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I never though much about race.

I don't think about the press or the crowds or the other leaders of the race. The focus is only on myself. As soon as I see the targets, I tune them out.

Whenever I race in the U.K., the crowd just makes such a massive difference, often between winning and losing.

When I first started out as a young journalist, I know that on at least two occasions, when I walked into a newsroom, I knew I was replacing the black person in that job.

You speak to the press at the Tour every day, but most often in a negative sense. Ninety per cent of the questions you are asked in the post-race press conferences are challenging or provocative, so you have to justify yourself; you have to try to give the right answers about every topic across the board.

A lot of newsrooms have thought very carefully about how they cover race. I don't think the same conversations have gone on regarding women.

Some of my toughest races are people I've known, because it gets more personal than it should be.

I travel Europe every couple of weeks. I just came back from London, Holland and Denmark. Every nation on this planet has its issues with race, and I am not sure if everyone has figured out how to deal with it.

Black reporters are as capable of racism as anyone else.

If you're of multiple races, you have a different challenge, a unique challenge of embracing all of who you are but still finding a way to identify yourself and I think that's often hard for us to do.