Tom Pidcock is kicking himself after blowing Giro GC hopes: "No, the tank wasn’t empty"

"Of course, I would have liked to go home with more, but in Grand Tours, it's so tough to accomplish everything, whether you're going for a stage win or the GC," said Pidcock candidly to IDLProCycling.com on the final day in Rome. He ultimately finished 16th in the GC on his debut after previously finishing 17th and 13th in the Tour de France. "But I think this was the strongest Grand Tour I've ever ridden. I did pretty well."

In fact, after 18 days of the Giro d'Italia, Pidcock was thirteenth in the GC, just two minutes behind tenth place Michael Storer (Tudor). So it was a surprise when he was dropped on the first climb of day 19. Pidcock managed to get back in the peloton but had to throw in the towel on the next climb. "The tank wasn't empty, no. I tried to stay with the breakaway in stage 19, but that completely exhausted me in the heat," he said.

According to Pidcock, taking risks in the penultimate mountain stage wasn't a smart move. Not because he couldn't do it, but mainly because the temperature exceeded 30 degrees for the first time in the Giro. "It wasn't very smart on a day when it suddenly got very hot, and I know I don't usually adapt very quickly to those conditions. So it wasn't a good idea, and I lost my chance of a top-ten finish."

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Pidcock ultimately lost more than 18 minutes in the nineteenth stage and was out of contention for the GC. With his legs still feeling good, he didn't really see the point in going for a stage win in the ride over the Colle delle Finestre. So he wasn't too disappointed that Chris Harper won the stage for Jayco-AlUla from the breakaway. "In stage 20, there wasn't much left for me, also because it was my first time doing an hour-long climb."

And so the Giro ended somewhat unremarkably for Pidcock, even though he had finished in the top five three times in the first two weeks didn't look out of place among the men at the bottom of the top ten in the GC. "Honestly, I was more ambitious before the Giro than I have shown now. But with the preparation I had, without any real altitude training after the Ardennes classics, I couldn't have expected much more."

"All the guys ahead of me had better preparation, with fewer race days," he added. So we can expect more from Pidcock later this year in the Vuelta a España. It will be hot then, too, but the British rider predicts he will be well prepared. "Hopefully, I'll be able to prepare more specifically for the Vuelta, with some mountain biking in Andorra and the European Championships in Melgaço (Portugal, ed.) in the summer."

Bram van der Ploeg (Twitter: @BvdPloegg | email: [email protected])