Tom Pidcock was at INEOS Grenadiers and at the end of last season he made the move to Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, two lineups that were on very different sides of the spectrum when it comes to pro racing. However, in the Swiss team the Briton found the perfect environment this year and has thrived, performing all-year long and obtaining a level of confidence he hadn’t had in years.
“I feel very involved in the team in general, not just in the sporting side, but also making decisions and making the team grow,” Pidcock shared with Gazzetta dello Sport. “That really excites me, because then I’m behind every decision, you know? It definitely feels like its partly my project”. Pidcock is a rider that in INEOS already had his separate crew and liked having his own freedom and ambitions within the team, but in a €50 million euro project his own ambitions had to be put aside from time to time. Ultimately he was also punished for a spat with team management, in which no reason was given for his removal from 2024 Il Lombardia.
With Q36.5, he has taken several wins early in the year, battled Tadej Pogacar at Strade Bianche and then went on to race the perfect Vuelta a España where for the first time in his career he had a good result in a three-week race, and immediately with a podium – even though his team had no comparison with UAE and Visma in the Spanish Grand Tour. He ended the season with more quality results, wrapping up a year of complete change, for the best.
Pidcock at the 2025 Vuelta @Sirotti
Not leaving mountain biking
“I think a grand Tour is not the thing I enjoy the most, but for me, it is definitely the biggest challenge in any discipline of cycling,” he says, having already also previously hinted that he will continue chasing results in the discipline. “I definitely want to continue with that challenge. It’s nice to have challenges and to achieve them. It’s the hardest thing to achieve, but after the podium, I believe more and more”.
But despite his success on the road, Pidcock is not going to leave Mountain Biking, in which he is the reigning Olympic Champion on two occasions already. “I get the most enjoyment out of mountain bike, for sure. It’s a nice environment, it’s relaxed – It’s just an enjoyable place to race and perform. I think I naturally have the most talent on the mountain bike, so it’s always easier, isn’t it?’