On Versatility

Or "How I learned to stop worrying and love Tom Pidcock"

I do not necessarily consider myself a petty person, but despite my best efforts not to, I can’t help myself from falling victim to Someone’s Wrong on the Internet Syndrome. At least in the realm of off-road bike racing takes, since that’s what I am ostensibly a part-time expert in.

Source: XKCD

I got a lot of mileage earlier this summer subtweeting a friend of my mine, and since this is apparently the Summer of Petty Zach, why not do it again. I went back and forth on vague-booking the inspiration for my Mountain Bike Worlds post or just posting the tweet. Since nothing could poss-i-blye go wrong with riffing on a tweet from someone with 16.6x as many Twitter followers as I have, I decided to go the latter route.

Following Tom Pidcock’s World Championship in Scotland on Sunday, Peter Flax—whom I greatly respect, please don’t misconstrue my pettiness—posted this:

I certainly get what he was going for, and I think it was a fair point that highlights how we are living in such a golden age of cycling that Pidcock’s resume still does not quite live up to those of Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel, and Wout van Aert (I assume these are the three dudes of which he was speaking).

I honestly would not have thought much about the tweet, except I did click through and saw perhaps one of the wrongest things I have ever seen on the internet. Some dude legit tried to argue that Tom Pidcock is not in the top 10 of the most versatile cyclists in the world.

Tom Pidcock—who has won world championships in two disciplines, a gold medal, Strade Bianche, and a stage of the Tour de France on probably the most iconic mountain in the world—not one of the 10 most versatile cyclists on the planet? Oh, someone was definitely wrong on the internet.

Supernova wrong.

Once I calmed down and went outside, I got to thinking, who are the most versatile cyclists in the world right now? We all know that the platonic ideal of versatility is 2014/15 Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, but that was like 9 years ago (wild, innit?). How does one define versatility in this golden age of cycling and who would join Mathieu van der Poel on the latter-day versatility podium?

The Original

Pauline Ferrand-Prevot is a great place to start because she was an artiste ahead of her time—and also of her time.

Women’s cycling has made huge strides in recent years in terms of receiving enough money to pay athletes to focus on one discipline. A decade ago, however, women athletes had to race much more frequently to make ends meet as an athlete. Among the athletes to do this the best in the mid-2010s were Marianne Vos and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot.

Vos excelled on the road and is still the GOAT in cyclocross. But a young Ferrand-Prevot took it a step further, winning Road Worlds in Spain in 2014, Cyclocross Worlds in Tabor in early 2015, and then completing the trifecta with the XCO Mountain Bike title in Vallnord. Injuries really set Ferrand-Prevot back in the years following her titles, and they kind of derailed her multi-discipline approach to racing.

I don’t know if it rises to the classification of irony, but it is interesting that in this golden age of multi-discipline racers, Ferrand-Prevot has committed herself to the singular discipline of mountain biking. She made a concerted return to cyclocross in the 2017/18 season, but after her catastrophic crash with Jolanda Neff at Hoogerheide in January 2018, she has only had two half-hearted seasons of ‘cross racing in 2019/20 and 2022/23.

Pauline Ferrand-Prevot has racked up a ton of titles focusing only on mountain biking these days. © Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool

Of course, focusing on mountain biking has worked out ok for Ferrand-Prevot, as she has racked up 9 world championships across XCO, Short Track, and Marathon and put her name on a very short list of contenders for greatest woman mountain biker of all time.

Impressive, but I think referring to her as your paradigm of versatility is honestly dated at this point. We probably need a new standard bearer.

The Zen of Interdisciplinary Racing

Interdisciplinary racing did not start with Ferrand-Prevot. There have been a number of successful road/’cross crossovers, including Vos, Pascal Richard, and the non-Vos GOAT Erik De Vlaeminck. However, the recent crop of riders who have successfully paired mountain biking with other disciplines is relatively new.

The crux of my argument is that to truly be considered for the title of the most versatile rider in the world, you have to successfully race on the mountain bike.

Cyclocross and road are much closer to one another as disciplines than cyclocross and mountain bike, and talk to any roadie or ‘cross racer who has tried mountain bike racing, and they will tell you the latter is infinitely harder than their preferred discipline. You could be a Cat 1 ‘cross racer and still get your doors blown off by a dude wearing baggies and a Hawaiian shirt in a Comp mountain bike race.

Extending it to the professional level, when Ceylin Alvarado raced mountain bikes as cyclocross world champion, she was a non-factor. Fem van Empel was untouchable for 2/3 of the cyclocross season and yet she struggled mightily with the technical aspects of mountain biking this season. And then Peter Sagan … lulz.

One could also argue that Ferrand-Prevot is still a multi-discipline racer because she won the Gravel World Championships last year, but yeah, no. Anyone who has done a gravel race that isn’t, like, the Rock Cobbler knows it is an easy discipline to race. You just point your bike forward and ride as hard as you can for as long as you can.

For the purposes of this argument, versatility means being able to race a mountain bike and also race across disciplines.

Many years ago, I was riffing with a friend and came up with a triple-crown race weekend we were going to hold in Wisconsin. It would be a points-based omnium with a mountain bike race one day, a cyclocross race another day, and a road race the third day. The ultimate challenge of interdisciplinarity. We even had a venue—Cam-Rock Park outside Madison—picked out (Nick Dahl I know you’re reading this and you should definitely add a few events to Cam-Rock and Roll this year).

To me, versatility means being a contender for the omnium at this fake event I made up. Let’s say each Federation got to field a team of three for the team omnium, which riders would give them the most flexibility in selecting which race they would do?

Part of the challenge in defining versatility in bike racing is that the riders at the top of the road world are excelling across different types of racing. Roadies like their labels—sprinter, GC contender, one-day specialist, rouleur—but with riders such as Demi Vollering, Lotte Kopecky, Pog, Wout, and Mathieu, those labels are starting to be blurred.

Vollering cleaned up in the one-day races this spring and then won the Tour de France Femmes. Kopecky won the green jersey at the Tour de France Femmes and then, in the words of Boedi, “Out-Wouted Wout” to win the World Championships.

Then there is Pogacar. Pog is a generational GC rider who stood out in the Spring Classics this year and who is one of the best time trialists in the world. Then Wout is Wout.

But do these abilities signify versatility? If Belgium needed a rider to compete at Mountain Bike Worlds, could they slot Wout in and expect a top 10? Could Demi Vollering jump into a ‘cross race and compete right away? Seems doubtful!

Let’s Rank Some Riders

Now normally, this is where the Bulletin would come in with some “math” based on “results.” But since the original argument that inspired this post appeared to be based on vibes, we are going to stick with a vibes-based approach.

The obvious answer for the most versatile rider in the world is Ferrand-Prevot because of the title belt unification. However, as previously discussed, that was nearly a decade ago(!) and since she is now basically a mountain biker, I don’t think she qualifies as the most versatile rider in the world right now.

She would, however, have to be the namesake of the new title belt. The PFP Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Versatility.

Based on my criteria—which are obviously correct—there are really only three riders in the conversation for most versatile cyclist in the world: Mathieu van der Poel, Puck Pieterse, and—you knew this was coming—Tom Pidcock.

Let’s look at the resumes.

Mathieu van der Poel has five cyclocross World Championships, a road World Championship, multiple XCO mountain bike World Cup wins, and wins at some of the most prestigious one-day races in cycling.

If there is an argument against Van der Poel it is that his last two efforts at racing on a mountain bike have been dumpster fires. He is your reigning Cyclocross and Road World Champion, and with the opportunity to achieve the PFP-like unification we all desired, he … crashed 3 minutes into the XCO Worlds race in Glasgow. Do you ever versatility anymore, bro?

Mathieu van der Poel: Pretty darn versatile. Expect for that pesky mountain bike, lately. © Ethan Glading

Pidcock has a cyclocross World Championship, a mountain bike World Championship, an Olympic gold medal, a Tour stage win on the most iconic mountain stage of the Tour de France, and a win at the pseudo monument of Strade Bianche.

The argument against Pidcock is he is not as good at ‘cross as Wout and Mathieu and not the threat on the road that Wout, Mathieu, and Pogacar are. But then again, he is the best male mountain biker on the face of the planet right now.

Don’t sleep on how good and versatile Tom Pidcock is. Don’t do it! © Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool

Pieterse does not have the depth of accomplishments yet, but she is on a trajectory toward racking up PFPAfOAitFoV-worthy wins. Pieterse won U23 cyclocross Worlds in 2022 and finished 2nd at Hoogerheide last winter. She just racked up four-straight XCO World Cup wins and finished 3rd in her first-ever Elite Worlds.

She also had an impressive 5th-place finish at the Strade Bianche Donne, which to me is an archetypical result for a versatile rider. Pieterse almost never races on the road, and yet she was able to jump into one of the most important one-day races and finish on the wide-angle podium.

Puck Pieterse has made a splash at a young age by racing at a high level across disciplines. © Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool

The overall PFP Award would have to go to Van der Poel based on all of the jerseys and titles he has racked up over the years.

However, it is unwise to sleep on the breadth of accomplishments that Pidcock has already achieved at just age 24. Again, he might not be as good as the others on the road and in cyclocross, but he is the best male mountain biker on the planet and he more than holds his own in those other disciplines.

And if Wout and Pog want to make a run at Van der Poel and Pidders, no time like now to mount up those knobbies and come over to the gnar side.