Pinarello Q36.5's Tom Pidcock was hampered by a jammed shifter in the breakaway sprint for victory on stage 9 at the Tour de France on Sunday, explaining that he had to go without his normal shifting method against stage winner Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech).
The team later explained that a small piece of asphalt, mixed with bitumen, somehow became lodged inside the right-hand lever, preventing it from making the normal movement required for shifting.
The Brit made it into the breakaway of the day, which formed after 50km of all-out racing heading out of Malemort, and was well in the running for the win after cresting the final categorised climb with the three other strongest riders in the move: Van der Poel, Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) and Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility)
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But it looked as though bad luck would ruin his day, when he was shown on the TV broadcast to be aggressively waving his hand due to a mechanical. Pidcock kicked at his rear derailleur, but said after the stage that this didn't actually fix things, instead having to use the satellite shifter on the inside of his handlebar hoods.
Once it became clear the four in front would hold off the charging peloton, Pidcock focused fully on the sprint and moved his hands to the drops, forgetting his usual level shifting wasn't working. Unable to change gear instantly, he couldn't match Van der Poel, who scorched to the line in Ussel.
"On the climb there, my shifter stopped working and I couldn't change gear, and then I realised I couldn't only change on the top. But then in the sprint I was focusing so much on the sprint and I was in the drop, and that bottom [shifter] wasn't working and I started sprinting and I couldn't change gear, so then I had to go on my hoods," explained Pidcock at the finish.
"I don't know what's wrong. My bike works perfect the whole race and then today when the win is there, it doesn't work. The shifter, the button doesn't work, only the top one, so I don't know.
"I didn't fix it with the kick; that didn't do anything. It's just the buttons; only the one on the bottom works."
Though of course disappointed, this was far from the angry Pidcock seen after past defeats. He arrived back at the team bus some time later on teammate Quinten Hermans' bike and looked anything but upset. With more clarity and time to assess, he explained his account of the shifter incident again.
"I was going super well today, I had really good legs, and was feeling strong. If I compare it to the last time I was in the breakaway in the Tour de France on the gravel stage [in 2024], today I was really in the game in the breakaway," explained an upbeat Pidcock to reporters at the team bus.
"So it definitely shows that my level is higher, but then in the final, my shifter stopped working. So I was out the back of the group over the last climb, then I realised this top button was working," he added, demoing a gear change to the gathered press in front of him, "but then once I got to the sprint I was focused, then I was instinctively on the drops, and I couldn't change gear anymore.
"Then I had to go on the hoods. So it's a shame, but I tried to just let Mathieu lead the last kilometre. Obviously, he was the fastest in our group, so he would need to go early if the bunch was coming, but they were not close enough, so in the end it was a short sprint, and I don't think I would have come around him anyway."
Pidcock had been struggling so far in his first Tour de France with Pinarello Q36.5, already out of the GC race and having been forced to admit he had missed some preparation. Although it wasn't the win today, this performance points to the Brit rediscovering his best form and with plenty of transition stages coming in the second week, he will be eyeing his first win at the Tour since Alpe d'Huez in 2022, before returning to the iconic climb twice in the third week.
"I'm not so disappointed. Mathieu will be very hard to beat in those situations, also obviously I do what I can. I'm quite happy, I'm just pleased that I could change gear in the end, and that I was in the [breakaway]. At least I was there sprinting for the win."
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