Tom Pidcock has had many special days on the bike. The Olympic gold medal in Tokyo and the solo victory at Alpe d’Huez in the 2022 Tour de France were two of the finest and they spoke of star quality. This is Pidcock’s third Tour de France and, let us say, his relationship with the race is a work in progress. Last year, when he didn’t win a stage, he described the experience as “a waste of two weeks”.
It’s not difficult to understand what makes Pidcock happy. Winning. The feeling he had at the summit of Alpe d’Huez is his drug of choice and a week into this Tour he needed another hit. Why else would he come to the Tour? Months ago he decided there was one stage he could win. With its 14 gravel sections, the ninth stage — a 199km loop through France’s Champagne region — was made for the Yorkshire rider.
They left Troyes in the early afternoon, returned in the early evening. It was the best four hours and 20 minutes of racing we’ve seen at this Tour. They rode as if there was no tomorrow, which for them is what the first rest day amounts to. Eight breakaway riders fought for the victory, Pidcock was one of that group and if you’d seen him sitting on a kerb near the finish minutes after the end of the stage, you would have known the story.
Pidcock is a little like Oliver Goldsmith’s village schoolmaster for he too carries the day’s disaster in his evening face. Of course it wasn’t a disaster, or at least it was only so in Pidcock’s head. In the high-speed sprint to the line, Pidcock finished a close second to the French rider Anthony Turgis. For a minute or so he sat on the kerb, unable to speak. Second best in a race with 172 of the world’s best bike riders can hardly be considered failure. To Pidcock, second tastes like vinegar.
He didn’t do much wrong. Jasper Stuyven, the Belgian who rides for Lidl-Trek, had bolted clear of the other seven 11km from the finish. Stuyven is good — the others were worried. So they rode hard to catch him and did so with 800m left. Pidcock decided that Turgis was the rider to beat and rode in the French rider’s slipstream.
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That was smart but when Turgis went, Pidcock just didn’t have the same explosive acceleration. It was close in the end, half a bike length, no more, but it didn’t feel close. Turgis was stronger. Pidcock needed time before collecting himself. “It was full gas all day. It’s crazy how high the level is with everyone in the Tour,” he said. “It [the sprint] was difficult with the two Movistar guys, [Alex] Aranburu sat on, and it was always going to be a tricky little sprint. After a day like that, when you’ve been riding so hard, I was slightly too late to kick.”
Little things make a difference. Pidcock missed the original break and had a tough chase with the EF Education First-Easy Post rider Ben Healy before catching the leaders. That 20-minute pursuit took from Pidcock a little of what he needed at the end. Still, it was a hell of an effort and after a few doleful reflections, he did say he was proud of his performance.
If Pidcock and his fellow escapees offered us one compelling narrative, the general classification riders delivered an equally compelling story. This wasn’t surprising because Tadej Pogacar, the magisterial race leader, had been growing tired of what he saw as the tedium of stressful days trying to stay upright riding in a closely packed peloton.
After Friday’s time-trial he summarised the first week: “I must say that this year’s Tour de France is a bit strange. We had a fun first four days, but now this week is a little bit like there’s nothing to look forward to. If there wasn’t a time-trial today, then it would be a really boring, strange Tour with flat stages where nobody wants to go in the breakaway.
“Tomorrow is another stressful day, then another stressful day, then it’s a rest day. Then it’s another stressful day, another stressful day. And then we slowly enter the mountains. Right now, I’m feeling great, and I cannot wait to finally hit the proper mountains.”
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Pogacar set about reducing the level of stress by attacking constantly through the second half of the race to Troyes. Every surge increased the stress levels of his principal rivals; Remco Evenepoel, Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic. Each gravel section tempted him and if there’s one thing Pogacar can’t resist, it is the temptation to attack. It is why he is so loved.
Working out what Pogacar gained from an afternoon on the attack is straightforward. Nothing at all. He, Evenepoel, Vingegaard and Roglic all finished on the same time. But the more interesting question is: what did he learn about his rivals? Primarily, he discovered that Vingegaard is one tough cookie and is likely to be challenging him all the way to the finish in Nice. The Danish rider punctured at a critical moment on this stage and needed to take his team-mate Jan Tratnik’s bike.
He rode Tratnik’s bike for the second half of the race and used it to chase down Pogacar maybe five or six times. Once, Pogacar got a dangerous gap but Vingegaard’s team-mates Matteo Jorgenson and Christophe Laporte rode powerfully to neutralise that attack. Who knows for sure how Vingegaard will be over the next two weeks but this performance will have given him confidence.
“I think we did super well,” he said, “and I’m super happy that I came safely through today. The team rode really well. Jan gave me the bike and the rest of the guys, they kept me in the front the whole time. I entered every sector in first position. And they even closed the gap for me one time when I couldn’t follow. So yeah, I think that I owe them big time after today.”
Evenepoel was also strong and initiated one of best attacks, forcing Pogacar to counter and if the man in the Yellow Jersey went, Vingegaard wasn’t going to be far behind. The first three on general classification got clear and quickly closed the gap to the breakaways. Evenepoel and Pogacar would like to have continued the effort but Vingegaard wasn’t interested. Not his terrain de predilection.
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“It favours Tadej, more than it favours me, especially where it [the gravel] was looser, then the guy with my weight is not really favoured. That’s also when he got a small gap on me. It was probably the worst sector, I was just sliding around, to be honest, and it was really hard for me to control the bike.”
If the Tour never again goes down a gravel road, Vingegaard will be happy. He will be lucky to get his wish. Such was the cut-and-thrust of the stage, gravel will reappear on the Tour route. Afterwards, Pogacar was asked how he felt at the end of the first week. “This first week was much easier than previous years,” he said. Some of his rivals may demur.
