A biography for Mark Cavendishhasn’t been written yet.
“The beautiful thing about cycling is that it is so accessible and that pleased me when I was younger because you felt like you could almost touch the athletes.”
“My job in the Tour is to get the sponsor's logo in the most prominent place.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The Giro's difficult to predict for the points jersey because there are so many mountain-top finishes and there are as many points on offer for mountain stages as for sprints. It's really for the most consistent all-round rider and it's pretty difficult for me to win it.”
“The stronger you are as a unit, the more you can control a race. The strongest cyclist in the world isn't as strong as two guys, let alone nine.”
“Every rider trains their muscles but few train their brain.”
“During the Tour you get tired, you get exhausted, you're in pain and you can get sick for a few days but still have to ride through it.”
“I have a fondness for junk food - it still calls me, sometimes.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“When you win sprints, you're a great sprinter, but when you win a great one-day race, you've proved you're a great rider.”
“But you have to take asthma seriously. People do not realise the stress our bodies go under.”
“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.”
“Yorkshire is a hard place to ride a bike.”
“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 think any professional athlete who says they stick to a strict diet and weigh their food out every time is either lying or they're sick.”
“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.”
“If I do a circuit, then after three laps I could tell you where all the potholes were.”