I ALWAYS thought the Tour de France was a bike race.

Indeed I am almost sure of it.

Yet the past 15 years seem to have seen more stories about doping, drugs and denials than the sport itself.

One man is hoping to change all that Not by riding it, he is 61 after all, but by revolutionising the UCI – the sport’s governing body.

Ribble Valley’s Brian Cookson – a former head of regeneration at Pendle Council is running for presidency of that body.

And he is doing so with a great deal of common sense.

His manifesto is simple, clean the sport up, encourage a more secure financial footing allowing racing to flourish, and improve women’s cycling.

But it is the question of doping that is the obvious starting point for the British Cycling president.

He said: “At the moment the UCI are trying to solve everything with conflict.

“We all need to be working together to combat doping.

“I think the sport is certainly getting cleaner.

“Everyone needs to be working together.

“It is ridiculous how we seem to have so many agencies all working separately.

“We have had a lot of scandals in the last 15 years that have damaged the sport – the Lance Armstrong one being the most auspicious.”

Would he welcome Armstrong back to offer help, advice and assistance?

“I would,” said Cookson.

“It needs a high profile figure like him to come in and tell people how things happened, what went wrong and to make sure that we don’t make those mistakes again.

“We need to learn from the mistakes of the past.

“It doesn’t have to be Armstrong but it needs someone of that ilk to come in.

“We want to get to know these people and understand why they did what they did.

“There needs to be a clear worldwide pattern set in stone so that no matter what the offence is or what country it was in, or what level of cycling it is.

“It needs to be the same punishment all round.

“There is too much appealing and counter-appealing.”

Cookson knows any such changes to the sport will not happen overnight, but he is prepared to play the waiting game for the good of cycling.

“It isn’t as simple as clicking our fingers and everything will be done,” Cookson added.

“It will take people time to put their trust in the sport again after what has happened.

“The most important challenge is to restore trust in the UCI, and most importantly to rebuild people’s faith in the way that anti-doping is dealt with.

“We need to give people reasons to believe that the future will be different from the past.

“We must build a culture of trust and confidence.

“We need to establish a completely independent anti-doping unit, managed and governed outside of the UCI and in full cooperation with the World Anti-Doping Agency.

“This unit would be physically and politically separate from the UCI, responsible for all aspects of anti doping, and report to a board totally independent from the UCI.

“There is a fundamental conflict of interest for an international federation if it is promoting its sport on one hand, but policing it on the other.

“We need to work together and there needs to be collaboration.”

Cookson is confident that he will benefit from the lessons he has learned and the changes he has seen during his 16-year tenure as president of British Cycling.

It is a time that has seen the sport boom in Great Britain and expand rapidly with the development of UK professional outfit Team Sky, who won the Tour de France with Bradley Wiggins last year.

“I firmly believe in the model at Team Sky and the way things are done within British Cycling,” said Cookson.

“I am very happy and pleased that we can be proud of Team Sky.

“That is absolutely the model that I want to follow.

“The team is racing clean and that is part of the reason why we set up a British team in the first place.

"We played a part in nurturing these riders and seeing them progress and then we sent them to Europe into pro teams we knew next to nothing about.

"Now we can see the development and work with riders with the progression into Team Sky.

“It is there for everyone to see and it is a model I believe is working.”