Tom Pidcock has expanded on his split with Ineos Grenadiers after four years at the British team, saying that "it was time to change" while admitting that he was "struggling" to answer queries on why things ended as they did with the team.
The 25-year-old, who is set to make his season debut at the AlUla Tour in two weeks, has made the switch from the WorldTour to ProTeam Q36.5 for the 2025 season. He signed a three-year deal with the Swiss squad, ending the most high-profile transfer saga of 2024.
During his time at Ineos, Pidcock has grown into one of cycling's multi-disciplinarian stars, winning two Olympic mountain bike medals, world titles in cyclocross and MTB, and winning Strade Bianche, Amstel Gold Race, and the Alpe d'Huez stage at the 2022 Tour de France.
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His signing represents a major coup for Q36.5, the seventh-highest-ranked ProTeam of the past season. The team will likely get the pick of WorldTour races next season with Pidcock now aboard, even if he isn't planning to race the Tour de France.
But even with his fresh start looming, questions still remain over his Ineos divorce. Pidcock said that he's already moved on from his old team.
"Why did it end the way it did? To be perfectly honest, I'm struggling to give an answer to that question because I've actually moved on," Pidcock told Cycling Weekly at Q36.5's media day at the weekend.
"That team was my second family. I have great memories there, but it was time to change, and I accepted that a long time ago. That's not a scripted answer – I'm just very good at putting things behind me and moving on."
Pidcock did, however, concede that life at Ineos was "just not going how it was originally envisioned", saying that a "mutual solution" to move on was the best for both parties.
He had turned pro with the British team at the start of the 2021 road season after stepping up from Trinity Racing, a year later signing a five-year deal to take him through the end of the 2027 season. In moving to Q36.5, he has moved on three years early.
"There wasn't a specific moment, it was gradual," he said of the deterioration of the situation at the team. "It was going on for a while and it was no secret that last year was difficult for me, and also for Ineos I guess.
"Ineos is a fantastic team, they have their own motivations and their goals and how they want to achieve things. At the end of the day, what happened with me was business – it was nothing personal.
"I signed my contract with different people who run the team now and that did create some difficulties, from what I imagined it was going to be like to what happened. But they still gave me every support."
He'll be the main man at Q36.5, among a 25-man squad which employs solid but not star riders including Giacomo Nizzolo, David de la Cruz, Damien Howson, Harm Vanhoucke, and Gianluca Brambilla.
Pidcock said he feels the move is "100% the right decision" for him, insisting that the team isn't "sub-par" despite its lower ranking, and stating that the people working at Q36.5 are "the smartest people in their field I've ever worked in."
"From my heart, from the first meeting, I decided I was coming here," he said. "My head was debating for a long time, but the thing about here is the belief in me, that shared vision of success and freedom and being able to race my bike."
