After soaring the standings with a seemingly race-flipping breakaway infiltration on Friday, Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) crashed back down the Tour de France general classification, and back down to earth, after another rollercoaster day in the mountains on stage 14.
The British rider had gained more than seven minutes via the breakaway on stage 13, lifting him to fourth overall and reigniting his GC hopes for the remainder of the race.
And the most remarkable thing was that he was at it again the very next day, somehow slipping into a secondary break that at one point gained more than two minutes and put him into virtual second place overall on the road.
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And yet, that effort, and the lack of top-end climbing form that had left him off the pace on the Col du Tourmalet in the first week, caught up with him. Pidcock was dropped from the main GC group on the final climb of the Col du Haag went on to lose nearly three minutes to most of the contenders for the podium.
“I jumped across to the break – probably a mistake, with that last climb,” Pidcock said. “But you know, whatever.”
On a tough day through the Vosges mountains a strong breakaway went up the road but an interesting second escape group formed behind them, featuring Pidcock and also two of Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike teammates who were acting as tactical pawns.
“In the end that made it more difficult, because it was not really smooth – no one wanted to do anything,” Pidcock said of the effect his own presence had on the group.
“But in the end Visma rode, I guess to make it harder for UAE, but they were going to ride their pace no matter what so it didn’t really change anything.
“But at least it meant I got a little bit of a head start in the final, but on the last climb I didn’t have much legs left.”
Having jumped from 10th to fourth 24 hours earlier, Pidcock is now back to ninth overall, still 26 seconds ahead of 10th-placed Lenny Martinez, but nearly three minutes off the podium.
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