Tom Pidcock is returning to the world of mountain bike and, before racing even starts, getting everyone riled up with his usual blunt interview style.
“I never ride my mountain bike much before I race because I don’t feel I need to,” the Q36.5 Pinarello rider told cameras on Friday.
And, well, he has a point. He’s rolled in cold to win World Cups, world championships and has a couple Olympic gold medals to his name. He probably trained a bit more for those.
To be fair, Pidcock did continue that thought, saying, “This time I don’t think I’ve done it enough. Every year we only do a few mountain bike races and every time we have to figure it all out again. There was a bit of that this morning.”
If you’re going to jump back into the deep end with perhaps not quite enough preparation, might as well do it at a familiar venue.
“I love this place, especially when the sun’s shining like this,” Pidcock says of Nove Mesto. “The tracks always great and I have” Pidcock added after a pause, “Good memories here.”
That would be the four elite XCO World Cup wins. And the XCC wins. The Czech venue isn’t just familiar, it’s been quite friendly to Pidcock in the past. If he can land another XCO win this weekend, he’ll match Nino Schurter’s venue record of five elite World Cup wins.
Schurter, now in some form of retirement, will be racing at BC Bike Race on Vancouver Island when the start gun goes off in Nove Mesto.
If Pidcock can win, it will also help turn around a roller coaster of a spring for the British rider. Referencing his mixed fortunes on pavement, going tire-t0-tire with Tadej Pogacar one weekend and crashing off the side of a road at 80 km/h not long after that, Pidcock says he’s hoping the “change of scenery” and, just maybe, a good result will be the morale boost he needs going into altitude training before the Tour de France.