Tom Pidcock goes cycle commuting — Olympic champion's 118-mile country-crossing ride to next UCI Mountain Bike World Cup round

It probably took Czech cyclist Ruda Šturm by surprise when the dreaded 'Uh oh!' email from Strava landed in his inbox on Monday afternoon, especially when he logged in and saw the offending KOM-nabber was in fact...Tom Pidcock?

'What's an Andorra-based, British professional cyclist doing taking my backroad KOM five miles from the German border?' He probably asked himself. 'Doesn't he have better things to be doing? He's only the 124th person to ride it...'

Well, it seems the Ineos Grenadiers all-rounder has added cycle commuting to his infinite list of two-wheeled disciplines, riding 118 miles (190km) from one UCI Mountain Bike World Cup round to the next, crossing from Germany to Czech Republic on the way...

Clearly the 22-year-old was not content with Sunday's winning return to life on knobbly tyres, which saw the Olympic mountain bike champion win by 20 seconds from Nino Schurter and Vlad Dascălu. Well, to be fair, he did only ride 16 miles (25km)...easy, right?

Anyway, the truth of the matter is probably that Pidcock, like the rest of us, chose to 'cycle commute' because it simply made sense to do so. In the same way that we'd rather spin to the office for half an hour rather than catch a packed train, Pidcock probably thought: I've got a ride to do, why would I needlessly sit in the back of a car all day?

It does seem he hitched a lift for part of the way. Sunday's race was near Albstadt, around 217 miles west of his Monday start point, but we'll cut him some slack for not racking up 335 miles (539km)  the day after a race...next time, Tom.

Once he hit the road, and back on his Pinarello Dogma F, the possible soon-to-be Tour de France debutant was not hanging about...averaging 20.3mph (32.7km/h) and collecting Strava top-tens (and a KOM) along the way, even despite riding into a headwind all day.

After a little under six hours in the saddle, and a fair few more miles than we'd have managed in that time, Pidcock stopped his Garmin just west of the small market town of Cerhovice, whose resident KOM-hunters must have been glad to see the pro mercifully call a halt to proceedings prior to smashing all their segments...

Check out Pidcock's full activity over on Strava...