A confident guy (and a bit smug). A skillful and aggressive sprinter. A witty and streetsmart character, who was known for throwing words like daggers at journalists and television crews.
But as my fandom matured over the next couple of years, sprinters like Marcel Kittel began to give you a run for your money, and charming entertainers like Peter Sagan cast a shadow over your winning ways.
Even so, you still managed to take your Tour de France stage wins, an Olympic silver medal in the track omnium in Rio, and a rainbow jersey in the Madison along with Bradley Wiggins at that year's Track Cycling World Championships.
Fast-forward to May of 2019. The year when perhaps you reached rock bottom, after struggling with crashes and a diagnosis of the Epstein-Barr virus.
I watched you on the first stage of the Tour of California: you were getting dropped on the Lake Tahoe climb and waved away TV cameras, and you told your own teammate to leave you alone when he came back to help you.
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