Big Interview: Still no stopping speed king Sir Chris Hoy
Sir Chris Hoy speaks as fast as he cycles. Words fly out of his mouth like bullets, with the same rhythmic ferocity as his pedal rotations.
Just like those 10 seconds on a flying lap in the velodrome, there are no mistakes, no stutters, every swift sentence is neatly packaged like a sprint finish.
The Scottish cyclist doesn’t seem like the sort of character content to take it easy, he’s a doer, a climber, someone always striving for the next goal.
So what does a man who has more gold than a 19th century Californian river, who transcended his sport, and became the main catalyst behind the biggest boom in exercise this country has seen for decades do now he’s retired? Well the answer, it seems, is quite a lot.
Whether it’s racing cars, planning polar expeditions, or spreading the gospel about cycling, Hoy is keeping himself busy four years after bowing out of Olympic competition. But as he explains, he hasn’t hung up his bike.
“I’ve never really stopped,” he admitted. “It’s not really training, but I’ve been riding my bike since I retired just because it’s a fun thing to do.
“It’s nice to have a specific goal to work towards and a very different challenge to work towards. It’s nice to have a little target.”
That target, at the moment, is cycling to the South Pole. The snow bike Hoy is training on has huge thick tyres, it’s a completely different beast to the superfast lightweight racing machine he’s used to.
“We went out to Iceland to do some proper snow riding but aside from that it’s just time on the bike, because it’s 10, maybe 12 hours a day riding,” explained Hoy. “It’s just about getting used to being on the bike for that amount of time, in that wide-arm position and sitting upright.