigue really tell, that is when it becomes a proper test of everyone's fitness.

In sport, you just have to take what you can get.