There’s a buzz in the air at the reopening of Pinarello’s flagship Bottega store in London. Journalists, team staff, and riders mingle under the bright lights of the shop, which spill onto the pavement of Regent Street. The undercurrent of the room hums with excited murmurs about the season ahead: glimpses of early form in the Middle East, Spain, Portugal, and France have whetted appetites for what comes next.

Conversations pause at intervals as attendees turn their attention to the shop’s centrepiece, the Dogma F – the model on which Tom Pidcock would open his 2026 victory account three days later at the final stage of Vuelta a Andalucía.

Speaking to Rouleur in a corner of the store away from the melee, Pinarello-Q36.5 team manager Doug Ryder is animated, and understandably so. It’s an exciting time for the South African and his ProTeam: a new title sponsor in the form of the prestigious Italian bike manufacturer, a squad recently bolstered by a host of experienced riders, and a bid to compete in some of the sport’s biggest races after a breakthrough 2025 season.

Read more: How the Tom Pidcock effect has transformed Q36.5 into one of cycling’s most desirable teams

“The nice thing is, every year we’ve gotta be ranked highly, so there’s pressure. It’s not like we’ve got a three year WorldTour licence and you can take your foot off the gas,” he explains. 

“We actually enjoy that. It shows that we have to focus on every detail. Millimetres matter, and that’s cool. The riders challenge us. No one ever got hired and fired in this team for speaking their mind and trying to contribute to its success.” 

Pidcock’s catalytic entrance into the fray with Q36.5, following his departure from INEOS at the end of 2024, amounted to a dream individual debut. A third place GC result at last year’s Vuelta a España named Q36.5 the third wild-card team to land a rider on a Grand Tour podium in 25 years. But Ryder attests its true impact lay in setting the groundwork for a second-division project punching well above its weight. 

“I think there were three days when we didn’t have a rider in the top 10 in the stage. So that just shows that every day we were in the game. Every day we were excited, and we wanted to race. There was such an energy in the bus, you know, and everybody had a chance. That united the team like I’ve never seen in my life before.

“And it was through Tom’s leadership, saying ‘this is not only about me, this is about all of us and how we can succeed together’. And then we ended up on the podium, which was like ‘What?!’. That was so cool,” he says, his eyes widening with enthusiasm. 

The Swiss-based team, who reaped the rewards of their success when they automatically qualified for this year’s Tour de France alongside wildcard teams Caja Rural-Seguros RGA and TotalEnergies, have earned themselves status. And with a host of high calibre names added to their roster late last year – Sam Bennett, Eddie Dunbar, Fred Wright, Tom Gloag, and Chris Harper – Ryder’s ambitions are clear. 

But while skeptics may question why a WorldTour rider would step down to a ProTeam setup, the 54-year-old former Team Qhubeka manager remains unwavering in his belief in his project and its longevity.

“Sam [Bennett] and riders like that wanted to join our project and saw it as a step up in their career, not a step backwards. They’ve added significant depth and quality to us. So it gives a nice platform to build for the future.” 

Quality, yes – but also people, culture, and connections dating back to early racing days. Wright and Gloag rode for the same team as juniors in London, while Bennett has reunited with former An Post-Sean Kelly manager and mentor Kurt Bogaerts. 

“We care about every individual, that everyone’s a human being, that everyone has their goals and dreams valued. I think that’s fairly unique in cycling today,” says Ryder. “Most people employ a functional role, like, ‘I need a rouleur, a TT specialist, a climber, or a sprinter’. But they don’t employ a person and their dreams and aspirations. And I think that’s where we are slightly different in terms of our way of working. 

“I think our differentiator is that 60-70 per cent of our budget goes to human beings. That's the product we sell. You can connect in a deeper, more meaningful way, and take care of every individual –  like Sam and the situation he was in,” he says, gesturing across the room to Bennett, who underwent cardiac ablation surgery in November.  

Such an emphasis on team unity might ring hollow if results don’t come. But Pinarello-Q36.5 already have podium finishes this season, with Matteo Moschetti securing third at the Clásica de Almería, and 23-year-old Emmanuel Houcou arriving second in a chaotic bunch sprint on stage 4 of the Tour of Oman. Meanwhile, Pidcock placed second to UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Tim Wellens at the Clásica Jaén.

Ryder hopes that a combined focus on both people and professionalism will carry Pidcock and his team into the spring Classics, starting with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. 

“We’ve created unity, connectedness, that die-for kind of culture, like a wolfpack mentality. Some teams have it in words. We have it in action. The whole connected system: riders, kit, hard work.

“We don’t want to necessarily be the biggest and richest team. We want to be a team that is most operationally efficient.”