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I'd love to follow the Tour de France one day. It's a really exciting spectacle. I've only seen it once as it was coming into Paris and that was very exciting for me. I have memories of that.

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

Also, for a team as strong as like ours, the Tour will always remain the biggest goal of the whole year, and personally I will certainly concentrate most of my energy on this race.

It's all well and good having a women's Tour de France - which I think we need and I think we should have. But I think we should slowly build it in and not just go 'Bam!' with three weeks over the same course and same length of time as the men's.

Creating a top team and being in a position to win the Tour de France will give me a nice feeling. But I know it is not easy to create a top team from zero. You need good riders, good staff, a lot of preparation and, most important, a lot of sponsors.

I know it is possible to win the Tour without taking anything.

The Tour de France would make a great movie. Drugs, corruption, political chicanery, guys risking their lives - everything you need for a great sports drama.

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 the tour is done, that's the end of the U.S. tour. We'll regroup and see what we're going to do.