Tom Pidcock will not let anyone else tell him what a successful Tour de France will look like this summer.
Pidcock’s stage win on the Alpe d’Huez defined his Tour debut in 2022, but last summer he cited the lack of a clear goal after fading in the second half of the gruelling 21-stage race, finishing 13th overall.
The Olympic mountain bike champion aims to one day win the Tour, but that ambition is some way off for a rider who admits right now he is built for one-day racing, not targeting the general classification in major stage races.
So what would a good Tour look like?
“I am going to decide what I want my Tour to be this year,” Pidcock told the PA news agency. “Nobody else. Otherwise you don’t get anything from me. I need to be able to believe in my mission at the Tour.
“I completely understand where I want to be and what I need to do to achieve it. It’s not always simple but the people in my corner, they know how I work.”
After a break from racing since April, Pidcock returned to win the XCO Mountain Bike World Cup race in Nove Mesto for the fourth straight year a little over a week ago. He will be back on the road at the Tour de Suisse starting this Sunday.
That is preparation for the Tour, where he is due to join former winners Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal, plus Carlos Rodriguez, fifth last year, in a powerful Ineos Grenadiers squad facing up to defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and the irrepressible Tadej Pogacar.
Thomas just rode to third place at the Giro d’Italia, turning 38 midway through the race. Luke Rowe, another rider who has been with the team for more than a decade, will retire at the end of the season.
“I think the team is going through a big transition period,” Pidcock said. “And you do notice that…It’s strange that some of these guys are soon not going to be here anymore. That is weird…
“It’s nice to have their experience. But I’ve realised I need to gain that experience in their outlook on things and not just leave it to other people.”
It means Pidcock will need to take on more of a leadership role, but he will do it his own way.
“I’m not used to taking the lead,” he said. “I don’t like to kind of lead from a forward position. I kind of like to lead from the back, if you like, to be a bit more quiet, just getting on with my own thing.
“I’m not the sort of person to hype everyone up and give the big talk. They can either believe in me or not.”
Pidcock is a youngster by cycling’s long-standing definition – still eligible for the young rider’s classification at the Tour.
But this is a world in which Pogacar has just won his third Grand Tour by the age of 25, while Remco Evenepoel, 24, has the 2022 Vuelta a Espana and a world title to his name.
“It’s a pain in the arse,” Pidcock said with a laugh. “Everyone’s so good now.”
Pidcock’s palmares includes the Amstel Gold Race and Strade Bianche, but given the incredible record he boasted at junior level and the achievements of some of his contemporaries, there has been criticism he has not won more on the road.
“I think it’s fair enough,” he said of that criticism. “I haven’t had those big wins on the road.
“But if you look at what I have done, OK, everyone is really young now. By 24, I’ve won Strade, Amstel, a stage of the Tour. I’m an Olympic champion and world champion in cyclo-cross and on the mountain bike.
“At the end of my career, if I can win a Monument or the world championships on the road, or get a podium at the Tour, that’s a career no one else has ever had.”
:: Tom Pidcock is a Red Bull athlete. You can see more about his races and achievements at https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/athlete/tom-pidcock
