Top 44 Mark Cavendish Quotes

I want to provide the best possible life for my daughter. I want her to be so proud of me. You know, I never rode just for myself. I did it for my team as well. But this feels different. This feels like I’m riding my heart out for her.

The Tour de France is ridiculously hard.

I want to win wherever I race, the team’s invested a lot in me.

Track and road cycling are very different things. It is easy to look at them both as cycling but going from the road to the track is like asking Andy Murray to play squash: yes, it’s a racket sport like tennis, but it’s not the same.

If you’re on the top for 10 years it’s going to seem like you have more crashes that someone on the top for three years. If you don’t win as much in your ninth or 10th year it’s going seem like you are on your way out.

Since we married, Peta’s taken over a lot of my cooking and she’s incredible. She’ll do different meals for me and the kids, depending on my regime. If I name 10 ingredients she’ll change the recipe every day.

My job in the Tour is to get the sponsor’s logo in the most prominent place.

The thing with depression is you don’t realise you have it and even when you do you don’t want to realise you have it.

If you don’t enjoy something you can’t keep at it. That’s the thing that sticks with me.

Sometimes it can be more tiring with the kids than on the bike but I’m absolutely loving it.

It’s so ironic that the better you get the easier it becomes to win.

I don’t know why, but despite winning how many world championships, how many Tour stages, and being 31 years old, some people still thought I had to prove myself, you know. So I had to do the Track Worlds to try to prove myself.

Second doesn’t mean anything in cycling.

The descents are quite fun – everybody has a sort of competition and tries to go for it and then you compare top speeds when you get to the bottom.

I’m not getting bored with cycling or winning – I love it. But I need to give myself new targets all the time.

The perception is that I’ve always made winning look easy. People think it’s easy, but they don’t see what’s behind it, the time away from the family. The days spent climbing, training out in all weather, climbing but trying to keep the speed for the sprint.

What keeps athletes going is the optimism we are going to be able to compete again.

I never think: ‘If I crash, I’m going to hurt myself.’ I might think: ‘If I crash, I’m not going to win.’ Everything’s about that finish line.

The Olympics is where you see out of this world performances, isn’t it?

People’s brains work differently. The brain is like a muscle and you have to train it, keep it active, keep active in races. I notice if I haven’t raced for a while. It’s hard to see things clearly so you have to relearn that.

In a sprint you make 100 decisions a second. What if X goes now and Y goes then? Should I take this gap or that one? You have to be sharp. Over time it becomes instinct.

At the end of the day I want to be the first rider across that finish line and I’ll just find the quickest and easiest way to do it.

I’m fortunate in one way and I can take pride from the fact that I’ve consistently performed for 10 years, which is something that not many people can do. I’ve consistently stayed near the top for 10 years which is maybe something that is overlooked and taken for granted.

A lot of people in the Isle of Man support me and it makes it all worthwhile when people are interested in what you’re doing. I dunno if the word ‘famous’ is appropriate, but I’m quite well known on the Isle of Man.

I’m 100% a sprinter… an old school one, not one of these new guys that can climb and sprint.

The Belgian people, they’re so happy.

Crashes are the worst thing because your wounds stick to you, so you are sweating into your road rash all day and when you try to sleep your wounds are sticking to the bed sheets. It is part of the job and we know the risks.

I always go for broke. It’s win or nothing for me.

One thing I do get aggravated by is people shouting with frustration if they get pushed and shoved in sprints. I don’t push and shove anyone, but I don’t care if somebody does it to me.

When I was younger, I didn’t really train for the sprint – I trained to get over the mountains. I have to train it now I’m getting older. But the sprint is more born, rather than made.

Lance Armstrong won seven Tours, that’s 147 days of racing, and he never had a puncture or a mechanical. You can really minimise your chances of a mistake if you do everything right.

Sometimes the hardest part of the stage is right at the beginning. The other teams will leave it to us to chase down a breakaway, and we can’t allow a big group to go up the road – anything more than four riders is trouble.

I need to be on a bike, mentally as much as physically.

If I do a circuit, then after three laps I could tell you where all the potholes were.

When you’re a young pro from an undeveloped country in road cycling then you’re on the back foot.

I don’t listen to any music when I train – I do it outdoors, and I’m not a fan of iPods on bikes.

I used to walk down a street and nobody would notice me. Now, I get stopped all the time; people saying, ‘well done’. It makes me really, really proud to have done my bit to help make cycling a little bit more popular.

I have a house in a small town in Tuscany where everybody knows and looks out for each other. That’s a similar mentality to on the Isle of Man.

It’s my job. It’s not a hobby, it’s how I put food on the table for my family. I have to be on a bike.

The way I dig in to push myself through mountain climbs is totally psychological. I’m not designed to do that stuff. It’s mind over matter.

If you want a lot of endorsements then you’d pick the Olympics. But I’ve had a passion for the Tour since I was a kid. Let’s put it this way: it would be harder to win a stage on the Tour de France so that would mean more. I’d take the Tour win first – but I’m aiming for both.

I’m not as talented as others, but I have a determination and will that enable me to work a lot harder than anyone else.

But you have to take asthma seriously. People do not realise the stress our bodies go under.

Yorkshire is a hard place to ride a bike.