"He’s world champion, wearing the rainbow jersey and he’s a leadout man basically" - Tom Pidcock empathetic for Mathieu van der Poel's Tour de France frustrations
Cycling
Although the scene of arguably his most famous win, Tom Pidcock's relationship with the Tour de France has become more difficult over the last couple of years. With the Brit set to be absent from the 2025 edition, Pidcock has opened up on his Tour de France difficulties.
"My first year in the Tour was amazing, of course it was my first experience of it. I won a stage, G [Geraint Thomas] was on the podium. It was great," the former INEOS Grenadiers star recalled on stage at Rouleur Live. "And then the last two years, to be honest, I didn’t really enjoy it. It was difficult. I didn’t win a stage, as a team we didn’t have as much success as we used to, so it was difficult and I need to refind that feeling I had in the first year to be honest."
Although success at the Tour de France can define a career, similarly the intense pressures of the event can see confidence shattering disappointments. "I think also the expectations grew in the last two years and yeah I didn’t meet them for a multitude of reasons," Pidcock admits honestly. "And then it’s not really enjoyable. You’re always trying to reason with yourself, I guess."
Although the most watched cycling race on the calendar, the Tour de France is far from the only place to a make a name for yourself as a rider. Pidcock isn't the only superstar to become a little disenchanted with the sport's showpiece event in recent years either, with Alpecin-Deceuninck's Mathieu van der Poel also admitted the French Grand Tour is not a race he particularly loves. As it turns out, this is something Pidcock himself has seen first hand.
"I remember one day riding at the back in the Tour and Van der Poel was just in front. I didn’t speak to him, I didn’t say anything, but I could just see from his body language that he was kind of feeling the same as me, in that ‘this is just boring, this is crap’," Pidcock remembers. "He wasn’t enjoying it, even though you’re in the biggest race in the world and there’s thousands of people cheering."
"It’s a bit of a pressure cooker. Every day, there’s eyes on you, there’s questions and it’s just not going how you want it to. Like, before a race you’re asked how you’re expected to go and you have to give an answer that’s positive. You can’t just go ‘I think it’s going to be crap’ and then when it is crap, you have to then answer the questions of why it’s crap," Pidcock explains. "And for him [Van der Poel], it’s probably even worse than me. He’s world champion, wearing the rainbow jersey and he’s a leadout man basically."
'To be honest, I didn't really enjoy it' - Tom Pidcock on his experience at the Tour de France and pressing pause on Grand Tour ambitions
— Rouleur (@rouleur) February 25, 2025
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I'm sure if those two hate the TdF so intensely, they could return 50% or so of their salaries -- for which the biggest race is responsible. It's questionable whether the profession of "WorldTour cyclist" would even exist without the only race that most people have ever heard of. It's so unfortunate that Pidcock doesn't enjoy being asked questions about his racing, but he could very much do to have a think about where, precisely, his salary and sponsorships originate.
Well that was a pretty good way of putting things :-) Got back his freedom of speech after leaving?
right? i read that and thought, “wow, tommy really kinda nailed it.” then i imagined mathieu reading this, laughing, and thinking “chapeau, tom…” Mathieu is pretty darn outspoken, but i don’t think even he would say ‘Yeah, the Tour de France is a crap race as far as i’m concerned, boring as fůčķ, annoying, and just generally crap.”
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- Whatever happens tomorrow... it'll be a hell of a raceslappers6605-04-2025
- Exactly Tadej, the cancer of modern society. Full of good-for-nothing people who gain visibility and importance on social media mocking, humiliating (and worse things) to earn money. But it's the follower's fault, no followers, no "influencers".
maria2024202405-04-2025 - Great commentCaralladas05-04-2025
- i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)OCexile05-04-2025
- Just like Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Ronde van Vlaanderen was/is NOT on MAX. Get your facts straight.Ben04-04-2025
- You might bounce more for the same power, but not the same speed. Sending 20 kgs over a jump at 20 kph will fly just as far as 10 kgs at the same speed. Again, Galileo demonstrated this.acem8204-04-2025
- So, you're saying that doing a bunch of small hops on a bike is easier if you're heavier? Why do people buy lighter bikes, then? Why do they generally feel better and faster? An appeal to "rhythm" is not helpful either, as the right "rhythm" might be on the lighter or heavier side of things, and as it varies, it's likely a wash either way. Then we are left with the physics truth that it takes less power to lift lighter things than heavier things.acem8204-04-2025
- No, weight doesn't affect the ability to go into the wind at all. It's all CdA vs power at that point. For example, it's "obvious" that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one. But, absent wind resistance, it's not true (Galileo demonstrated this). An appeal to "obviousness" doesn't matter when the physics is clear. And yes, you have to be able to hold everything else constant, or you can't determine anything! So, imagine a 300 watt rider at 80 kgs with a CdA of 2.0, then imagine that same rider at 70 kgs with a CdA of 2.0. (Assume ideal tire pressure for both, same bike.) Which one can ride over a bumpy road fastest? The lighter one, as he doesn't have to lift as much. That's also why when they test bikes on 5 star cobbled sectors, the MTB goes faster than even a cobble-build road bike. Even though rolling resistance is higher on a flat road, and the CdA is junk, it smooths out the cobbles, allowing the person to not lift as much as they otherwise would.acem8204-04-2025
- I disagree. If you have lower weight, you will bounce more at the same speed, meaning that you will spend more time in the air and shorter time on the ground, as a consequence, when you are on the ground you have to produce more force for the same speedvappaxbipmv04-04-2025
- That’s not quite true, even steep climbs and sudden gradient changes can be considered as remaining tangential to the wheel whereas the occasional dip between cobbles a wheel drops into cannot, as such riding over cobbles can become like a permanent surmounting of small obstacles that hit back into your wheel slowing you drastically if you don’t have the right rhythm to “fly” on the mounds, here again the greater the momentum the less these obstacles reduce your speed. But, it is but one factor, you cannot decide on this alone. Like with natural surface ripple formation on desert tracks used by vehicles, there is an optimal speed range to efficiently pass over such surfaces, too fast or slow and your car gets shaken to pieces from the “harmonics” in the vibrations caused. Pretty sure the same applies to riding on cobbles.Mistermaumau04-04-2025