After eight stages of the Vuelta a España, Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) remains well-placed on GC, having confirmed his goal of finishing in the top 10 overall, but thinks that the racing so far has been “uneventful”.
The Brit is biding his time in Spain, having been up to the task of the climbing days so far, and he currently sits 11th with just 30 seconds separating him from GC favourite Jonas Vingegaard (VIsma-Lease a Bike) in second. Torstein Træen (Bahrain-Victorious leads everyone by more than two and a half minutes, but he gained all of his advantage as part of the stage 6 breakaway.
Thursday and Friday of the first week were billed as proper mountain days, but with the break going up the road and winning both, Pidcock could only describe them as “quite uneventful” as he spoke to reporters at the start of stage 8 in Monzón.
“Andorra was hard, but yesterday [on stage 7] the climb was not really hard enough,” he added. “It will be interesting to see what happens when we get to a stage where the differences will be made – the GC is still very, very close, obviously apart from Torstein.
He’s not been too surprised by the cagey GC racing as of yet, with Visma-Lease a Bike on the defence and UAE Emirates-XRG allowing several of João Almeida‘s support squad to go on the attack and win break stages – Jay Vine on stage 6 and Juan Ayuso a day after.
“Well, I think people are racing smart, you know, everybody knows what is to come with the amount of hilltop finishes, and these are hilltop finishes where differences can’t really be made because it’s not really steep enough – especially with the speed we ride up them,” said Pidcock.
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