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Cycling
Tom Pidcock: a road to success that is ever evolving
With major wins in road, cyclocross and cross-country mountain biking, the British rider is one of cycling's most exciting and entertaining talents. This is Tom Pidcock's story.
For Tom Pidcock, the rise to the top of world cycling has felt like a natural evolution. There is, he says, little separation from the young boy that raced in the UK to the young man who's now winning world titles, just logical steps along a realistic path of progression.
Though mainly known for his promise as a major road cycling star, cyclocross and mountain biking are two disciplines that he continues to enjoy when he gets a chance to race them – and with world-beating success. He's working his way into the pro ranks without compromising his passion and talent for any discipline.
Now 23-years-old, the Brit, who rides for the British-registered Ineos Grenadiers pro-cycling team, is already an Olympic Champion. A feat he achieved in cross-country mountain biking (XC) in Tokyo. Other senior titles include becoming a World Champion in cyclocross (CX) in 2022 and also securing the 2022 XC European Championship title. As a Junior and Under-23 racer Pidcock held world championship titles in three different disciplines; time trial, cyclocross and cross-country mountain bike.
Despite seeming like he's in a hurry to master everything on two wheels, Pidcock says he takes a ‘slow and steady’ approach. Here’s how that philosophy has worked out so far for this mega multi-talent.
01
Café culture and family fun
As with all evolutionary journeys, Pidcock's passion for all things two-wheeled stems from his mum and dad. Keen cyclists themselves, it's little wonder that young Pidcock was scooting around on two wheels as far back as he can remember.
I think my parents might have even tied my feet to the pedals at one point!
'Scooting' being the operative word here as, perhaps surprisingly, Pidcock wasn’t keen on pedalling. “I think my parents might have even tied my feet to the pedals at one point!” he adds.
Tom's never been afraid to mix it with those much older than himself
© Tom Pidcock
Once he was old enough to rack up a few miles on the open road, he would join the local weekend café rides. Initially, he set out with his mum in the car and they would then ride the final miles to the café to join his dad and the other riders. Eventually, he worked his way up to do the full 80 mile loop, but the coffee, cake and community were always at the heart of the family fun.
“They didn't push me," Pidcock is keen to stress, pointing out that this early, and slightly unorthodox, adoption of clipless pedals and weekend workouts weren't a result of pushy parenting. "They just encouraged me when it was needed; they got the balance right.”
02
Getting noticed
Pidcock remembers racing a lot at the Under-14 level, but not “getting good” until he was in the Under-16 ranks. Until then, it was a case of whipping his mudguards off and using his winter training bike to race cyclocross. However, with some strong results under his belt, he got support from Paul Milnes Cycles, a Yorkshire-based cycle shop in the UK with a strong heritage of supporting talented young racers from the county.
Pidcock was still switching between the disciplines; training largely on the road, racing with increasing prominence in cyclo-cross and always playing on his mountain bike. There were no thoughts of specialising, but Pidcock did, and indeed still does, see himself as a road racer who does cyclocross and mountain biking, rather than a cyclocross rider who dabbles in the other disciplines.
Tom (left) celebrating his first big Junior win
© Tom Pidcock
This perhaps stems from his earliest race and his earliest big success, both of which were on the road. The former was at Castle Combe Race Circuit in the South-West of England where a dropped chain resulted in a bit of stress, while the latter was at the Scarborough National Youth Road Race Series. It was the win there that resulted in the mental switch that saw Pidcock begin to understand his potential.
From here the results and the recognition started rolling in. The major milestones started aged 16, as a first-year Junior. A second place at the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Hoogerheide cemented his status as one-to-watch, while an eighth place at the European Cyclocross Championships was followed up with a fifth at the World Championships later that year.
Tom (left) and brother Joe with cycling legend Sean Kelly
© Tom Pidcock
The following year he would go on to start winning with the kind of style that was impossible to ignore; the first of his World Cup, European and World Championships victories were in the bag.
On the road, Pidcock was also making headlines. Just two months after securing the rainbow stripes in cyclocross, he won the Junior edition of the prestigious Paris-Roubaix.
A multi-talented rider was emerging. Only a very few racers have managed to excel in cyclo-cross, road and mountain bike in their elite careers – renowned racers such as Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Mathieu van der Poel. Could Pidcock back up these stellar Junior years and add his name to this roster?
03
No great rush
Signing a professional contract with cyclocross super-team Telenet-Fidea seemed a solid move. So, naturally when he left the team one year into a two-year contract, some eyebrows were raised. Similarly, riding a largely domestic and criterium-heavy road calendar with Sir Bradley Wiggins's UCI Continental team, Team Wiggins, didn't see Pidcock catapult to instant greatness as some had predicted.
I'm not in the game to be the youngest Tour de France winner. To me, that’s quite irrelevant; it's about what you’ve achieved at the end of your career
Behind the hype, though, he was just going about his business in his typically calm and confident way.
Not many World Tour riders are as adept off-road...
© Tom Pidcock
"After the season with Wiggins, I just went to the dirt jumps and went out with my friends. I put on 8kg! And in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. There was no rush to be a World Tour rider and I'm not in the game to be the youngest Tour de France winner, or the youngest this or that. To me, that's quite irrelevant; it's about what you've achieved at the end of your career."
Pidcock doesn't really feel like his teenage years were full of sacrifice, explaining that “I don’t drink, I don’t like going out and I love riding my bike and then watching TV, playing my Xbox and doing nothing, so it was kinda perfect!” He realises, though, that he actually needed that time early in his Under-23 career to step back from what can be an all-consuming world.
He's competed across a range of cycling disciplines, from track to eMTB
© Tom Pidcock
He adds that he's someone who has developed slowly and it seems that not rushing through his career or pushing too hard during his younger years has paid dividends. As Pidcock gets older, he feels the sacrifices a little more; the time away from home, his family and girlfriend, and the finer margins for success that come as you reach the top of elite sport. But when you see the big picture, it all becomes worth it.
"I've always learnt to win races through other ways, not by being the strongest, because I was always the smallest and least developed. I guess I still am. I'm taking my time to get the full potential out of myself."
04
Taking control (and titles)
It takes a huge amount of confidence to tread your own path at your own pace, but Pidcock has a mature head on those young shoulders and he's making it work.
One of the key figures that has helped Pidcock navigate this route to the top is his coach Kurt Bogaerts, who has followed Pidcock to Ineos Grenadiers after being at Team Wiggins and then with the Brit in his next pro team, Trinity Racing. Alongside the big race results, Pidcock points to the beginning of their working relationship as one of the major milestones on his cycling journey.
Tom is the two-time UK National CX champion
© Kristine Ermansone/Red Bull Content Pool
"That was after the time at Wiggins, when I was a bit relaxed and he got me back into the swing of things. He's not just a coach. He looks at everything I do as an athlete; diet, training, lifestyle, how to deal with a girlfriend and all that."
Going to Belgium over that winter and being with Bogaerts and his partner, sports therapist Xenia van der Muelen, was hugely formative for Pidcock. He learnt quickly how to be a complete athlete, not just how to train hard.
He's won junior and U-23 world championships in four different disciplines
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
With Bogaerts at the helm of a team built around Pidcock, control was in his hands. He could focus on getting everything right and laying strong foundations for his future. By taking control, Pidcock started taking Under-23 and Elite titles as well.
The 2019 and 2020 seasons are a roll call of remarkable results: Under-23 European Cyclocross champion, Under-23 World Cyclocross champion, British Cyclocross champion, Under-23 World Cup winner. On the road, Pidcock became the first-ever British winner of the Under-23 Paris-Roubaix and then went on to claim the Under-23 bronze at the World Championships in his home county of Yorkshire, England. And that was just 2019.
Tom came second in his first elite CX world championship
© Charlie Crowhurst / Red Bull Content Pool
In 2020, he made the step up to the elites in CX, securing silver in his first-ever Cyclocross World Championships, before the global pandemic put a halt to all events. When racing resumed later in 2020, he showed that the lockdown hadn't affected his early-season form, powering his way to overall victory at the Giro Ciclistico d’Italia, the biggest stage race on the Under-23 road calendar, before riding an incredibly strong race at the Elite World Championships, where he was Great Britain's team leader.
From here he turned his hand to mountain biking, where he won back-to-back races at his first-ever Under-23 cross-country World Cups and backed this up the following week with the Under-23 and e-MTB World Championship titles.
05
Reaching the World Tour
In September 2020, it was announced that Pidcock had signed with Ineos Grenadiers, one of the biggest and best-known professional road teams in the world. Ever. Was this a dream come true moment for the 21-year-old lad from Yorkshire?
"Honestly, I don't think there's any other team I would have ridden for," says Pidcock. "I might not have ever said this, but actually I always just thought, ‘of course I will ride for them’.”
Tom (right) will now be competing against the likes of Mark Cavendish
© Tom Pidcock
In the same way that he never quite understood the question, 'what do you want to do when you grow up?', because he was already doing it, riding for Ineos feels like a natural evolution. Special, yes, but not surprising.
So, will this World Tour signing compromise Pidcock’s cyclo-cross and mountain bike racing?
“Not at all! They are fully behind me to help me achieve what I want to.”
Tom will be going toe-to-toe with Wout van Aert both on and offroad
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
This backing has already proved fruitful both on and off-road. A successful debut Classics schedule in 2021 was crowned with his first elite-level road win at De Brabantse Pijl – with Pidcock pipping Wout van Aert to the line in a sprint finish.
Pidcock also finished second at another classic race, the Amstel Gold Race. This also came down to a sprint finish with van Aert. The Belgian was the victor this time, winning the race by just a few millimetres.
06
Immediate XC success with Olympic gold
Pidcock's impressive form in 2021 was carried into his debut at Elite level in the Mercedes-Benz UCI Cross-Country Mountain Bike World Cup. Despite starting on the 11th row in his first race in Albstadt, Germany, and getting a puncture, he managed to finish fifth. Just seven days later he blew the field away at famed Czech venue Nové Město and achieved a dominant victory, becoming Britain's first male winner of a cross-country World Cup race since 1994.
Pidcock races alongside Mathieu Van der Poel in Nové Město
© Bartek Woliński
Pidcock achieved his greatest accomplishment yet a few months later by winning the Olympic gold in cross-country in Tokyo. Starting 29th and several rows back from the race favourites, he worked his way through the field before riding away to secure gold in dominant fashion.
07
The forward trajectory continues
Pidcock's multi-disciplinary duties continued after returning from Japan in 2021. There was his Grand Tour debut at the three-week Vuelta a España and then a well-earned break, before he started his cyclocross season in December. There was new success here, too. He took his first senior World Cup win at the Rucphen round in the Netherlands and then another World Cup win at Hulst. A few weeks later, early in 2022, Pidcock became Elite world champion in Fayetteville, United States.
From there, Pidcock dabbled in more XC racing, winning the first two UCI XCO World Cup events of the 2022 season (in Nové Město and Albstadt), before going back to the road as he targeted a first participation in the cycling's most prestigious race – the Tour de France
08
The Tour and making memories on Alpe d'Huez
At the Tour de France, Pidcock was a key support rider for the general classification ambitions of fellow Brits Geraint Thomas and Adam Yates. A role he did with great service. However, if there was a possibility of a stage win, then team management would give him some flexibility to go for it. And boy did he do so – and on one of the most iconic mountain stages in the Tour de France, the Alpe d'Huez.
On Stage 12 Pidcock left everyone in his wake (including four-time Tour winner Chris Froome) as he flew down mountain roads with some audacious descending and then climbed solo to the top of Alpe d'Huez to take his maiden Tour de France stage victory.
A month later he took that form back into the XC arena, winning the European Championship crown in Munich in August. Everything was on track for a tilt at the XC World Championship title just one week later, but it wasn't to be and he finished fourth.
Gold at the XC Europeans for Pidcock in Munich
© Sebastian Sternemann/Red Bull Content Pool
09
A classic in the bag
A consistent cyclocross season in the winter laid the foundations of yet another big win on the road for Pidcock in 2023 – the Strade Bianche. The Italian one-day race is a modern classic, and Pidcock put in a special performance to take the win. With 50km to go in the race, he went off the front of the peloton in pursuit of the early leaders, eventually passing them and then staving off a chasing pack to cross the finish line alone.
In the summer, Ineos selected Pidcock to ride the Tour de France for a second time. The focus this time for the Brit was to ride for a high position on the general classification. Pidcock would eventually finish 13th.
“Although I came away with nothing from the 2023 Tour de France, I learned some invaluable lessons over the three weeks. Last year’s race had given me the complete wrong idea; I knew it was hard, but I was experiencing it from a completely different perspective – one where I played a supporting role rather than trying to stick with the general classification group.”
10
A mountain biking world champion
A few weeks later, Pidcock made another attempt to go for gold at the 2023 UCI Cross-country Mountain Biking World Championships, which were being held in the Glentress Forest in Scotland. Pidcock rode the Short Track World Championship, where he finished third, claiming a bronze medal, before taking on the Olympic distance (XCO) a few days later.
Starting five rows back at the start, Pidcock made his way to the front group in the race during lap 2. There he sat for a few more laps before unleashing an attack on lap 5 that would see him stretch away from his competitors. He'd ride solo to take the win and had time to enjoy the celebrations in front of a partisan crowd full of British fans.
Pidcock and Nino Schurter battle it out at the front of the race
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
Celebration time
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
Taking in the adulation of the home crowd
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
“It’s been a long week building up to this. In front of the home crowd, it’s pretty special,” Pidcock remarked in an interview following the end of the race.
Tom Pidcock's career is outstanding already, but this is certainly not the end of the path or even the peak of his potential. With the Olympics in Paris fast approaching, Pidcock will have more chances to steal the headlines. World, watch out.
