One day when I was 16, I rode my bike to the nearby DMV office to get my driver's permit. Some of my friends already had their licenses, so I figured it was time. But when I handed the clerk my green card as proof of U.S. residency, she flipped it around, examining it. 'This is fake,' she whispered. 'Don't come back here again.'

In our game, it's your vanity that keeps you in shape. I've got a little gym set up, and I ride a single-speed bike up the hills behind my house. Lately I've been kind of a slacker. Usually it's a film role that makes me start getting in shape. Between roles, I try to do a little maintenance, but I'm not a workout fanatic at all.

I really like playing other people. There is no other feeling like it, to have a different voice come out of you and to have a different life for a couple of hours. I like being myself. But maybe it's like you ride a bike every day and someone says, 'For two hours tonight do you want to ride this Harley?' You'd be like, 'OK yeah!'

I would not say I was not interested in studies - it just wasn't there in me to pursue academics. I would open a page in the textbook and start thinking about everything under the sun except what was there in the book. I was more into extra-curricular activities and sports like NCC, rifle shooting, aero-modelling, bike racing, etc.

Bike lanes are clearly controversial. And one of the problems with bike lanes - and I'm generally a supporter of bike lanes - but one of the problems with bike lanes has been not the concept of them, which I support, but the way the Department of Transportation has implemented them without consultation with communities and community boards.

The Marianne Vos Route goes through the seven villages of Aalburg, where I grew up, and celebrates my World and Olympic titles with a number of benches along the route, where you can stop and rest your legs. You'll see the white windmill in Meeuwen and, in Babylonienbroek, a statue of the silver bike I rode to celebrate my Olympic track win.

I like to have plans in place so I know what I am doing and when. Take nutrition. When I am on the bike I will start off eating solid food like rice cakes made with pistachios or energy bars. Then as the race goes on, halfway though I will switch to gels as they get into your system more quickly and they are easier to palate when you're tired.

I think I really thought I was a boy until I was ten years old because my parents divorced when I was born, and so my three brothers were almost like my fathers growing up. So they taught me how to ride a bike and all that stuff. I really was just kind of a guy's girl and just kind of an outspoken - some could say obnoxious - in-your-face kid.

I have seen extreme lows because of factors that were not in my hands - be it not having money to buy my first bike, dropping out of a prestigious engineering college without having a single rupee in my bank account, living with seven boys in a single-room kitchen in Mumbai, or eating nothing but khichdi every day. But I cherish all those moments.

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