Britain’s Tom Pidcock finished third on Stage 9 of the Tour de France yesterday, his highest placing so far in this year’s race, but did a freak mechanical issue cost him the opportunity to compete for the win? He resorted to kicking his rear derailleur at one stage and didn’t make much of an impact in the sprint finish, although he later reported that he was happy with his result.
The stage was won by multiple-time Classics winner and former world champion Mathieu van der Poel, who outsprinted Tobias Johannessen – sixth overall in last year’s Tour de France. Pidcock was given the same time but he never looked like challenging the top two in the finale.
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The hilly stage was shortened due to extreme heat, and a 16-rider breakaway was formed with 95km (59 miles) remaining after a series of unsuccessful attacks. The break was gradually whittled down as the race hit the climbs. Van der Poel attacked on the final climb, and only Pidcock, Johannessen and Alex Baudin were able to follow.
Pidcock’s woes began on the descent following the final Category 4 climb. You could see him unclip his right foot from the pedal and kick his rear derailleur before looking backwards and gesturing in frustration that he had a mechanical issue. The Yorkshireman was clearly not happy.
Pidcock did manage to chase back and was holding his own within the lead group, but Van der Poel bossed the final kilometre and never really looked like he’d finish anything but first despite a rapidly advancing chase group.
Van der Poel is, of course, one of the world’s best riders on road, cobbles, cyclo-cross, gravel, mountain bike, you name it, but could Pidcock have put in more of a challenge if he didn’t have a mechanical issue?
Pidcock’s Pinarello Q36.5 team ride Pinarello Dogma F bikes fitted with SRAM Red AXS groupsets.
The team said, “With the race entering its decisive phase, Pidcock’s challenge almost came to an abrupt end.
“A small piece of asphalt mixed with bitumen somehow became lodged inside the right-hand lever, preventing it from making the normal movement required for shifting.
“Nothing had broken. With approximately 24km (15 miles) remaining, Pidcock managed to free the chain and get the bike moving again. However, although the drivetrain was operational once more, the piece of asphalt remained lodged inside the lever, preventing him from using the full range of gears for the remainder of the stage.
“Despite the obstruction, Pidcock fought his way back to the front of the race, where the stage ultimately came down to a four-man battle for victory.
“Unable to use all of his gear ratios on the uphill finish into Ussel, the British rider nevertheless produced another outstanding effort to sprint to third place after more than 150km (93 miles) of committed, attacking racing.”
Tom Pidcock himself said, “For a moment I thought my race was over, but I managed to get the bike going again and keep fighting until the finish.”
Quite a positive take given the circumstances, then.
Pinarello Q36.5 team says, “While it is impossible to know how the final sprint might have unfolded without the obstruction inside the right-hand gear shifter, the incident was undoubtedly a significant factor, preventing Pidcock from using the full range of gears in the decisive moments. Full credit goes to stage winner Tim Wellens, but the circumstances make Pidcock’s podium all the more remarkable.”
One (pretty major) point: it was Mathieu van der Poel who won the stage. You couldn’t miss him. He was on the top step of the podium, did the post-race interviews and everything. Tim Wellens came in 40th.
Anyway, that’s the explanation from Pinarello Q36.5: a piece of asphalt lodged inside Pidcock’s right-hand lever meant that he was unable to use the full range of gears for the remainder of the stage.
You can set up SRAM Red shift-brake controls to work in various ways, but the usual system for changing gear is to push the shift paddle on the right control to move the chain down the cassette, push the shift paddle on the left control to move the chain up the cassette, and push them both at the same time to move the front derailleur (although Pidcock’s bike was set up 1x).
If Pidcock had his system set up in the usual way, asphalt in the right-hand lever could have prevented him shifting down the cassette to a smaller sprocket.
How did he shift at all? When interviewed after the finish, Pidcock said that although the main right-hand shift paddle – which sits just behind the brake lever – wasn’t working, he was able to shift from the hood. A SRAM Red AXS shift-brake control comes with a Bonus Button on the hood that provides an auxiliary shift option (which can also be used as an ANT+ device control). It looks like Pidcock was still able to use this Bonus Button to finish the race – although its position means that you can’t shift from the drops.
What of Pinarello Q36.5’s assertion that “the piece of asphalt remained lodged inside the lever, preventing [Pidcock] from using the full range of gears for the remainder of the stage”?
Pidcock explained things after the finish line by saying, “Once I got to the sprint, I was focused, and I just instinctively was on the drops, and I couldn’t change gear anymore, and then I had to go on the hoods.
“So it’s a shame. I tried to let Mathieu [van der Poel] lead the last kilometre. Obviously, he was the fastest in our group, so he would need to go early if the bunch was coming. But they were not close enough, so in the end, it was a short sprint. And I don’t think I would have come around him anyway.
“I’m not so disappointed. Mathieu will be very hard to beat in those situations. You do what you can. I’m quite happy. I’m just pleased that I could change gear in the end, and that I was not in the peloton. At least I was there sprinting for the win.”
Even without this shifter situation, Pidcock himself doesn’t think he’d have been in with much of a shout for the stage win, then, but a fully functioning bike could at least have seen him playing more than a bit part in the sprint.
24 thoughts on “Did a freak mechanical cost Tom Pidcock a shot at Tour de France stage victory?”
The left hand shifter is pictured twice above which is confusing as it was the RH shifter which had the problem.
It would be really good if there was a photo of the offending piece of asphalt. And maybe someone stamping on it in a rage?
@Pub bike The photos aren’t Tom Pidcock’s bike/shifter – they are just images of the same shifters he uses (SRAM Red AXS) from road.cc’s image library, from when road.cc reviewed that groupset a couple of years ago. It would appear that all the photos from that review clearly showing the bonus button (a feature which is highly pertinent to the story) happen to be of the left-hand shifter (presumable because the photoshoot was set up with the background on that side of the bike).
You can use your imagination to picture what the right-hand shifter might look like.
Or a mirror?
@mdavidford Even a mirror image of the piece of asphalt would have been better than nothing.
Poor derailleur. Took a few kicks in the shifter’s stead 🙁
@tomlew At least there isn’t a mirror image picture of the derailleur in the article.
It would have been a little bit comical if Mr. Pidcock had damaged the rear derailleur by kicking it and then found that the button worked only for some other calamity to happen due to the damage. Maybe SRAM can use it in their marketing of their groupset: “Tougher than a speeding Tom Pidcock in a dash to the finish line”
I still dont get the whole – only some gears but not all. Its a button, you click it once it changes gear. click it again it changes to another gear so and so forth, so how does he lose some gears? if its down to his position making the satellite button harder to reach that not losing a gear, its losing the ability to press the button.
@Smoggysteve Perhaps it just took Mr. Pidcock some moments to realise what had happened: The switch on the RH lever had stopped working but the button on the top was still working and to regain full use of his gears he just had to use the button instead.
It would make sense as he had likely moved to the drops when he needed the higher gears where he found the switch was not working so he appeared to be stuck on the middle of his cassette. Once he had figured it out that the button on the top was still working he was able to get has chain onto the smallest sprocket.
I still want to see the piece of asphalt. And of course the answer to the headline is “No” which is explained anyway, and is yet another example of Betteridge’s Law.
Quote – “ However, although the drivetrain was operational once more, the piece of asphalt remained lodged inside the lever, preventing him from using the full range of gears for the remainder of the stage.”
He didn’t lose gears, he just rode in a way that made it difficult to select them. Not the same thing.
@Smoggysteve The team statement was that the malfunction was “preventing Pidcock from using the full range of gears in the decisive moments” – “in the decisive moments” being the key phrase, so he wasn’t deprived of the full range of days until the point at which he had to commit to being on the drops.
@Rendel Harris …and my speech recognition software thinks that gears sounds like days, for some reason.
@Rendel Harris where he decided to be on the drops, but lose gears, maybe he could still have sprinted on the hoods, I’ve seen riders do it and still have the ability to select the gear he needs. It might not have been perfect but he’d of had the gear he needed.
@Smoggysteve “…he’d have had…”
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
So, how did the piece of asphalt get up inside the lever?
@I love my bike I’d guess flicked up by a car or moto at a time when Tom was braking so the hood was open, flew into the gap created, he stopped braking and it got trapped inside then rattled around a bit before snugging down against the top of the paddle mechanism.
It was fired from the grassy knoll.
@mdavidford The grassy knoll theory seems to be the most plausible explanation yet. The whole saga is obviously a conspiracy and likely sabotage against slam dunk tour winner Tom Pidcock otherwise why in this world where every device contains a camera hasn’t a photo of the offending piece of asphalt emerged? We should be told!
Grassy knolls have no place in *road* racing and I’ll thank you to post that on xc.c (or is that “muddy knoll”)!
@chrisonabike In this case it is a piece of asphalt fired from a grassy knoll. Asphalt is the preserve of road.cc. Perhaps a new site needs to be created to deal with dilemmas such as this where the articles combine both road and off-road content at the same time? I propose on/off-road.cc. I think that is better than my first thought which was asphalt-grass.cc
That / is going to play havoc with your URLs. What about roadornot.cc ?
@mdavidford roadwhatever.cc ?
@ Pub Bike it’s a puzzler. Should it be all-road.cc (perhaps it was a gritty knoll? )…
… or downcountry.cc (a gnarly knoll)?
The gear problem would almost certainly have hampered Pidcock, but I don’t think he would have beaten VdP on such a tailor made finish.
@Mr Blackbird I agree, there was no way he was going to outsprint Matthieu, the only way I could see him winning that stage would have been to jump from long distance and try to out-TT him using his aero advantages as a much smaller rider, in which case he could have stuck the bike in the biggest gear using the hood buttons and then just left the gears alone.