Cycling is based so much on form, on aesthetics, on class - the way you carry yourself on the bike, the sort of technique you have.

I think cycling has always had a tradition of being a bit dapper, especially back in the day.

The first time I rode a bike I was four or five. I crashed into the back of a car.

My epiphany came in that police cell: I realised I was about to lose everything and it didn't bother me, not in the slightest. I'd come to hate cycling because I blamed it for the lie I was living.

To be brutally honest, it's simple economics. If they want to come into cycling, sponsors need to know the team they are funding is clean, otherwise the risk is just too great.

In fact cycling has always been 'saved' by judicial investigations and not by the anti-doping controls we put in place. That's the harsh truth. We have relied on them to clean the sport up.