The 11-time World Champion and also has a total of seven Olympic medals, six gold and one silver, and is the second most decorated Olympic cyclist of all time – yet he only took up cycling to emulate the gang of kids in Stephen Spielberg’s ET, who evaded parents and authorities on their bikes.

Today, his work has taken a number of forms beyond cycling achievements, from founding a business, to his UNICEF role, working for Scottish Action for Mental Health, to the Scholarship he has just set up with the University of Edinburgh to nurture the next generation of champions. And more recently, on the back of his own diagnosis, raising awareness of prostate cancer.

We talked to him about his career, his life, and the importance of leaving a legacy for others that’s just as powerful as that bike chase in the service of an extraterrestrial friend first left on him.