Tom 'Pidders' Pidcock

[armchairclimber]

He just has a potty mouth. I almost can't remember any interview with him without similar language.

No filter. I like that. I mean, it's pretty much what I was thinking as I watched it (the Pogacar performance).

 

[stonerider]

Tom will always struggle against the best. He doesn't have the power of his similarly aged peers: Tadej, Jonas, and Remco. It's a waste of talent for Ineos to try to turn Pidcock into a 3 week grand tour competitor unless the toppers in the sport are not on the start line. He just doesn't have it. Tadej dropped him yesterday just with seated power...something Tom doesn't have.

He will always be great on the MTB though because of his bike handling skills.

 

[Bolder]

Tom will always struggle against the best. He doesn't have the power of his similarly aged peers: Tadej, Jonas, and Remco. It's a waste of talent for Ineos to try to turn Pidcock into a 3 week grand tour competitor unless the toppers in the sport are not on the start line. He just doesn't have it. Tadej dropped him yesterday just with seated power...something Tom doesn't have.

He will always be great on the MTB though because of his bike handling skills.

Agree on raw power.

But he's done pretty well in big races when those guys and a few others like Mvdp weren't there. And he sort of beat Wout in Amstel. He has a few special skills like descending and the ability to ride for a long time at a strong pace.

All that said, there have been times where he's underperformed, including yesterday and on the Joux Plan Tour stage, that surprised me.

 

[armchairclimber]

He screwed up yesterday, as he admitted. And I think he probably could have been second had he not waited too long. Take Pogacar out and that's a decnt race by everyone else yesterday. The fact of the matter is that peak Pogacar and peak Vingo .... maybe Evenepoel too, would probably have been tood good for many of the sport's top riders of the last 50 years.

That said, I don't think 200 + km races are Pidcock's strength .... but that might come. Like wise gand tours .... but it's hard to see him troubling the big 3 or 4.

 

[Blanco]

Perhaps, but he is still the best of the rest currently,

He wasn't yesterday.
Currently, Wout Van Aert is best of the rest, and I would rate last year's Mads Pedersen, Jasper Philipsen and even Sepp Kuss higher than Pidcock.

 

[Salvarani]

He wasn't yesterday.
Currently, Wout Van Aert is best of the rest, and I would rate last year's Mads Pedersen, Jasper Philipsen and even Sepp Kuss higher than Pidcock.

Blah blah.

He still finished 4th... I think you know what I meant, but want to get all technical. I dont have the time nor the energy for this tedious discussion.

I put Van Aert with the others by the way, not the rest.

Pidcock is more versatile and overall a better rider than all of those. The others just excel and are more specialized, imo.

 

[Extinction]

Doubt it. Doing CX in winter hasn't stopped MvdP at all for example.

Don't think anyone in the world can challenge Pogacar at Strade, I think he's mostly just mad they all got humiliated like that.

It's called bitter admiration. What else could he say as a competitor?

 

[125C]

He screwed up yesterday, as he admitted. And I think he probably could have been second had he not waited too long. Take Pogacar out and that's a decnt race by everyone else yesterday. The fact of the matter is that peak Pogacar and peak Vingo .... maybe Evenepoel too, would probably have been tood good for many of the sport's top riders of the last 50 years.

That said, I don't think 200 + km races are Pidcock's strength .... but that might come. Like wise gand tours .... but it's hard to see him troubling the big 3 or 4.

Despite this narrative, most of Pidcock's best results are in 200KM+ races? Amstel, Liege, Brabantse, WC RR 2021, Strade 2024.

 

[Blanco]

Blah blah.

He still finished 4th... I think you know what I meant, but want to get all technical. I dont have the time nor the energy for this tedious discussion.

I put Van Aert with the others by the way, not the rest.

Pidcock is more versatile and overall a better rider than all of those. The others just excel and are more specialized, imo.

Only more versatile...

 

[armchairclimber]

Despite this narrative, most of Pidcock's best results are in 200KM+ races? Amstel, Liege, Brabantse, WC RR 2021, Strade 2024.

Good point. And actually, thinking about it, last year he did have the power to hold off a chasing pack. But me talking rubbish off the top of my head is something I have excellent form for.

 

[awavey]

It's a shame they have edited that clipdown to remove the swearing. There was definitely some distaste in his tone. He was more or less saying "I don't know what to say about that really". I mean, he's a former winner of the race and multiple world/olympic champion and he's getting left for dead by someone who looks like he's out for a training ride. He must be really looking forward to the TdeF.

curse the youtube monetisation algorithm, which is silly because its literally what we are all thinking, and we're so used to bland pr savvy soundbites, so to hear a blunt northerner say it how it actually is, is way better for the press to cover.

I was surprised it didnt go viral, but I guess most didnt see it, and they edited it out before the memes really got started.

and I dont know if it was distate as such, he was obviously annoyed at himself as much as anything for his own performance, but his comments about Tadej were just him being Northern & direct.

 

[armchairclimber]

curse the youtube monetisation algorithm, which is silly because its literally what we are all thinking, and we're so used to bland pr savvy soundbites, so to hear a blunt northerner say it how it actually is, is way better for the press to cover.

I was surprised it didnt go viral, but I guess most didnt see it, and they edited it out before the memes really got started.

and I dont know if it was distate as such, he was obviously annoyed at himself as much as anything for his own performance, but his comments about Tadej were just him being Northern & direct.

The WTF moment turned up on xitter later. I put it in the Strade Bianchi thread.

 

[AmRacer]

The WTF moment turned up on xitter later. I put it in the Strade Bianchi thread.

And every time he faced MvdP during the past winter.

 

[Stasat]

Normally yes. But my expectations were raised after reading this yesterday:-

Tom Pidcock poised for crunch weekend in Volta ao Algarve

Briton looking for repeat top result in Malhao and improvement on 2023 time trial

www.cyclingnews.com

He can't have been happy with that? To his defence many expected more from riders like Ganna a well as WvA. But Remco was incredible.

11secs off Vingegaard is good going imo. Especially considering Vingegaard will have been training specifically for stage races. About as much as you could expect from a lightweight who is mixing 3 disciplines

 

[Red Rick]

11secs off Vingegaard is good going imo. Especially considering Vingegaard will have been training specifically for stage races. About as much as you could expect from a lightweight who is mixing 3 disciplines

Thats not good thats his beat ITT ever by a gpod margin

 

[Stasat]

Thats not good thats his beat ITT ever by a gpod margin

Definitely. Especially considering the parcours.

 

[JRanton]

Doubt he’ll be lining up for the Ardennes classics after that crash.

 

[stonerider]

He needs to start training on the MTB if he's going to defend his Olympic Gold medal in Paris. He doesn't have a shot at the gold in the road race.

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

back on the bike, so lost a few days and a good training block in the Basque/good gc result. Once again 2021 still the only spring where he didn't have an issue, and it shows in the results.

 

[JRanton]

back on the bike, so lost a few days and a good training block in the Basque/good gc result. Once again 2021 still the only spring where he didn't have an issue, and it shows in the results.

Good to see. Could have been a lot worse.

 

[Peyroteo94]

back on the bike, so lost a few days and a good training block in the Basque/good gc result. Once again 2021 still the only spring where he didn't have an issue, and it shows in the results.

And he should be happy to miss Pais Vasco just by seeing how many crashes we had during 5 stages.

 

[Anderis]

Doubt he’ll be lining up for the Ardennes classics after that crash.

I bet you'll be very surprised about this:

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

I honestly thought it was still April 1.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Pretty funny, he's actually good on flat cobbles too, was really good in the tour stage and 2x winner in juniors, despite being a bit crap on the uphill ones and not being able to gain much traction. Probably just wants to get a race in before Ardennes though so not expecting much.

 

[Stasat]

Interesting. Looks to have grown 20cm, maybe that's why his hip was hurting.