On intensity and bike racing
Your brain can be your best friend or your enemy. If you can break it down to, ‘I must kill everyone,’ or ‘I must destroy,’ then you’re fine. But if you start thinking, ‘Do I really need to be doing this? It’s raining out. The road is slippery. People are crashing everywhere. It’s cold. My whole body hurts.’ That’s when it’s negative, and the desk job seems quite good. But if you can use your mind to make your body like a motorcycle — you just turn the throttle and go — if you can make it like that, you’re fine. That’s normally how it is in training, you take out the elements of stress and performance, and you enjoy it. That’s the key to racing.
- Pro cyclist Tom Danielson, interviewed by VeloNews
'I ride my bike 45,000km a year,' he says. 'People ask you to come here and there and I say, "I can't." And they say, "Yeah, I realise you're tired, I realise you just want a bit of peace and quiet." And it's like, no. I. Am. Fucked. I'm totally, utterly exhausted. My body is eating itself because I'm so tired.'
- Pro cyclist Mark Cavendish, interviewed by the Guardian
— Filed under Cycling, Inspiration