For the first time in his career Sir Chris Hoy will be in the stands at the Commonwealth Games instead of competing.
The retired star will be returning to the Games a hero with the national velodrome named for him in honour of his amazing career success.
But Sir Chris has revealled what he’d do if he could take away the fame of being the UK’s most decorated Olympian – spend a night in an Edinburgh pub with his mates.
He told SSE’s More for You site: “I’d like to go back to the kind of pubs I used to go to when I was in my early 20s in Edinburgh - to just go out with my friends and live a normal night out.
“At the moment, if I went out to those places now you often get spotted, and then you don’t spend your night talking to your friends.
“Instead you’re just chatting to people who want to come up and say ‘hello’ - and it’s great when they do come up.
“But I think it would be quite nice to go under the radar a little bit for just one night and spend it with my friends.”
SSE is a proud sponsor of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and Team England, Team Scotland, Team Wales and Team Northern Ireland.
Sir Chris heads up a team of SSE Ambassadors at the Games including medal hopefuls Katarina Johnson Thompson, Eilidh Child and Aled Davies.
He’s also mentored some of SSE’s Next Generation – young athletes hoping to make the next Commonwealth Games and Olympic teams.
He is clear in his advice to them – the positives far outweigh any negatives of getting to the pinnacle of your sport.
He said: “When you do get more recognition or more recognised when you’re out and about it does change things a little but you can’t complain.
“There’s no doubt your social life and the time you can spend with your family and pretty much everything actually it is compromised because you need to be committed.
“I don’t like to think of it as a sacrifice because you’re doing something you love and you’re getting a huge amount back from it.
“It is an amazing opportunity to be able to do your sport as your life and be able to make a living out of your sport.”
But he does draw a line at cheeky requests for a picture at innappropriate times. He admitted he was once asked for a picture in a public toilet.
He said: “I was in Italy for a race and I was in a public toilet.
“I was just standing there and this guy tapped me on the shoulder and he says, ‘photo?’. So, yeah, that was definitely an inappropriate request.”