At least from the outside, Tom Pidcock appears to have it pretty good. He won a Spring Classic, just successfully defended his gold medal in the mountain bike event at the Paris Olympics, had good form ahead of a World Road Championships course that suited his abilities, and has a contract with Ineos Grenadiers through the 2027 season.
But that all came tumbling down Sunday on the last stage of the Tour of Britain when a hard crash knocked him out of the race with a concussion (Soudal-Quick Step’s Paul Magnier also suffered a head injury in the same crash). That rules out the Canadian Grands Prix this weekend and possibly those World Championships at the end of the month. Even his long-term deal with Ineos may be as much a source of trouble as a salve for it.
That’s not speculation; that’s from the man himself. Just after the men’s road race in Paris, he told The Independent he was “mentally a bit frazzled” from the pressure of the Games and speculation over his future with Ineos (which continues despite extending his long-term deal last December). His agent, Andrew McQuaid, fueled that by saying that “the problem with long-term contracts is that things can change over time.”
Pidcock didn’t directly address the team question to The Independent, but he got closer last week. Before his crash, Pidcock, who rarely shies from speaking his mind, candidly told Het Laatste Nieuws that he didn’t feel the team was doing what was necessary to help him reach his objectives.
“It’s just so damn difficult to win,” Pidcock said. “There are only a small number of riders who win the majority of races and I want to be one of them. That is not the case now and that has to change.
“There are a number of things within the team that I have to deal with at the moment. And to be honest, they do not help me to perform optimally.”
Pidcock is right, of course that only a small number of riders win most races. And a fair bit of that seems to come down to which team a rider is on. The current men’s WorldTour winners list looks suitably broad, but 22 of the 31 events run so far have been won by riders on UAE Team Emirates, Visma-Lease a Bike, and Alpecin-Deceuninck. Ineos has two, including Pidcock’s Amstel Gold Race victory.
Ineos has struggled with turnover in key staff in particular; the latest departure, Dan Bigham, was equally candid in saying he left the team in large part due to frustrations with the team’s approach to performance. “I feel that a lot of performance we’re leaving on the table and that frustrates me because it’s clear as day that we should be doing things a lot better,” Bigham told The Telegraph. “Let’s be honest, Ineos are not where they want to be, not where they need to be, and the gap is not small.”
Pidcock seems to feel the same way. Thus the rumors of his possible departure, well before his contract is up. “I have to think about much more than just performance-related matters at the moment,” he told HLN. “And that means that the focus on the things that are really important, namely racing, is not ideal. I have a contract until the end of 2027. I can’t say more.”
Pidcock is not the only high-profile rider persistently rumored to be leaving prematurely for another team. Remco Evenepoel was – again – the subject of speculation last week linking him to a possible deal with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, despite having a contract with Soudal through 2026. Evenepoel said he didn’t know anything about it and planned to ride for Soudal in 2025, and Red Bull manager Ralph Denk refused to comment on what he referred to as “gossip.”
But with Ineos in such clear turmoil and Pidcock obviously, vocally upset about it, it’s also not clear what the team will – or can – do immediately to satisfy or solve his concerns. Ineos isn’t the only side that faces some choices. As Pidcock said, he wants to be in that top tier of road racers, and his own results, which include some erratic performances in stage races, suggest that he may have to decide what kind of races he most wants to target.
In a season where he took two of his biggest wins ever and came close to another Tour stage victory, Pidcock should be in a good place: stable, content, and planning for the future. That he’s not is – more than the rumors of a switch – evidence that something has to change for him and Ineos, and soon.
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