I agree that he was critiquing his former self. He was a person that he didn't feel comfortable being, and rather than discarding his entire identity as a cyclist, he found a way to maintain his passion, a thing that fundamentally brought him pleasure, but that he began to adjust his relationship with it.

It reminds me of how the most passionate anti-smoker you will find is the person who quit smoking a year ago.

It is a story of one person's evolution in self-understanding and overcoming ego, and that takes a radical rejection of what had been formerly holding him back from achieving what he wanted to become. That the thing was racing culture is irrelevant other than a plot point in his momentum.