But it is, in particular, as a practitioner extraordinaire and Jedi Master of the time trial that Cancellara will go down in the history books as, very possibly, the all-time greatest. Otherwise known as the Race of Truth, the time trial is bicycling at its reductive purest. One man, one bike, racing against the clock over a predetermined distance. There is no hiding in a team, there is no drafting. The time trialist, over the course of the race, peers in to the depths of his soul to understand who he is at his core. And Cancellara, who has won the Time Trial World Championships an unbelievable four times, as well as Olympic Time Trial gold in 2008 and 2016 in Rio, is a master at staring into the abyss and then extracting from himself the very best essence of who he is. Revolution sat down with this one-in-a-million man and discovered him to be startlingly humble despite his extraordinary accomplishments.

Did you go to the 2016 Rio Olympics determined to win the gold medal in the time trial?

The plan was to try to be successful; bringing home any medal would have been a huge thing. Bringing home a gold medal was something really amazing. Especially coming back like this, which hasn’t been easy. But now it’s become — I don’t want to use the word incorrectly — like a tsunami. For Switzerland, it’s great because this summer Olympics we had my gold medal and also the gold medal for men’s mountain biking (won by Nino Schurter).

What a spectacular way to cap an already-magnificent career…

You probably know that in a few weeks I’ll have finished my entire career as an athlete. And I don’t want to say that I was missing something from my palmarès but this was really an incredible experience for me.

You once said it’s harder to maintain your performance over a long career than it was winning those initial races. Looking back, do you still feel this way?

Definitely, I think to prepare to win a day race or a stage in a tour is one thing. But the more you win, in some ways, the more difficult it becomes for you. It’s the attention, the expectation and the pressure — in particular the pressure you put on yourself. And there are certain riders that can handle this pressure and there are others who can’t. When I look back at my career, I would say that since 2006, I’ve been competing at the highest level in cycling. But to maintain this competitiveness, it is not easy. And then you start to get older, and as each year passes, your outlook is changing.

How has your perspective on life changed as you’ve gotten older?

Your outlook changes, because as you get older, you start to add more responsibilities to your life. So many changes. Look at me. Now I’m 35 years old. I’m responsible for my two kids and I’m responsible for my wife. I am very grateful I’ve had a great career and I’ve won a lot of races, but I’ve also had some years where things had not been easy, where I’ve had bad luck or crashed out and been injured. In 2015, I broke my back twice. In 2012, I broke my collarbone and had a very bad crash during the Olympics.