Take6 days ago
Pidcock has 21 days to turn a cross-country world champion back into a road world championship contender. He raced his mountain bike exactly once all year before winning gold from the fifth row — meaning the road, not the dirt, was always the real target.
He finished 9th at the Tour de France 2026 just five weeks before Val di Sole, then showed up to MTB Worlds with almost no specific prep and still won. That's not a rider hedging his bets — it's a rider willing to gamble a world title defense on residual fitness so he could chase a Tour de France top-10 first. Now come two Canadian tune-ups, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec 2026 and Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal 2026, before the 2026 UCI Road World Championships. With Tadej Pogačar's injuries, Pidcock has become one of the prime favourites for the road title in Montréal.
Sources