The great off-season saga, the amicable divorce as it’s understood to be, has reached its end game: Tom Pidcock has departed Ineos Grenadiers, three years before the end of his long contract. The Briton has now signed for ProTeam outfit Q36.5, a step down in division and budget (though they, like Ineos, are bankrolled by an ambitious billionaire), and most notably a road calendar of mostly second-tier races and the odd WorldTour wildcard selection.
It’s a big change for all parties: Ineos, far from their former all-conquering selves, now no longer have a talisman, a leader to take them forward into their rebuilding phase; Q36.5, the team borne out of the ashes of the now-defunct Qhubeka team, have one of cycling’s most recognisable and prodigious talents as they seek to gain a foothold at cycling’s top table; and Pidcock, liberated as he wished, experiencing a sporting midlife crisis at the age of 25, assessing and deliberating over his career trajectory.
From his early teenage years, Pidcock has exhibited his immense and wide-ranging talents. World, European and national age-level cyclocross, mountain biking, time trial, one day and criterium wins seamlessly developed into multiple elite world and Olympic titles on the mud, as well as a Tour de France stage win and a Strade Bianche title. Pursuing a multi-disciplinary career of road, cyclocross and mountain biking was his preference – Pidcock has never made any secret of the fact that mountain biking is his true love – and he was fully supported by Ineos and their bike brand, Pinarello, who both bought into the idea of supporting an athlete capable of winning on a variety of terrain. Marketing-wise, it was a slam dunk. Pidcock’s success could shift road, cyclocross and MTB bikes.
But the Yorkshireman has also been acutely aware that for a rider with his repertoire of talent, there is only one cycling race deemed worthy of converting great champions into legends: the Tour de France. He got a taste of that in 2022, winning on Alpe d’Huez, and allegedly has the power numbers and other performance metrics to suggest that a tilt at the yellow jersey is not out of the question. Yet Pidcock’s last two appearances at the Tour have been characterised by infighting and dissatisfaction; indeed, at the recent Rouleur Live he admitted that “the last two years, to be…