Bradley Wiggins has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. The 2012 Tour de France winner was honoured for his incredible 2012 season.

The 2013 season may not have lived up to expectations for Bradley Wiggins, with a silver medal at the world time trial championships and an overall win in the Tour of Britain being the only real highlights in a mostly lacklustre year. However, the Brit can still enjoy the success he had on the roads one year ago when he dominated the WorldTour stage races and capped the season with an Olympic gold medal on home soil.

Wiggins has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace at a ceremony where he was joined by his wife and two children. He was honoured for his 2012 season where he won the Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romandie and the Criterium du Dauphiné in his build-up to the fantastic summer that saw him become the first British Tour de Franc winner.

Wiggins described the title as an "incredible honour".

"It was quite nerve-wracking actually," he said on British Cycling's website. "I'm just incredibly uncomfortable in those circumstances. I'm still shaking now, to be honest. I'm glad it's over. The Queen asked what I'm doing now, and it was an incredible summer last year.

"I mean it's quite humbling, really, being here," he added. "I was just talking to some of the other people getting stuff, and asking them what they've been honoured for, and they're historic things, ground-breaking sciences or whatever. I've won a bike race, you know, and I feel a little bit inferior to everyone, really.

"It's just the end of the road in a sense, in that it tops off the closure of last summer as it were, even though it's more than a year ago. It's a great honour."

This year Wiggins was unable to repeat his 2012 feats. His attempt to win the Giro d'Italia ended as a disaster, with the Brit abandoning the race due to illness, and he missed the Tour due to a knee injury. However, his Worlds and Tour of Britain performances showed that he is still a very classy bike rider and that great things could still be in store for the 33-year-old.

Wiggins has indicated that the 2014 season may be his final as a road racer. He plans to return to the track to win another gold medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.