Tom Pidcock takes his own path in cycling and says enjoyment matters
Tom Pidcock knows he will one day have to make big sacrifices if he is to pursue his goals across cycling – but he is determined to always follow his own path.
As the Olympic and world mountain bike champion, a Tour de France stage winner on the road and the former cyclo-cross world champion, Pidcock has proven himself a cycling multi-tool in his short career to date.
Still only 24, Pidcock plans to one day target overall victory in the Tour de France, but though he will ride the Tour this summer, his main goal is the defence of his Olympic crown in Paris. These Games could yet prove a crossroads for Pidcock, who knows a busy mountain bike schedule is not compatible with the level of commitment needed to properly target the Tour.
His Ineos Grenadiers team will surely have a view too, but Pidcock is clear about how he will approach their conversations.“ I think anything that wasn’t my choice would be detrimental to me as a bike rider,” Pidcock told the PA news agency. “I don’t do anything well that I don’t enjoy.”
Ask Pidcock which discipline is closest to his heart, and mountain bike – a love which dates back to family holidays in the French Alps – is the answer.“ It’s what I’m most naturally talented at, I think,” Pidcock said. “The road incorporates many different types of riders. I want to do well on the road. I see myself as a road rider, but if you really had to say what sort of rider I am, it’s mountain bike. It’s the one I enjoy without fail.”
Pidcock needs different challenges to stay motivated – and that is why he has always thrived competing across disciplines. He thinks about his potential place in history but never imagined being a rider who chases records by winning multiple editions of the same race.“ I could never see myself winning five back-to-back Tours or anything like that,” he said. “I need fresh things. If I won everything once, that’s better than a lot of a few things.”
Last month Pidcock added the Amstel Gold Race to his list of road successes, joking it was his second win in the Belgian Classic after the 2021 edition was awarded to Wout Van Aert in a controversial photo finish. Along with last year’s Strade Bianche, it was another victory to spark debate over what might be his biggest to date. Pidcock mentions both the Olympics and his stunning 2022 Tour stage victory on the Alpe d’Huez, but asked to pick one, he instead looks back to his 2017 junior world cyclo-cross title. Coming 12 months after he battled a string of setbacks to finish fifth in 2016, Pidcock said it proved pivotal.“I learned so much about performing under pressure,” he said.
“That’s probably set me up for the rest of my career. That was a goal for a whole year since the year before.“Then I’d started at the back, crashed three times and finished fifth. I thought, ‘Next year, I’m going to win this race’. ”To choose a win from a discipline which has recently fallen down his list of priorities is instructive on how Pidcock sees himself as a rider. “I’m 24,” he said. “I’ve won Strade, Amstel, a stage of the Tour, I’m Olympic champion, a world champion in cross and on the mountain bike.“If I can win a Monument or the worlds on the road, even if I’m just on the podium in the Tour, that’s a career that no one else has been able to have.”