Pidcock eyes Flanders start after opening successes
Strade Bianche ride cements Brit as Classics contender, writes Vern Pitt
British neo-pro Tom Pidcock found himself in exalted company on Saturday afternoon as he entered the final 40km of Strade Bianche. The front group contained the two most recent Tour de France champions, the world champion, two cyclo-cross world champions – arguably the two hottest riders in the world – and Pidcock himself.
“There was a point where we were all just rolling through nicely and I thought this is pretty cool, with a helicopter flying next to us and everything,” Pidcock told Cycling Weekly.
Pidcock went on to finish fifth, unable to match the blistering power of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-fenix) on the race’s final gravel sector. But that cemented the feeling that in just three Classics with
Ineos Grenadiers the Yorkshireman belongs in the kind of company he found himself with on Saturday.
At the opening weekend in Belgium at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad he was with the front group towards the end of the race and at Kuurnebrussels-kuurne the next day he sprinted to third.
All that combined has precipitated something of a reassessment within the British team. “There’s a bit of a discussion between Flanders and the Tour of the Basque Country, which is what I was originally down to do because I did well on the opening weekend. I also think I could handle Flanders better than I originally thought,” he told CW while en route to his training base in Andorra.
Planning for Flanders
Pidcock said the original plan had been to get smaller stage races in the first half of the year but he now feels he could “do a good race” in Flanders and wouldn’t miss out on stage racing experience if he is able to follow the plan of riding the Vuelta a España in late summer.
Pidcock has long been touted as a talent both for Classics and stage races ahead of entering the pro ranks on the road but even so his impressive start to the year has surprised some. Pidcock himself is not among them.
He said: “I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest. I guess now my expectations have been given to me from these first few races.
“I think I’m doing good but some people are amazed and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ve had one podium.’ To me that’s not that amazing. I want more,” he added.
“I think doing cross this season and at every race competing on the [top] level has helped massively coming into this road season. Those are hour-long races and so I thought the distance [of road races] would be a tough thing but actually it’s not really,” he said. That sentiment will face its ultimate test when Pidcock lines up for his next race at Milan-san Remo on 20 March.
Ineos have the confidence in him, Pidcock entered Strade Bianche as one of the protected riders alongside Michał Kwiatkowski and Egan
Bernal – who went on to finish on the podium in third. In the closing kilometres Pidcock was first distanced with Wout van Aert (Jumbovisma) on the dirt climb to Monteaperti with 24km to go. “He was pulling the strongest so I thought I’ll stay on his wheel in case he attacks because if there is an attack it’ll go straight away, so I’m just gonna stay on this wheel. And then [Julian] Alaphilippe kicks off up the hill, and Wout kind of stalls – it caught me by surprise. And by that time the group was already quite far in front and I tried to
jump across but it was too far. I thought, ‘Well, that didn’t go very well.’”
He said he felt good when van der Poel made the first of his decisive accelerations but that whenever he went above 500 watts “it just wasn’t really working”.
The Dutchman, meanwhile, averaged 738 watts over the 60-second effort on the sector (see box). After the race he said: “I hope this is the start of a great spring campaign.”
Pidcock wasn’t the only Brit to impress on Saturday. Ef-nippo neo-pro Simon Carr also gave a strong account of himself, coming in 11th. He said: “I’m satisfied with that because I got everything out. It’s a good place to build from going into the next one.”