He kept that certainty private for months before confirming it publicly on August 22: «I've always raced on instinct, attacking when my legs were burning, not when the numbers told me to. I made this decision in the same way.» The framing he chose was deliberate — not decline, not regret, but a clean exchange: «I gave everything I had, and cycling gave me everything in return.» For a rider who spent 13 years refusing to race on spreadsheets, walking away on feeling is entirely consistent.