While success in modern pro cycling requires an immense amount of work and planning, acting on the spur of the moment goes a long way too.
Powered by such spontaneity, Tom Pidcock stunned himself last Sunday.
After winning the MTB XCO World Championships in come-from-behind fashion at Val di Sole, the GP Industria & Artigianato one-day road race was hastily added to his schedule impromptu while he was barely off his flat-bar steed.
He went there to find his road legs, two months after his last hit-out on the tarmac, and left with another trophy in his carry-on luggage.
“That was kind of a surprise win. The momentum is nice, but I’ll take what comes. I’m just relaxed,” he told Cycling Weekly and other media in Québec on Wednesday night.
His back-to-back successes came despite a “hard road” from the Tour de France to his latest rainbow jersey.
“After the Tour, it was a bit weird feelings in general. I didn’t rush, I didn’t push myself, I trained hard the last few weeks before the MTB Worlds,” the Pinarello-Q36.5 rider said. “It took me a long time to feel good again. Longer than any other grand tour [has before]. It was three weeks really, we were just trying to build up some hours at a lower intensity.”
Making his debut in the brace of Canadian WorldTour events, Friday’s GP de Québec on Friday and GP de Montréal on Sunday provide opportunities to “carry on the momentum”. They are a puncheur’s paradise, defined by steep climbs that do not exceed two kilometres.
Pidcock will also have a valuable chance to race the lap on which the World Championships road race (27 September) will be decided by 12 circuits over Mont Royal, 1.6 kilometres at 7.7% gradient.
“It’s more of a goal,” Pidcock said of the World Championships. “Last year’s course didn’t suit me that well, this one suits me quite well. The Worlds is always going to be about [who has] the legs.”
The eight-strong Great Britain elite men’s line-up is yet to be announced, but Pidcock offered a sneak peek of the leading compatriots alongside him.
“We’ve been hit quite hard with people getting injured so I don’t know what the final team will be,” Pidcock said. “But I think we’ll have me, Adam [Yates] and Oscar [Onley], we have some pretty nice depth there, people who can play offensive roles.”
Relaxed and riding a wave of confidence; spearheading a strong team on a course that plays to his strengths; racing in a Tadej Pogačar-free peloton – this might just be Pidcock’s best chance of winning an elite road rainbow jersey.
“It opens the race up a lot,” he said of Pogačar’s absence. “I think everyone knows when Tadej is here, he and his team will dictate the race. Now I think it will be more, dare I say it, interesting, exciting.”
Although Pidcock has won five races on the road in 2026, despite missing several weeks of competition after a crash into a ravine at the Volta a Catalunya, he is not satisfied with his season.
“It would be nice to win a WorldTour race,” he said. “This season started well, then it was a bit crap in the middle. The Tour was good considering everything, but still I didn’t do that much. I want to try to finish the year off [well].”
Racing on the front foot in France at times, Pidcock came close to a stage win at the sport’s most prestigious race, his chances dented on stage nine by mechanical problems, and finished ninth overall.
His attacking, opportunistic nature can seem at odds with a GC contender’s need to weigh efforts carefully and race conservatively over three weeks. Grand tours do not strike as his most natural domain.
“It’s not the thing I enjoy the most, but it’s something I accept I need to do and try and do my best in,” Pidcock said. “I really enjoyed the Vuelta last year [where he finished third], that was good fun. The Tour was obviously a different beast, but this year was better, more enjoyable.”
The Briton’s road programme goes full bore to the end of the year, with the Giro dell’Emilia, Tre Valli Varesine and Il Lombardia before a planned Tour of Guangxi debut.
“We have team camp the week after Il Lombardia, so otherwise I’m going to have a week that I can’t do anything so might as well race that week!”
Whatever happens in Canada, another world title seems certain for a British champion who gives himself options because of his aplomb in road, MTB, gravel and cyclo-cross.
While there will be no trip to Australia next month for the Gravel World Championships, Pidcock mentioned wanting to go for that race when it suits him better.
Although he does not think he’ll compete in cyclo-cross this winter, Pidcock added he “thinks he would” come back to the discipline if it got a place in the Winter Olympics.
Given the IOC’s May announcement that it will not be in the 2030 Games, he and CX fans will likely be in for a minimum eight-year wait.