Tom Pidcock attacking on Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid en route to stage 4 victory at the AlUla Tour(Image credit: Getty Images)
Tom Pidcock attacking on Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid en route to stage 4 victory at the AlUla Tour(Image credit: Getty Images)
Adne Holter (Team UnoX Mobility) riding on stage 4 of the AlUla Tour(Image credit: Getty Images)
Tom Pidcock took race victory on stage 4 of the AlUla Tour(Image credit: Getty Images)
The peloton in motion in the early kilometres of stage 4 of the AlUla Tour(Image credit: Getty Images)
Scenic moments in the early kilometres of stage 4(Image credit: Getty Images)
Spectators at the roadside on stage 4 of the AlUla Tour(Image credit: Getty Images)
An audacious motorbike rider at the Tour of AlUla(Image credit: Getty Images)
Riders gather at the Maraya concert hall for the start of stage 4 of the AlUla Tour(Image credit: Getty Images)
Riders gather at the Maraya concert hall for the start of stage 4 of the AlUla Tour(Image credit: Getty Images)
Tom Pidcock has blasted away on the toughest ascent of the AIUIa Tour to claim a stunning second solo stage win in three days, boost his lead, and take a giant step towards overall victory in 24 hours' time.
The Q36.5 racer stomped on the pedals nine kilometres from the finish on the stage from Maraya to Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid, crowned the top of the key climb of the race with a 25-second advantage, then continued alone across the flatlands that followed to the line.
Second after a concerted pursuit, 15 seconds back, was Alan Hatherly (Jayco-AIUIa) with Rainer Kepplinger (Bahrain Victorious) in third.
Pidcock's solo demonstration, though, both underlined the Briton's climbing superiority in the five-day AIUIa Tour and, barring disaster, should see him claim a first overall victory for his new Q36.5 team on Saturday.
The British racer said it had been a tough challenge keeping the chasing group of four at bay, but said he had set his own pace on the climb, and was delighted to have been able to clinch the win.
"Offence is the best form of defence sometimes," he said. "Coming into this race I was told that it's normally a tailwind on this climb but now it's a headwind and it was a long eight [final] kilometres.
"When it came to winning, Pidcock's keeping the chasers at a distance on the flat segment after the climb was as important as his initial attack," he said.
"There were four guys behind, I don't know how well they were working, but on your own along there, you can't go out of the saddle at 50 kmh. So it was a long way.
"But I'm really happy, I extended the lead and it gives us a bit of a buffer going into tomorrow."
How it Unfolded
After a fast first half hour across flat, open desert roads, Alexandre Vinokourov (XDS Astana) repeated his stage 1 breakaway bid, taking with him Italian teammate Alessandro Romele and Belgium's Jens Reynders (Wagner Bazin WB), the intermediate sprints leader. There was one non-starter on the day: Nils Eekhoff (Picnic PostNL), who crashed and collided with a lamppost late on stage 3, breaking his jaw.
The trio of early attackers were subsequently joined by a reinforcing move of Yuma Koishi (JCL Team UKYO), Muhammad Shamir Aiman Abdul Halim (Terengganu), Andreas Miltiadis and Kongphob Kimachai (both Roojai Insurance) as well as Reynders' French teammate Henri-François Renard-Haquin. The gap for the eight hovered at just over a minute as the race closed in on the last 50 kilometres and Q36.5 maintained the pace along with Jayco-AIUIa.
Then as the road began to dip and swoop a little on the approach to the crunch climb of the day - and the race - the break began to crack apart. By 20 kilometres to go, only Abdul Halim, Reynders, Romele, Koishi and Renard-Haquin remained ahead as the gradient very gradually, but remorselessly, steepened.
A more sustained effort by UAE snuffed out the break completely just before the climb began in earnest. Then on the steepest section, Pidcock began a sustained effort that almost singlehandedly reduced the bunch to just 20 riders. Seemingly unaffected by the ramps pitching up to 20% and beyond, the Briton continued to shred the field, his steady drive squeezing the group on his wheel to just Rainer Kepplinger (Bahrain Victorious), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AIUIa) and Dunbar's teammate Alan Hatherly.
Then at nine kilometres from the line and a kilometre to the summit, Pidcock made a slightly more pronounced acceleration and there was no response as he bounded away on slopes that had eased slightly, but were still a daunting 14%. Such was the power of his attack that Dunbar was already swinging on the end of the tiny lead group, and finally, rather than counter-attack, Pidcock's closest pursuers simply did what they could to try to limit the damage.
"I've been doing a lot of training that's really helpful in these sorts of efforts," Pidcock said later, "this week I've set my new 5-10 minute best-ever power, so I'm definitely in good shape."
By the exposed summit, the chase group behind had gained a single reinforcement in the shape of 20-year-old Jonannes Kulset (Uno-X Mobility) and after a period of uncertain collaboration, with Dunbar briefly and fruitlessly trying to go for it alone, they settled for a well-organised group chase.
Pidcock's advantage did drop slightly on the slightly draggy roads, and with 1 kilometre to go, it had gone down notably. But despite the quartet's dogged pursuit, the Briton's initial advantage on the climb was more than enough to ensure he could stay away to the line, soloing across to his second win of 2025 with 12 seconds still in hand.
Overall Pidcock now has a 29-second advantage on Kepplinger and a 32-second lead on Hatherly, so with just one fairly flat stage remaining, the odds the 25-year-old will secure the AIUIa Tour outright on Saturday afternoon look high. Yet even if the chances of making his already hugely successful start with new squad Q36.5 even better with the first-ever overall stage race win of his career, after stage 4, Pidcock remained cautious.
"I actually looked at tomorrow's stage already, which I probably shouldn't have done, but it's going to be pretty windy I think, it'll be a pretty stressful day to hold this jersey," Pidcock said. "So it's definitely not over, but I couldn't have done much more up til now."
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
