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Tom Pidcock seems relieved to sit down when I finally get him one-on-one for an interview at Rouleur Live 2022. He plonks himself down on the sofa, rubs his eyes and takes a deep breath, readying himself for more questions. The 23-year-old arrived in London on the Eurostar from Brussels just a few hours earlier, and he explains his morning has been “non-stop”, filled with media requests, photoshoots and his appearance on stage in Truman Brewery. It’s not just today, either. For Tom Pidcock, life is pretty non-stop.
He won the World Cyclo-Cross Championships at the end of January this year, and not long after went full gas into a Classics campaign with the Ineos Grenadiers. It was then stage racing season, and Pidcock took aim at the Tour de Suisse, then the Tour de France, where, of course, he took that famous stage win on Alpe d’Huez. Back to knobbly tyres, Pidcock won the European Mountain Bike Championships, and a week later attempted to do the double and win rainbows at the Worlds. He failed, finishing in fourth place when he firmly believed he could have won. This is something that he brings up with a sort of eagerness to set the record straight.
“The biggest thing in my head [for next season] is the mountain bike Worlds. I want to go prove what I can do. No one knows I was ill this year and people think that I just lost the race which irritates me a little bit,” Pidcock says. “I prepared so well but then I was sick and then I had a puncture and then also the gridding didn’t help, it just wasn’t going to happen.”
Tom Pidcock after finishing fourth at the UCI MTB World Championships 2022 (Image: Alex Broadway/SWpix)
Pidcock isn’t really used to failing when he puts his mind to something. He wanted to win a stage of the 2022 Tour de France, so he did it, and he did it on Alpe d’Huez, one of the most iconic climbs in the race’s history. For most riders, this would be a career-defining moment, a result that could secure contract renewals for the next few years, the sort of victory that confirms you’ve really made it in professional cycling. Pidcock isn’t really like most riders, though.
I ask him if he’s happy with his season. “Of course there was some success,” he replies. “But at the same time, there was a lot of misfortune with illness and things like that. I feel like there was much more in it, potentially.”
“Winning at the Tour, it was a massive result. But the next day there is another stage….
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