'Waiting for the days that count' - Pidcock anticipates Vuelta fireworks
The British rider sits on the verge of the top 10 overall, with just one more stage until the first rest day.
Before the start of the Vuelta a España, Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) signalled his intent to target the general classification at his second Grand Tour of 2025. In May, the two-time Olympic mountain bike champion finished 16th at the Giro d’Italia, calling it a “reality check” but noting, “It’s the best Grand Tour I’ve ever ridden in terms of how I felt on the last day.”
In a Q36.5 statement before the start of the Vuelta, Pidcock expressed he was “curious to see what I can do in the general classification,” aiming to surpass his previous best Grand Tour result of 13th at the 2023 Tour de France.
After eight stages of the Vuelta, the 26-year-old sits 11th overall, 30 seconds behind de facto leader Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike), and 3:03 behind red jersey wearer Torstein Træen (Bahrain-Victorious).
Supported by Spanish veteran David de la Cruz in the mountains, a three-time 7th-place finisher at the Vuelta, Pidcock seems to be growing in form and confidence, with three top-10 stage results, including leading the GC group home atop the Cerler climb on stage 7.
“The Vuelta’s been quite uneventful,” Pidcock said to reporters before the start of stage 8 on Saturday. “Yesterday was hard, Andorra was hard. It will be interesting to see what happens when we get to a stage where the differences will be made. The GC is still very close, obviously apart from Torstein Træen,” added Pidcock.
“I felt pretty good. I’m maybe waiting for the days when it will actually count,” Pidcock said.
There haven’t been any major differences made yet in the general classification, and there are a number of possible reasons for this, including two that Pidcock suggests.
Pidcock suggests that the climbs haven’t been difficult enough, as well as the fact that the riders are anticipating an even harder second and third week of racing, in an edition of the Vuelta that features no less than 10 summit finishes.
“With these hilltop finishes, and these are hilltop finishes where differences can’t really be made because it’s not really steep enough, especially with the speed we ride up them,” said Pidcock
“People are being smart, and it makes sense. When we get to the stages where the differences will be made, it will be big fireworks, I think,” he added.
Week 2 features three summit finishes, including stage 13’s visit to the mighty L’Angliru climb, which will bare all truths in the battle for red. Stage 11 also suits the skillset of Pidcock with a punchy stage in the Basque city of Bilbao, featuring climbs used in the Grand Départ of the 2024 Tour de France.
Before then, stage 9 could also suit the Brit, with one categorised climb on the menu, a summit finish to Valdezcaray, which Sean Kelly has described in a 2020 interview with Cyclingweekly, who won the stage when the climb debuted in 1988 as a "power man's climb."
