And your point is?
Tom Pidcock took part in the Alula Tour last week and won two stages. Previous to that, he had only ever won two stages of stage races in his entire career. He rode 146 stages for Team Ineos and won two of them. He had already equalled this tally for his new team Q36.5 having only ridden four stages. I posted exactly this on social media last week.
There was a mixture of reactions underneath but the one that most caught my attention was this…
I emphatically believe Michael is wrong about this.
I believe the crux of his simple argument was that two stages of a 2.1 ranked stage race in Saudi Arabia simply does not compare to the two stages Pidcock had previously won for Team Ineos - a stage of the 2.Pro Volta ao Algarve and of course, the Alpe d’Huez stage of the 2022 Tour de France. There were plenty of other replies along these same lines , a general poo-pooing of the quality of race and quality of opposition. I agree with this sentiment, to win the Alpe d’Huez stage of the Tour de France would trump 100 stage wins of the AlUla Tour, you cannot compare, there is no comparison.
But it is meaningful.
This is a classic example of why I love a cycling stat and why I love viewing the sport through the prism of a good piece of trivia. Let’s peer into the prism. Let’s peel the onion.
Yes, the AlUla Tour is shite compared to the Tour de France. But this, just this, in and of itself is interesting. Pidcock has chosen to leave a top tier team for a team that is not top tier. Riding a 2.1 (third tier) stage race is something Pidcock had only done once before. It was in Feburary 2021 at the Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var, his first ever race for Team Ineos and his first ever road race as a professional cyclist. Pidcock had gotten used to riding the very best WorldTour stage races. Seeing him in Saudi Arabia in January us a very real and very immediate example of the new career path that Pidcock has signed up for. He won’t be winning any mountain stages of the Tour de France this year, that is for sure, because his new team won’t be there. They might be at the Giro, we’re due to find that out quite soon. In the meantime, riding third tier stage races is Pidcock’s level now.
Not just riding them though - now he is expected to win them. At Team Ineos he was a big fish of course, but he was in a big pond. There were plenty of other big names on his team (under-perfoming big names perhaps but that’s another story), big names who were also expected to shoulder the burden of bringing success to the team - Egan Bernal, Michal Kwiatkowski, Filippo Ganna, Geraint Thomas, Dylan van Baarle, Adam Yates, Rohan Dennis, Tao Geoghegan Hart, Richard Carapaz - all former teammates of Pidcock and all Grand Tour winners, Grand Tour stage winners, monument winners or world champions.
Now his most decorated teammates are Giacomo Nizzolo, David De La Cruz and Gianluca Brambilla. In other words, Pidcock has to win for this team now. There aren’t any other riders who are going to take the gloss of his lack of wins. Pidcock had won five races before this year. If the reports about his Ineos contract are to be believed, I think there is a case to be made that his pay to road race wins ratio had the biggest disparity of any professional cyclist ever. So showing up at the AlUla Tour and winning two stages wasn’t insignificant. It showed to me that Pidcock is taking his new responsibility seriously. It’s the first time he has not ridden CX over the winter, the first time he has focused his winter training on the coming road season. He’s showing to his new team that even though he’s still only 25, he’s ready to lead.
He also won the race overall which is highly significant. He has said he wants to win the Tour de France one day, but until last week he had never won a stage race before. There are some peculiarities in this field, most notably Carlos Sastre and Andy Schleck each only ever won one stage race in their careers - the Tour de France. The general case though is that riders need to practice winning stage races. The team need to practice. To know what it’s like to have and defend a leader’s jersey, yes, even if it’s only the AlUla Tour. Pidcock had only even been on the podium of a stage race once before, that was a second place at the 2022 Tour of Britain.
Pidcock had won five races in four years at Team Ineos - they were good ones, including Strade Bianche and Amstel Gold and as we’ve all agreed, comparing these to the AlUla Tour is nonsense. But winning is a habit. It comes with practice. Pidcock has shown, finally, he’s up for the challenge. He hasn’t just shown us though, more importantly he’s shown his team.
Five races in four years… and now he’s won three in a week. It’s not meaningless. It’s very very meaningful in the career of Tom Pidcock.
This, exactly this, taking a seemingly meaningless fact and picking it apart is exactly the type of thing we do each week on a new podcast called Did Not Finish. In Episode 1 we discussed why rainbow jersey wearers don’t win more often at the Tour Down Under. In Episode 2, which was released just yesterday, we discuss the 1,502 hours of live cycling which will now cost us £370 a year to watch. And next week… well, I’m working on that now.
Please have a listen, it’s available in all of the usual podcasty places.
