'We can't be lining up and racing for second' – Quinn Simmons reveals exactly what lay behind his doomed 238km Il Lombardia bid to beat Tadej Pogačar

Somewhere in Quinn Simmons' worldview of bike racing, there's a point where his ideas about competing in an era dominated by Tadej Pogačar, how to provide worthwhile entertainment for the fans and how to get the best out of himself as a pro all fuse and intertwine. The end result of these ingredients may not always lead to success, but on the plus side, the consequences are rarely boring either.

In 2025, that blend of different beliefs played their part not only in the Lidl-Trek rider netting his first two WorldTour wins of his career. They also saw the current American National Road Champion sign off his race year with a spectacular, if doomed, 238-kilometre breakaway in Il Lombardia as he attempted to out-Pogačar Pogačar with an ultra-long distance move.

For many fans, Simmons' ultimate, last-day throw of the dice was arguably one of the Classics high points of the entire season, while Pogačar himself said he had been made a "little bit afraid" by Simmons' move. But in any case, to fling down the gauntlet like that in Il Lombardia, the one-day Classic where Pogačar had taken four straight wins in a row and was the overwhelming favourite for a fifth last October, felt audacious in the extreme.

It didn't work, with Simmons caught after some six hours away and 30 kilometres from the line. You might even go so far as to say that, of course, it wouldn't have worked, given Pogačar's past history both in the race and in his World and European Championships-conquering build-up to the final Classic of 2025.

But at least Simmons tried, and partly as a result, the whole event wasn't as deadly predictable as we'd feared. No disrespect intended to Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and the rest of the Slovenian's rivals, but sitting waiting for Pogačar to launch his usual long-range attack had all the feel and interest of a pre-written script. Furthermore, Simmons still hung on to get fourth in Como, far closer to success than his previous best Monument result, a distant 73rd in the 2021 Milan-San Remo.

On the attack

So what was Simmons up to on north-west Italy's autumn leaf-decked lakeside roads last October? The idealist part of Simmons, it turns out, thought it was better to roll the dice in a doomed challenge rather than blindly be led to the sporting slaughter. The utterly pragmatic part of him also thought it'd go down better for the audience viewing figures. And on a personal level, Simmons wanted to come away with a performance he could be proud of.

"It's funny because, you see a lot of times, people question my tactics that day, but I can promise that if I'd waited until the last climb, I wouldn't have even been in the top 20," Simmons tells reporters at his Lidl-Trek team training camp this December.

"So I think the tactics went OK, when you have someone like Tadej chasing, unfortunately on a climb, three minutes' advantage" - which Simmons enjoyed at the foot of the Passo di Ganda ascent, where he was caught - "is not enough."

"I think I started to dream of the podium. That was within reach, but I didn't quite have it over the top [of the Ganda] there.

"I think for me, podium or fourth it doesn't… It'd be nice to stand up or have the picture [of the winner's podium]. But anyway, I think I made my point."

That point being, of course, that rather than simply accepting the inevitable Pogačar victory, it's much more refreshing - for riders and for fans - to test the waters and see what happens. As Simmons puts it, "I think we can't be lining up and immediately giving up the win and racing for second just because one guy is better than us.

"We have to try everything, whether it's there or any other race. We owe it to ourselves and the sport to try and win and not just race for second."

The pragmatic side to that argument is that there is a lot more to be earned, literally, by giving it a shot, Simmons believes. It's a time-honoured cliché that sport isn't just about results, it's also a spectacle, of course. But in the Pogačar era, that home truth may well have been buried under the weight of the Slovenian's relentless success story of the last few years.

"I think it's important to be entertaining because at the end of the day, you only get paid because the TV's on, you have to perform," Simmons says.

"You have to do it well, and you can't be doing stupid stuff. But this is a sport where the more eyes there are on us and on the team and on the sponsors, the more money we're all going to make.

"We only have 10 years, or however short careers are these days, to get the most out of them. And you owe it to the team, to the sponsors, to yourself, to give people something to cheer for."

Another step up

However, just like his childhood idol Peter Sagan - who had a very similar series of beliefs about spectacles - Simmons is very much not just about putting on a show and getting in the breakaways for the sake of it, either.

Rather, a landmark series of victories and placings in 2025 underlined how much he's now hitting the heights all over, not just in the last Monument of the season.

Last March, his career-first WorldTour triumph arrived in the 2025 Volta a Catalunya's truncated main mountain stage to Berga, and then there was repeat success in the US Nationals road race in June. That was quickly followed by a spectacular solo stage win in the Tour de Suisse, too, a victory which Simmons movingly dedicated to the late Gino Mäder, who had died two years to the day earlier in the same race.

"In my head, Suisse was the first real one [WorldTour win]. Catalunya was a bit strange, and then I got better in the Tour [de France], too," Simmons says

"I made a good step this year and want to improve it. My big goals are in one-day racing and in stage racing too.

"My biggest objective is to get that Tour stage that I missed that year. But just to do the same as I did last year [2025] would already be a success."

The reasons for Simmons' thinking that about 2025 don't just reside in his triumphs and long-distance bid for glory in Il Lombardia. Third in the GP Montréal behind UAE duo Brandon McNulty and Pogačar was another high point of the year, and Simmons recognised his WorldTour one-day podium came as a surprise, given that though he'd "expected to be good in Québec, I'd never even finished Montreal before."

"But as it went on and on, I wasn't necessarily getting better, but others were getting worse. So if I wasn't fighting for the victory, I was at least fighting to be second."

"In a race with 4,000 metres of climbing, for a guy of my weight to be there in the final is a confidence boost. And even if I then went to the Worlds, had a bad day at the Worlds, lost that confidence, I went to Lombardia afterwards, and so I got that confidence back.Which is why it's so nice to finish the season in such a good way."

It was also radically different to other ends of seasons. The finale of his rookie pro year, 2020, was "basically ruined by Covid-19," he reminds reporters, and then the following years he either crashed out, like in the October Paris-Roubaix, or ended the season with sickness. This time round, on the other hand, ending his year so well has transitioned into an excellent off-season, and he even says that "after only a few weeks of training, I'm the best I've ever been for this time of year. I just hope this trajectory continues."

Eyeing Worlds 2026

How far his excellent condition will last will only become clear as the season goes on, but already to be in a position in December to hit the ground running is obviously encouraging.

However, Simmons is also looking hard at the end of the season, given that whilst every World Championships is special, a chance to ride one in North America like in 2026 is even more so. Or as Simmons, a former junior World Champion, says, it "is basically our home Worlds. I know it's Canada, but" - he adds with a grin, given the somewhat politically charged question Canada's relationship with the USA has become over the last year - "it's close enough."

But it's not just about the geographical location of next year's fight for road race national jerseys, either. On top of that, as Simmons points out, the number of potential contenders Team USA can currently field is exceptionally high.

"It's been quite some time since we had that kind of start list, and it's a course where there's probably three of us that could be fighting for a medal," he says.

"Amongst our group, we're quite good at buying in and going for whoever's going best on the day. I can't even remember the last time a [male] American took a medal at an elite Worlds, certainly it's not been in my career."

In a sense, though, the results are secondary to the special feelings he says he has at the Worlds in general, given that it is the one set of races each season where bonding over a common country is possible.

"It's a different experience when you're sitting six at dinner, and you're all from the same place," Simmons explains, "and you all grew up in more or less the same way. It's the one time of year when you're back with the boys and bike racing feels like you're a junior again."

Whilst the Worlds in Canada can only help boost the sport's profile generally, Simmons points out that the wealth of American talent in men's cycling right now is also helping maintain interest in the one race that is guaranteed to spark interest.

Back to the Tour

"The Tour is the only race that matters to Americans, and the fact that we have four or five guys performing at the Tour, you can feel how excited people are," he says.

"I'll be on a training ride, stop at a gas station, and some guy in his ranch clothes gets out in his truck, you'd never expect him to be a bike racing fan, and he's telling me how excited he was to watch the Tour and how nice it was to see the [American national champion's] jersey there.

"So little moments like that - you can feel that with performance comes fans, and we have a good group to build on that right now."

With the Worlds as one final goal, Simmons will start 2026 at Strade Bianche, then build towards Amstel Gold Race. But the key aim, he says, is "if I can have a full season, then that already makes a big difference."

"The biggest thing is consistency, just not ever to have a long time off, no injury or sickness and building on that. Then once you start performing well, it starts feeding off itself, and things like my win in Suisse was a big confidence boost.

"For me, the biggest turning point, though, was actually the whole three weeks of the Tour, where I could consistently be one of the better bike riders in one of the biggest bike races.

"Obviously, I didn't win a stage, but over three weeks I did everything I could."

Next summer, as Simmons said earlier, he'll be looking for that elusive stage victory again. But it's also very clear that if he can also provide some extra entertainment and spectacle along the way as he fights for that stage victory, then that's more than half the battle won in any case. And who knows, maybe just like in Il Lombardia 2025, even Tadej Pogačar might end up "a little bit afraid' - and impressed - by what Simmons can achieve, too.