Cycling Challenges Quotes

At the Tour, you always have some fantastic days and some days where you hit the asphalt. Today was an asphalt day for me.

When you've biked only on quiet cul-de-sacs and college campuses, the idea of riding in the city, right up there alongside the cars, seems, frankly, pretty absurd.

What I have learned about the sport of cycling is that you have to love it to do it because you're not going to retire off of it.

People have to be more careful in traffic. It's hard to ride bikes in Curitiba.

Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it’s absolutely cleansing. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain….Once; someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. ‘PLEASURE???? I said.’ ‘I don’t understand the question.’ I didn’t do it for the pleasure; I did it for the pain.

Yorkshire is a hard place to ride a bike.

When you're a young pro from an undeveloped country in road cycling then you're on the back foot.

It's insane going from skiing to cycling. Even though you are in prime shape, you feel like you have never worked out a day in your life.

I'm not getting bored with cycling or winning - I love it. But I need to give myself new targets all the time.

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.

I've always thought that travelling every day as a journalist on the Tour's got to be harder than actually racing.

During the Tour you get tired, you get exhausted, you're in pain and you can get sick for a few days but still have to ride through it.

I've had so many experiences in cycling, but in some ways I have nothing left to prove. I have achieved more than I could have dreamed of, I've raced a lot longer than I thought I would. I know I can still be better, but I just don't know if I love it enough any more.

Cyclists are insane. You're going through the Alps, climbing up mountains. There's this circus around them. They're so tough. When they have a day off, they go out and cycle 100 miles.

Most of my friends are non-cyclists. They are interested and proud of my achievements, but, equally, if I stopped tomorrow, they wouldn't say much about it!