Pidcock made no bones about the conditions on stage 3: 'We must have gone through 10,000 bidons today'

Many experts predicted that Tom Pidcock had a good chance of winning the second and third stages of the Tour de France. The Brit riding for Pinarello - Q3.65 went for it in both cases, but had to admit afterward that things got a bit too hot for him at the front. Literally and figuratively, as his reaction suggests.

Pidcock put his Pinarello-Q36.5 riders to work at stage 2 on Sunday in Barcelona, but kept his team on the sidelines during Stage 3. In the end, UAE Emirates-XRG took control, and it turned out to be a day for the riders from the peloton after all, with Tadej Pogacar leading the way.

Wasn't Pidcock surprised by that? “Of course, they’d gained so much confidence that they knew they could do it,” he said, referring to Del Toro’s victory on Sunday. “And yes, they’re capable of that. I think they’re the only team that can control a day like today. They did it for a reason, and it worked.”

Pidcock finished sixteenth in Les Angers, on a climb that should normally suit him well. “I don’t think I’ve ever ridden such a tough race in such heat before. It was ridiculous. It was like a war zone where everyone was trying to… I think we must have gone through 10,000 water bottles today,” he sighed.

"I had absolutely nothing left in the final, so that was basically it," he concluded in his interview with Cyclism'Actu.

Australian climber Chris Harper highlighted just how demanding stage 3 was, with an intense battle for the breakaway taking its toll on those who were just trying to stay with the peloton and stay cool.

"I think sometimes on these days everyone wants to be in the breakaway and then we race for so long," said Harper on the Pinarello Q36.5 website. we get to a point where someone like Pog's like, 'Well, I may as well just win.' I guess once you get over that first climb, if they don't have to use any of their climbers and can just rely on their big engines, then once they take over it's really hard for the break to stay away. The longer it takes for the move to go, the harder it becomes for those riders to make it to the finish," concluded the Aussie