Tom Pidcock
“Tom could be a unique cyclist… the kind we’ve never seen before” Kurt Bogaerts
tour. Baby-faced and exuding youth, he nonetheless wears a shadow of exertion behind the smile, born of almost two decades’ riding, 11 of them racing. Those years and miles have brought results, raised his profile, and taken him to the brink of the big time. Highlights include a dominant victory on last year’s under-23 Giro d’Italia and two age-grade world titles in cyclocross – the muddier, more intense cousin of road racing. Myriad other wins in both disciplines, as well as in mountain biking – including E-MTB world champion status – and track cycling, litter Pidcock’s CV like gold and silver confetti. What’s next is tantalising. “I’m super-excited,” he says, talking with sudden animation at the prospect of a 2021 season that includes elite-level mountainbike competition and perhaps racing the Vuelta a España – the Spanish equivalent of the Tour de France – for INEOS Grenadiers. “I haven’t been so excited about anything for a while.” Few riders reach the point of being signed by probably the best team on the pro tour – formerly Team Sky, home of British Tour de France giants Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas – while still being spoken of as a shining light in ’cross and a future Olympian in cross-country mountain biking. In years past, a rider would have been expected to specialise in a given discipline by the time he or she turned pro, and then to have found their groove as a climber, a sprinter, or a one-day ‘Classics’ ace. Pidcock, though, has options, somewhat in the mould of the Netherlands’ Mathieu van der Poel or Belgium’s Wout van Aert, both stellar road talents in their twenties, who are also winning at the highest level of off-road competition. There’s no hint of the Brit being awed by the scale of the challenge, nor of being overshadowed by the eminence of Grand Tour winners in his team such as Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal. Pidcock just feels ready: “It’s been the long game, so I’ve been anticipating it for a while. A lot of other young guys are doing so well [he name-checks Van der Poel, Van Aert and France’s Julian Alaphilippe], so it’s quite normal nowadays. People say I’m a good rider, but waiting till I’m 21 [to race as a senior pro] is almost a long time now. In all honesty, it doesn’t seem like I’ve come far so quickly.” Even the prospect of a three-week Grand Tour reckoned by some to be tougher, though less glitzy, than the Tour de France doesn’t faze Pidcock. “The 34
biggest thing for a Grand Tour is not straight-up preparing for it,” he says. “It’s more like being in full training mode. When you can see the progression and you can see your body working efficiently… that’s what you need. If I’m in that state, I don’t think there’s a problem. I recover very quickly. Obviously it’s a long time, but if I do everything right I think I can perform for three weeks.”
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uch a matter-of-fact approach is not uncommon in elite competitors; their confidence is a function of repeat success layered on profound self-belief. But in Pidcock’s case there may be something more. “He could be a unique rider who does something that has never been done – possibly even a kind of cyclist we have never seen before,” says Kurt Bogaerts, Pidcock’s coach for the past three years at the Trinity Racing team that was built to further his junior career. “He has such high ability, he’s so diverse. In the proper environment, he’s right to have big dreams.” Bogaerts is a widely respected coach and proteam directeur sportif, who has lent his expertise to legends such as Ireland’s Sean Kelly, as well as latter-day hotshots like sprinter Sam Bennett. “He [Pidcock] is a cyclist of the new generation – very good at a young age,” says Bogaerts. “What makes Tom so good is that he’s an athlete – more of an athlete than a bike rider. He can run really well. He can ride well in any discipline. If you go skiing with him, he’s a good skier, too. He clearly has good genetics, and on top of that he can handle workload. He has a good lifestyle naturally, so what’s difficult for some is quite normal for him.” Pidcock’s response to this kind of acclaim is simply to refer back to a childhood spent on a bike, including riding to and from school every day. “Riding a bike is like a third arm,” he says. “It comes naturally. That makes it easier to go between disciplines, I think. It’s about riding the bike fast and not so much about technical aspects. It’s just what I do.”
Steep task: Pidcock, Van der Poel and Van Aert out of the saddle and climbing at the Cyclocross World Cup, December 2020
THE RED BULLETIN
