The Tour de France is not the only bike race in the world, but it is the biggest, so the possibility could still exist to do a Tour of Italy, a Tour of Spain.

The fact is that cycling in France is in the process of going through one of its toughest periods, ... They haven't won for twenty years now so naturally it's harder for them to accept.

The recent smear campaign out of France has awoken my competitive side.

[But the strongest reason he gave for discounting the results of the B-sample tests from France was heartfelt and honest, and totally typical of the iconic cancer survivor.] A guy who comes back from arguably, you know, a death sentence, ... Why would I then enter into a sport and dope myself up and risk my life again? That's crazy. I would never do that. No. No way.

Perhaps we were a little too active in the race, worked a little too much, ... Maybe the guys are tired.

I realized that the Tour is the one race that makes me tick, ... It's the one that wakes me up early. And it's the one, when I'm suffering like a dog in training, that makes me dig that much deeper. Nothing compares.