"The thing I can improve the most in" - Tom Pidcock pleased with his progress at Vuelta

Against more experienced GC riders and even former Grand Tour champions, Tom Pidcock continues to put in valiant efforts to defend his podium spot at the 2025 Vuelta a Espana as the second week of the race is coming to a wrap. Little by little, Jai Hindley is approaching the 26-year-old Brit, but for the time being there are still 42 seconds between the two men. On La Farrapona, Pidcock crossed the line in 8th place, 10 seconds behind Hindley and 14 seconds behind race leaders Jonas Vingegaard and Joao Almeida.

"Yeah, I lost a bit more time, but I think I'm getting better and better with these longer efforts," Pidcock told reporters after the stage. "This is definitely the thing I struggle with the most, well not struggle with the most, everyone struggles because it's hard, but the thing I can improve the most in and this year I have improved massively but obviously there's still a lot more."

Despite gradients encouraging to attack, the Farrapona ascent was rather calm within the group of favourites, partly due to a headwind. UAE Team Emirates - XRG were seemingly content to have Marc Soler win the stage up ahead from the breakaway and thus they set only a moderate pace that didn't really cause any serious damage in the group. It was only when Giulio Pellizzari with Hindley in his wheel arrived to the front that the best climbers in the race had to dip into red numbers.

"It was still pretty hard though, yeah obviously UAE and Bora wanted it to be a hard day, and make it a long effort in this final climb, which it kind of was," Pidcock explained.

Last 24 kilometers of the stage were almost exclusively uphill, but only the final 7 kilometers were truly threatening to whittle down the group with Pidcock. That is to say, the numbers 8 and 11 in GC, Giulio Ciccone and Egan Bernal have already lost touch with the main group on previous climb.

"Luckily, it was up and down at the start, so not too bad, but the wind kind of made it hard, in the fact that you had to fight as close as you could to the edge, also that meant that it was only the final km that made the difference."

After two hard mountain day, the Sunday's stage from A Veiga to Monforte de Lemos looks to be most likely an off-day for the GC riders as most of the day's climbing (stage offers 3.000 altimeters) will be accumulated in the first half of the stage. "We'll see about that. I don't know, maybe a day off for us [GC riders], but it's not going to be easy," Pidcock concluded.