Words matter. These are the best Bradley Wiggins Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
On the Tour, you live in a bubble – your team, the other riders, the press – so you don’t know how it looks from outside.
I ended up in Hampstead for two weeks after the Tour, visiting a hospital every day before my granddad died. But he was more than my granddad. He was like my father.
When you’re in the heat of the moment, you need guys you can trust and who have been there for you.
I feel a different person in a lot of ways. I feel much more professional and dedicated to my trade than I used to be. I appreciate this ability I’ve got – and don’t take it for granted any more. That fits every aspect of my life now.
Everything I achieve affects my family as well, and suddenly, my kids’ dad became the most famous man in the country for a couple of weeks.
My mum put herself in £50,000 of debt to service my sporting career. She did everything for me to pursue my dream.
I always compare myself to the best.
You take for granted that you can walk. You do it every day, and then suddenly you can’t walk, and you have to remember, ‘How did I get out of this chair and start walking in the first place?’
I’m not really a computer man, to be honest. I check my emails every couple of weeks.
Early Nineties – that was what it was all about: how people dressed on the terraces.
You can plan physically to try to win the Tour, but I could never plan for what was going to happen after it.
They do say now in cycling that there’s no such thing as bad weather – it’s bad clothing.
I’ve got a EC3-35 Gibson, which is pretty cherished. I’ve got a vintage Reichenbacker 330 in fireglow, which is the other one I look after and don’t let the kids touch.
It was what I’ve always wanted, more than anything: to be an Olympic hero rather than a Tour de France star, something I had from childhood.
The changing of the goals helps keep the motivation fresh.
Working-class people don’t tend to be wooed by celebrity.
My attitude is that, if you have nothing to hide, why not show it?
I’ve always said the Olympics are special to me.
I’ve become more of a climber now – who still keeps that time trial as strong as ever. It gives me such self-belief. I feel a different athlete.
It’s really incredible to win an Olympic Gold in your home city.
Pace judgement is everything in the hour record. If you can ride 16.1 or 16.2-second laps constantly for 221 laps, and not go 15.9s or 16.4s, it’s keeping it on the line every lap, lap after lap.
I said at the start of the race that the Tour is about being good for 21 days, being consistent every day, not having super days and bad days.
I’ve been in a lot of pressure situations; I know what I can do.
I drank because I enjoyed it. I was happy sitting at the end of the bar on my own, reading the paper. I’ve always enjoyed my own company, and that stems from riding alone. I never trained with anyone – and I still don’t. I’ve always been happy with my own thoughts, and that sums me up as an individual-pursuit rider.
I’m not just a time triallist any more.
I just felt that if the team is doing seven hours, I’d want to do eight. I’d always need to do more. I knew that would make me better than everybody else.
I certainly don’t hope to live forever, but on the other hand, I’m not reckless.
It’s an Olympic Games, at the end of the day, and to represent your country at the Olympics is about as good as it gets. Put a gold medal on top of that, and it doesn’t ever get any better.
When you see it from the outside, then you see just how great the Tour de France is.
I know the freedom that cycling gives you in terms of being able to just jump on and go.
If I’m going to Kilburn, I get on a bus.
I wanted to put a really good kids’ racing bike out there for kids under 14: 10-year-olds, eight-year-olds, right down to balance bikes for kids.
I was a fan of Lance Armstrong, and I remember watching him win the Worlds in ’93 in Oslo.
The 2012 Olympics is a fantastic incentive for everyone to help leave a sporting legacy and show that Britain is truly a great sporting nation.
You think if you win the Olympics, you’ll become a millionaire overnight. But I was still scraping the barrel, looking down the back of the settee for pound coins to buy a pint of milk.
That’s the great thing about the Tour. There’s always next year and the chance to rectify everything.
I’d love to win Paris-Roubaix.
People think sport is life and death – it’s not.
The Tour has changed, and I can’t make up my mind if it’s changed for the better or worse.
You know what? I’ve won the Tour de France, and now I feel ready to talk about it.
When I did win the Tour, I felt I was feted more in the U.K. for being an Olympic gold medallist… Then I come back to Europe to race, and they’re not interested in the Olympic gold; it’s about being the winner of the Tour de France – here he is.
How does Ronnie O’Sullivan play snooker the way he does? You can’t explain it.
Not having my father around has made me a better person.
If we went to the Tour, I’d have to think, what would our purpose be? Would it be to win the Tour de France? I’m not sure I want that pressure.
