Pidcock remains on Pinarello for off-road season
Tom Pidcock’s off-season move has been big news – but everyone has wondered which bikes he’ll be on for his new team?
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The brilliant Yorkshire rider has exited his INEOS Grenadiers contract before the end of its term and moved to the Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team.
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As a generational rider, Pidcock’s bike handling skills on road, gravel, and technical XCO
mountain bike circuits have been astonishing. He has won two mountain biking Olympic gold medals, at a remarkably young age.
One of the very few pro riders who is a true road, cyclocross, and mountain bike specialist, Pidcock’s depth of skills and broad appetite for competition have created challenges for the teams who employ him.
2023 uci world champ xco pidcock 2.jpg, by Liam Mercer
At INEOS Grenadiers, there was a frame brand conflict when Pidcock joined in 2021. The
team’s road peloton was on Pinarello, and the storied Italian brand didn’t have a mountain
bike. This required Pidcock to ride to a BMC to his Tokyo Olympic gold medal.
From 2021 to 2023, Pidcock continued to win UCI World Cup races on a blacked-out BMC frame, creating a bizarre scenario where one of the world’s best UCI World Cup pros
effectively rode a phantom bike. Pinarello eventually established an R&D department to develop a new dedicated XCO and XCM mountain bike, with Pidcock steering the effort. The result was the 2023 model year Dogma XC, which Pidcock rode to Olympic gold in Paris.
Despite Pidcock’s new team, Q36.5, being on Scott, a concession has been made as part of Pidcock’s three-year contract. He’ll be allowed to continue racing Pinarello mountain bikes, which is quite a concession, considering Scott’s enormous range of mountain bikes, which dwarfs that of Pinarello. Pidcock will still be on Pinarello for cyclocross racing.
The African connection
There’s a lot of influence and financial resources involved with Pinarello, and an interesting South African connection between Pidcock’s new team and his off-road frame sponsorship. It helps to explain why Pidcock’s needs for separate road and off-road frame needs are being accommodated.
The man who made an African Tour de France team happen with Qhubeka, former South
African road pro Doug Ryder is the general manager at Q36.5. Ryder is an experienced
team manager and knows the value of having a rider with Pidcock’s immense following.
What could have made the Scott-Pinarello deal work for Ryder’s Q36.5 and Pidcock is
Pinarello’s change of ownership in 2023, which is the other African connection.
Tom Pidcock performs at UCI XCO Tom Pidcock World Cup in Nove Mesto na Morave, Czech Republic on May 14, 2023, by Suvi Loponen
Former South African mining executive and long-time Swiss resident, Ivan Glasenberg, is
two years into his ownership of the Italian high-performance brand and was never going to let his mountain bike and gravel halo rider go. Glasenberg is a committed rider and clearly understands the value of Pidcock for his brand, more so than most other billionaire investors would.
Pinarello has invested too much in creating a cyclocross bike and two mountain bike frames with Pidcock, and the company wants to continue leveraging his signature UCI World Cup appeal.
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1 comments
Um... article kinda misses the main point in the last paragraph where Ivan Glasenberg as well as being a major shareholder of Pinarello, is also a major funder of Q36.5....