“I sit across from Tom, and say to him, ‘You’re amazing, what an incredible leader you are’. The way he takes on responsibility, lifts the team. He makes you feel part of his success, he brings everyone in, and he’s very thankful and appreciative of all the effort people put into him.” Doug Ryder is happy. Chuffed. Why wouldn’t he be? Late last season, his small second division outfit only in existence for two years, Q36.5 Pro Cycling, signed Tom Pidcock from Ineos Grenadiers, where he had grown deeply unhappy, and where his road career had stalled somewhat. The Yorkshireman had numerous points to prove, but breaking his contract and relegating himself a division didn’t appear to be the most logical sporting decision.
This Sunday, Pidcock could podium at the Vuelta a España – a result the Briton had always insisted he could achieve, but had shown precious evidence of it being a realistic possibility in his four years with Ineos. It would be the highlight of a season that has also included his first ever GC victory (the AlUla Tour, courtesy of two stage wins), finishing second in Strade Branche (behind Tadej Pogačar), being on the podium of La Flèche Wallonne, and two other stage victories in smaller races. He’s been revitalised at Q36.5, and that’s had and is continuing to have a transformative effect on the rest of the team.
With six weeks of the racing season still to go, Q36.5 have scored 14 wins – only 10 WorldTour teams have more – and finished second and third on 29 occasions. Pidcock and sprinter Matteo Moschetti each have five wins, and climber Fabio Christen has two. The standout victory, for manager Ryder, was breakaway extraordinaire and Irish champion Rory Townsend’s remarkable win at the ADAC Cyclassics in Hamburg in late August. “For a team like ours to have won 14 races so far, it shows we’re very close to being a WorldTour team, and that we can make our riders shine and perform at the highest level to achieve their goals,” Ryder says.
In just 12 months, they’ve gone from being a team for whom most top division riders would only join if there was no other option, to being a sought-after, desired team. To date, six WorldTour riders – including two of Jayco-AlUla’s three GC riders, Eddie Dunbar and Chris Harper – have agreed to drop down to the ProTeam for 2026. One person familiar with those moves told Rouleur: “Q36.5 have their s**t together”, the inference being that the Swiss-registered team are better organised and better run than many WorldTour teams.
The Pidcock Effect cannot be understated. “When Tom joined our team, a lot of people raised their eyebrows and had an interest in how he’d do with us,” Ryder, who ran the South African team Qhubeka NextHash until it folded in 2021, tells Rouleur. “We’ve given him a platform to race and perform at the highest level, and that shows that our team already had an incredibly high performance environment.” Pidcock has become a walking and talking advertising board for the team. “Tom speaks openly and passionately about the support and trust he receives, and the professionalism of the environment, and it’s absolutely helped our recruitment without a shadow of a doubt,” Ryder reveals. “We have had a number of riders requesting to come to us. Tom has definitely opened the eyes of many who are thinking of joining the team. Look at the signings we’ve made so far: all except one [Brent Van Moer from Lotto] are from the WorldTour, and riders are seeing that this team is a step forward, not a step backwards in their careers. And the same goes for staff.”
Pidcock extended his advantage in third place of the Vuelta by three seconds in the stage 18 time trial.
The presence of Pidcock has helped in other areas, too. “When we started this in September 2022, we essentially did so as a start-up," Ryder says. Ivan Glasenberg, the South African billionaire worth an estimated fortune of $11 billion, is the team’s principal backer, and can regularly be spotted at races. “We had to grow as steadily as we could, but the best races want the best riders.” With no A-class riders, that meant few invites to the top-ranked events. Then Pidcock came along. “Having a rider like Tom has absolutely changed the game, without question. It’s made a huge difference to our standing and our race calendar. Cycling is a business: the best races want the best riders for the best engagement and for increased viewership – Tom provides that. He is a global brand, loved from America to Australia, and everywhere in between. People love him because he’s honest, authentic, cool.”
The current WorldTour promotion-relegation cycle will reach its conclusion at the end of this season. Q36.5 haven’t earned enough points to secure themselves a WorldTour licence, but they’re deep in the running to ensure a guaranteed wildcard to all WorldTour events in 2026, as one of two of the best-performing ProTeams this season. “If we miss out, we’ll have to lobby to get race invitations, but the team’s performances this year have put us in a very good light when it comes to organisers and media attention,” Ryder says. “Look at the Strade Bianche stage of the Giro d’Italia: we were at the front, in charge of the race, trying to give Tom the best chance to be successful.”
Pidcock has ridden two Grand Tours in the same season for the first ever time – the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España.
What’s so impressed Ryder about the 26-year-old Pidcock is his meticulous preparation. “He surprises me and amazes me every day,” Ryder goes on. “The first time I saw him inside our team environment at the December training camp, I was struck by his attention to detail and his incredible capacity to want to know why. When you do anything, move something by millimetres – his saddle, his cleat position, his tyre pressure – he wants to know why. He’s a very trusting person, but he asks a lot of questions. When he understands it and buys into it, he accepts, he is happy and doesn’t question it again.”
There can be no doubt that Pidcock has thrived at Q36.5. On Sunday, the two-time mountain bike Olympic champion and former cyclocross world champion could achieve his finest result on the road yet. At the time of publication, he has a 39 second lead over Jai Hindley in fourth, with just one mountain stage to come. “Our goal was a top-10, and our dream goal was a top-five, and he’s sitting better than that,” Ryder says. “He’s in unknown territory – he’s not been in this position before. But the guy’s a fighter, he wants to be in this space, he wants to rise up, he wants to be seen as a proper contender.”
However the final Vuelta podium looks in Madrid, the Pidcock Effect will not wear off; the Yorkshireman is transforming Q36.5, a team who have transformed him. “He has so many amazing qualities which is what makes him an incredible elite athlete,” Ryder says. “It’s really fun to be part of it, and to see how he develops and grows, and accepts these goals. He’s pushing himself to see where he and the whole team could end up.”
