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It’s July 2022 and Tom Pidcock is flying down the towering Col du Galibier at 100km an hour, pushing the boundaries of what is achievable on a road bike, his rear wheel sliding through each snaking vertiginous bend, leaving his peers far behind and French TV commentators aghast.
A couple of hours later, he raises his arms at the top of Alpe d’Huez, one of the Tour’s most feared climbs, taking an exhilarating stage win in his debut Tour de France. A new star is born. Few doubt that it’s only a matter of time until he wears the yellow jersey.
But things changed, fast. Two years later, a disconsolate Pidcock described the Tour as “boring” and “crap,” and after a season of discontent, was barely on speaking terms with his Ineos Grenadiers team management. Even a thrilling, last-gasp, successful defence of his Olympic mountain biking title, in Paris 2024, could not hide his misery. “I’m mentally frazzled,” he said a few days later after the Olympic road race, when asked what his future held.
As he negotiated with other teams, Pidcock’s four seasons at Ineos Grenadiers ended dismally, with him being unceremoniously dropped on the eve of the final Classic of 2024, Il Lombardia. It was no secret that relationships between Pidcock and Ineos had become strained. In some ways, his departure paralleled Marcus Rashford’s sombre departure from troubled Old Trafford to upbeat Villa Park.
“Ineos was my dream team,” he told the Guardian. “It was the team that I grew up watching, that inspired me. They became my second family. Some of my best friends are there, in the team still.”
There were good times. After his momentous success on Alpe d’Huez in 2022, Pidcock went on to win the coveted Strade Bianche, ridden through the Tuscan hills on a mix of gravel and tarmac roads, in 2024, and then the Dutch Classic, Amstel Gold in 2024. But even by late 2023, relations with team management had begun to sour. The editing of a Netflix series about that year’s Tour de France didn’t help.
“I was made out to be the bad guy,” Pidcock said, of an episode in which he stated: “My opinion is the only one that matters.”
Pidcock had gone from yellow jersey contender to Tour de France “pack-fill” in less than two years. His desire to pair his mountain bike ambitions with a career in road racing sat increasingly uneasily with Ineos’s objectives. Winning his second Olympic gold had only masked the inevitable parting of ways.
Now, a rebooted Pidcock goes into the first cobbled Classic of 2025, Saturday’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium, as one of the leading favourites, after leaving the dog days at Ineos Grenadiers behind him. Pidcock, who travels to races with his two dachshunds, Chestnut and Acorn, for most of the year, says he has been “unleashed” by his off-season move to the Swiss-based Q36.5 team, which races a level below World Tour.
“I feel like I’ve been let off the lead. I’ve found new interest, life and energy in cycling. It’s really been revitalising. I just have that extra reserve of energy,” he enthused.
Already this year he has taken his first overall win in a major race, the AlUla Tour, winning two stages in five days. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” he posted afterwards on Instagram. At his next race, February’s Vuelta a Andalucia, he won again. “I feel like the fog has cleared,” he said. “I can see clearly. I know what I need to do, I know how to win.”
Exiting Ineos was, he said, “a long process, a long period of knowing but not knowing, of uncertainty. Now I’m in such a nice place, mentally, and physically as well. The new team has helped me step up as a rider.”
Pidcock doesn’t deny that his three year deal with the Swiss-based Q36.5 offers a better fit than staying with the British team. “I like things more simple,” he said. “I like my own goals and objectives and not to be influenced by people, organisations and sponsors telling me what they want. That’s exactly what I can do here.”
“I had options to go to the biggest team in the world, and I chose to go this team, because of the belief that they have in me and my goals. I like to race and be myself, so I think it’s a fantastic opportunity.”
It might also explain why, if he was in conversation with the “biggest team in the world” – implying the UAE Emirates lineup led by the all-conquering Tadej Pogacar – Pidcock opted instead for a developing team where he could be top dog.
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“In other teams, you’re living someone else’s targets and goals,” he said. “That doesn’t really bring the best out of me. When I’ve got something to lose, that’s when I do my best.”
There are rumours that his move, far from being a step down, has lifted him into the highest income bracket in professional racing. With Pogacar believed to be earning well over £6m, that would represent a considerable increase from Pidcock’s Ineos salary. Ironically, the downside of moving to Q36.5, which as a non-World Tour team, will not be racing in this year’s Tour de France, is an added positive for a rider who’d fallen out of love with the world’s biggest bike race.
“I’m not going to miss it, that’s for sure,” he said. “The last two years were not enjoyable. The first year was incredible, but I need to build up to going back to that race.”
“There’s always going to be pressure there,” he added. “You’re in the spotlight every day, the media have their expectations and their questions. You can’t hide if it goes badly, and the past two years weren’t that great. If you’re not at the front and making a show, then you’re just an accessory. The Tour creates so many amazing stories. A story of just being average isn’t impressive.”
Joining him at his new team is younger brother and fellow professional, Joey, who recently posted about his revelatory diagnosis of ADHD, saying that he had “suddenly stopped walking through three feet deep water, like I have all my life.”
“When he showed me what he was going to post, I had a tear in my eye,” his older brother said. “It was really brave. I couldn’t quite believe he’d written it. This opportunity will hopefully give him some stability and then he can show us what he can do on his bike. ADHD is not very well understood. It really does affect people and how they deal with everyday things.”
Pidcock himself has not been tested for ADHD, but says “I’m sure I probably have it. But I don’t suffer in the same way that Joey does, in it affecting my performance. I’m happy with how I am.”
