Pidcock zooms downhill for 6 minutes: “Kids, don’t do this at home.” The video goes viral

The downhill qualities of Tom Pidcock they had already clearly emerged during the 2022 Tour, down from the Galibier, when the young Englishman went into a dive to take an advantage, then managed in the Alpe d’Huez climb. Yet Pid did something more. In a video posted by a cycling enthusiast and content creator for his YouTube channel, the 23-year-old from Leeds literally set up a downhill masterclass along the Californian road of Tuna Canyon. The road where he recorded this video, in October 2022, is one-way and has an average gradient of 9.1%, with an altitude difference of 396 meters in just 4.33 kilometres. In some stretches the slopes reach 16%.

The video quickly went viral, but it wasn’t all praise for Pidcock. So much so that the world champion 2022 of cyclocross he had to clarify and specify through an Instragram story: ““For those who asked me, I did the reconnaissance of the descent a couple of times. It was one way and there was a car ahead making sure everything was okay. But I warn you: kids, don’t try this at home. But go out riding with your friends, have fun, I was thousands of hours playing bikes with my friends before I had the skills to do this. Have fun and take no risks,” concluded Pidcock. Among the kindest comments, “you’re crazy, you put the season at risk”. In a couple of passages, Pidcock seemed to really correct at the last moment, on a road that was not always perfectly maintained, between dips, dirt and passages in the woods. The Ineos-Grenadiers champion has already scored in a stage of the Volta Algarve and will certainly be among the protagonists of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the first cobblestone race of 2023, on Saturday 25 February.