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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.

You know what? I've won the Tour de France, and now I feel ready to talk about it.

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

Thanks to the Tour de France, riding the Champs-Elysees has a great cycling history.

I think everyone lifts themselves that little bit extra for the Tour de France, being the pinnacle of our cycling calendar.

If I can win the Tour de France, there is hope for everybody.

I just never subscribed to the theory that at age 55, you fall off the face of the earth on the Tour. I always felt that was too young of an age for that.

Sooner or later a rider will emerge who will win more Tours. In every sport we have seen how the records eventually get broken and cycling is no exception.

That period afterwards, just hating being the winner of the Tour de France, hating cycling, hating the media for asking me questions about Lance Armstrong.

I have contacts with the Tour de France which keep me close to cycling.