This isn’t mountain biking, but the lad has done enough on proper knobbly tired bikes to claim him as one of our own. This is Tom Pidcock going full gas down a road in Bavaria, hitting blind bends at 80kph as he carves the switchbacks with perfect control. Honestly, you’ll have sweaty palms by the end of it.

Apparently this road is called the Rossfeld Panoramastrasse, and Pidcock’s hammering of it is designed to showcase how dangerous road riding is, and how fast and committed a rider the young Leeds mountain biker really is. It’s easy to see why the edit is called The Sound of Tarmac too, turn it up.

So, take a break from watching downhill riders go silly fast in the dust at Val Di Sole this weekend, and check out Tom Pidcock at his best.

Tom Pidcock racing at U23 level in Leogang. He went on to win the 2020 junior World Cup, two Olympic golds and multiple XC races

Back in January we learnt that Pidcock wouldn’t race off-road at all in 2025, choosing instead to concentrate on his road career. I said at the time that would leave Mathieu Van Der Peil to take over from Tom Pidcock as the ‘roadies mountain biker’, which shows just how badly I misjudged that one. The Dutch rider suffered two crashes at the XCO in Nove Mesto back in May, and didn’t finish the race.

Pidock is being sorely missed off-road too, after winning Gold at the Paris Olympics last summer and cementing his reputation as the world’s best XC rider.

Here’s what Red Bull said of the downhill demonstration…

Pidcock needs to be riding mountain bikes, with sick lines like this // Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool

The two-time Olympic Gold medallist is followed closely by Mathias Walkner, the 2018 Dakar Rally Champion, who captures the adrenaline rush of the hairpin bends and steep decline in perfect detail with the stunning Bavarian landscape as the backdrop.

‘The Sound of Tarmac‘ encapsulates the enormous risks of professional road cycling, bringing into sharp focus the pure speed and remarkable trajectories that world class cyclists like Tom Pidcock master on a regular basis.

On the back of several strong showings as he finished 16th overall in his first ever Giro d’Italia, the Red Bull athlete completed this epic ride as he prepares for his next Grand Tour event, the Vuelta a España in August.