The Tour has been the raison d'être of my life for so many years though I hate leaving my wife and kids

The first stage of the Tour de France will mark my 428th Grand Tour stage in my 24th Grand Tour. I'm at a point in my career where I count things up in a vain attempt to either motivate myself with the knowledge that I've been there and done it before (and survived), or, in darker times, to acknowledge that maybe it's time to stop being there and hurting myself so much.

This year has found me mainly in the latter state of mind. I counted up my 427 GT stages on the trip home after my forced exit from the Giro d'Italia in May. I'm not sure what provoked it, an existential crisis perhaps.

There was a time when arriving back to my empty apartment after the Tour, frozen in the state of my inevitably rushed departure, was the low point. Now, leaving my home and family is perhaps the hardest part of my job, the utter excitement of leaving for the Tour de France clouded by the time lost with my wife and boys. I count days now. I never used to.

My team is Garmin-Sharp, I helped build it and remain a part owner, yet this doesn't mean I get automatic selection to the Tour de France. The fact I won a stage last year means very little. It is the success of our team in developing young talent that makes my position within the team more precarious. I am a victim of our own success. The team owner part of me is very proud of this fact; the racer part of me is not quite as impressed.

Experience and, dare I say, tenacity have allowed me to arrive at the required fitness in the nick of time to earn a place in our Tour de France squad. It will be my 12th Tour. It is the one race that means the world to me.

When, a few weeks ago, I was convinced I wouldn't be able to overcome the health and fitness issues that had been plaguing me this year I told myself that it was OK, missing it wouldn't be the end of the world. But I would have been insufferable for the duration.

The Tour has that effect on me. It has been the raison d'être of my life for so many years. It was the dream of being able to take part that gave me the drive to become a professional cyclist in the first place. I didn't have an older brother or a father who led me into the sport, I had books, magazines and videos that spurred on my curiosity and urged me to fulfill what felt like my Tour de France destiny.

My first Tour was in 2000. At the time it was thought that one day I could be a contender for the overall win. I was young and raw and impatient, the perfect combination for leading me into the darker side of professional cycling.

I ended up nearly destroying everything because of where those youthful Tour de France dreams had taken me, yet it hasn't affected my relationship with the race, because that is what it is; a relationship. It's a part of my life, like a family member or a hometown.

I turned 36 this year, which qualifies me as a bona fide veteran. Yet I still get nervous and excited about the Tour de France. It's the biggest bike race in the world, maybe the biggest race in the world. As riders we are all too aware of this. It is the event that counts the most, the one people ask about and can't help but follow due to the coverage becoming so widespread.

This is reflected in how we race, the level of stress within the peloton surpasses all other races, and with it the risk of crashing is increased. Everybody has to be at the front – that is a team order – but unfortunately we don't all fit and the jostling in such close proximity at such high speeds leads inevitably to the tangling of bikes and bodies. This is the worst thing about the Tour, unless one succumbs to illness. Racing a Tour de France sick or injured is hell on earth.

There are many reasons why the race has such an attraction to fans and riders alike, the history being one. This year will be the race's 100th edition. Each edition is like a reality show, or, more accurately, a soap opera, the past 15 years especially so.

The majority of modern cycling fans, those who became enchanted during the Lance Armstrong years, know very little about the origins of the race or the strange foreign names and the accompanying legends that grace the annals of the Tour, yet this doesn't stop them loving it. The modern race is as much about the surrounding drama as it is the racing. It's for this reason that it has survived what was probably one of the darkest periods of any sport. The doping era is a thing of the past, though not one that we should forget.

Perhaps the most surprising development during my career has been the rise of the British, and with that we had the latest drama. Sir Bradley Wiggins, who last year became the first Brit to win the Tour, hasn't been selected to defend his title. In his place we have another Brit, Chris Froome, as the favourite. It is his race to lose. Let the soap opera begin.