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Life can change in the blink of an eye. Doors close, doors open. You can win, or you can crash. You can fall in love, or you can lose somebody close to you in an instant.

Even with that undeniable truth in mind, January of 2015 saw me standing at a significant crossroads.

I was 24 years old. I was from Žilina, Slovakia, but now I lived in Monte Carlo. I’d been a professional cyclist for five years, in which time I’d won 65 bike races, been champion of my country four times, and won three green jerseys in the Tour de France.

But now, for the first time in my career, I was changing teams.

I suppose I ought to go back a bit further to explain how I got to this moment. Back to the beginning.

As a kid, I loved riding my bike and winning races. People love the stories about me turning up to races on bikes borrowed from my sister or bought for a few koruna from a supermarket, wearing trainers and a T-shirt, and beating everybody. I’m not saying those stories aren’t true, but really, they weren’t such a big deal. Slovakia was an emerging country, booming after decades dozing behind the Iron Curtain, and now let loose from our awkward embrace with the Czechs thanks to the universally popular “Velvet Divorce.” All of us kids were living the high life and screaming at the top of our lungs. I had two older brothers, Milan and Juraj, and there was my sister, Daniela. My dad would drive me all over the place to race bikes. Way beyond Žilina and beyond Slovakia, too: Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Italy . . . we’d just go. Mountain bikes, road bikes, cyclocross bikes—it didn’t matter. I just wanted to race. Because I was winning, and I liked it.