The great off-season saga, the amicable divorce as it’s understood to be, has reached its end game: Tom Pidcock has departed Ineos Grenadiers, three years before the end of his long contract. The Briton has now signed for ProTeam outfit Q36.5, a step down in division and budget (though they, like Ineos, are bankrolled by an ambitious billionaire), and most notably a road calendar of mostly second-tier races and the odd WorldTour wildcard selection.
It’s a big change for all parties: Ineos, far from their former all-conquering selves, now no longer have a talisman, a leader to take them forward into their rebuilding phase; Q36.5, the team borne out of the ashes of the now-defunct Qhubeka team, have one of cycling’s most recognisable and prodigious talents as they seek to gain a foothold at cycling’s top table; and Pidcock, liberated as he wished, experiencing a sporting midlife crisis at the age of 25, assessing and deliberating over his career trajectory.
From his early teenage years, Pidcock has exhibited his immense and wide-ranging talents. World, European and national age-level cyclocross, mountain biking, time trial, one day and criterium wins seamlessly developed into multiple elite world and Olympic titles on the mud, as well as a Tour de France stage win and a Strade Bianche title. Pursuing a multi-disciplinary career of road, cyclocross and mountain biking was his preference – Pidcock has never made any secret of the fact that mountain biking is his true love – and he was fully supported by Ineos and their bike brand, Pinarello, who both bought into the idea of supporting an athlete capable of winning on a variety of terrain. Marketing-wise, it was a slam dunk. Pidcock’s success could shift road, cyclocross and MTB bikes.
But the Yorkshireman has also been acutely aware that for a rider with his repertoire of talent, there is only one cycling race deemed worthy of converting great champions into legends: the Tour de France. He got a taste of that in 2022, winning on Alpe d’Huez, and allegedly has the power numbers and other performance metrics to suggest that a tilt at the yellow jersey is not out of the question. Yet Pidcock’s last two appearances at the Tour have been characterised by infighting and dissatisfaction; indeed, at the recent Rouleur Live he admitted that “the last two years, to be honest I didn’t really enjoy it.”
Which brings him to the crossroads he finds himself at right now: he has engineered a move away from Ineos to seek what exactly? In joining Q36.5, he is volunteering his absence from the three Grand Tours; since their formation in 2023, the Swiss team haven’t raced either the Tour, Giro d’Italia or Vuelta a España, and they are also a long way off from securing WorldTour promotion or automatic Grand Tour wildcards for the 2026-2028 cycle.
The team of Doug Ryder have ridden most of the so-called big-seven one-week stage races, such as the Critérium du Dauphiné, but Pidcock’s step down to Q36.5 indicates a shift in goals, away from targeting the general classification and towards one-day races (Q36.5 are invited to most of the spring Classics, including Strade Bianche, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix) and other disciplines. Indeed, in Ineos’s statement announcing his departure, they noted that “Tom has some big multi-disciplinary goals and we believe this decision enables both of us to pursue our future ambitions with clarity, purpose and determination”. There was no mention of his ambitions away from the road in Q36.5's announcement of his signing, however, with the team simply saying they wanted Pidock's help to perform “consistently at the highest level and make its mark on the world of cycling”.
Given the Tadej Pogačar-sized obstacle in his and everyone else’s way at the Tour de France, is it such a bad thing the 25-year-old may not be there? Pidcock, entering the supposed prime years of his career, can create a distinctive dynasty to rival that of his former off-road teammate at Ineos, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. It’s surely better to win one-day races, triumph in mountain biking, cyclocross and maybe even gravel, than live like a monk only to finish sixth at the Vuelta a España, a result that no one except the most ardent of fans would ever recall. Pidcock’s legacy can be unique, richer, and more fulfilling by pursuing a broader range of success away from the spotlight of the Tour de France.
In the process of doing so, he will also elevate Q36.5’s profile and accelerate their ascent towards the WorldTour, meaning that by the time Pidcock is 29, they could be one of the 18 WorldTour teams, with automatic selection to the Giro, Tour and Vuelta guaranteed. Perhaps then, with Pidcock’s palmarès stacked full of an array of varied victories, will he feel ready to embark on a Grand Tour GC hunt.
Pidcock is ambitious, cheeky, and endearing, and though the likes of Geraint Thomas have publicly expressed concerns about his entourage, there is no denying that he is his own man with his own ideas. He knows what he wants, and what he doesn’t want. In leaving Ineos, Britain’s only WorldTour team, to join not even the best-ranked Swiss second-tier team, the two-time Olympic champion is choosing happiness and personal fulfilment over pursuing the wishes, demands and expectations of others. He’s not trying to be the heir to Tadej Pogačar or the next Peter Sagan – as he was dubbed as a teenager – but simply Tom Pidcock: serial road, mountain bike and cyclocross winner. And that has to be admired.
