Tom Evans Beat Tom Pidcock and His Mountain Bike to the Top of Snowdon

Tom Evans beat Tom Pidcock to the summit of Yr Wyddfa on foot. Pidcock, who is the Olympic and world cross-country champion on a mountain bike, was off that bike and pushing it well before the top.

Red Bull, which sponsors both of them, set the two on the same climb, roughly 7 kilometers of it and close to 1,000 meters of ascent.

Pidcock had won his second elite cross-country world title only 10 days earlier, and by the UCI’s account he did it from the fifth row of the grid in Val di Sole, finishing 17 seconds clear of his compatriot Charlie Aldridge. He came ninth at this year’s Tour de France, and he has Olympic cross-country golds from Tokyo and Paris.

Evans arrived with an odd season behind him. He won UTMB in 2025 in 19:18:58 after years of trying, and has finished exactly one race since: the Yorkshire Three Peaks in April, which he won by more than 15 minutes in 3:02:17. He dropped out of Transgrancanaria in March, out of the Hardrock 100 in July at mile 58, and then withdrew from UTMB in August as defending champion, 15 days before the start and without saying why. Ben Dhiman won it instead, in 18:16:29.

What the Ground Did

Red Bull has not named the route. The profile it gave, about 7 kilometers with something near 1,000 meters of climbing and a tarmac start, matches the Llanberis Path, which is one of the mountain’s bridleways and the only one of them that begins on a road out of the village.

Pidcock had the tarmac and not much else. Evans was still with him when it ran out, which Pidcock noticed out loud, in a line Pinkbike transcribed from the film: “Are you still here? I thought we’d have the head start here after the road, but he’s already ahead of me.”

Brujula Bike reported what happened above that. The stones were wet and the gradient rose, Pidcock lost traction and then spent the harder sections pushing and carrying the bike, Evans opened a gap with about 2 kilometers to go, and rain, wind and thickening fog came in near the summit, 1,085 meters (3,560 feet) up. Pidcock said at the end that it had not been the best way to climb that terrain.

Steep ground gets the better of runners too, and the good ones hike the worst of a climb rather than run it. Evans just had nothing to lift.

Runners Have Been Racing That Path Since 1976

Ras yr Wyddfa goes up the Llanberis Path and straight back down it, 10 miles in all from Cae Ddol in Llanberis, up the tarmac road and then the footpath under the Half Way and Clogwyn railway bridges. The men’s course record is Kenny Stuart’s 1:02:29, set in 1985, and Carol Greenwood’s 1:12:48 has stood since 1993. This July’s edition drew more than 450 runners and went to Massimiliano Berti of Italy in 1:04:13, with Emily McNicol of Scotland first woman in 1:16:56. It was only the 49th running in the race’s 50th year, because 2020 and 2021 were lost to the pandemic.

Two other races on the mountain never started this summer. The Snowdonia Trail Marathon Eryri and the Yr Wyddfa 24 were both called off at 7 p.m. the evening before, after the organizer’s on-course monitors read up to 34 C.

Bikes Are Asked to Stay Off in Summer

Eryri National Park runs a voluntary cycling agreement up there, and it asks riders not to cycle to or from the summit along the mountain’s bridleways between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. from May 1 to Sept. 30. The Llanberis Path is on the list, with the Miners’ Path from Pen y Pass to Llyn Llydaw, the Snowdon Ranger Path to the summit and the Rhyd Ddu Path from Pen ar Lôn upward. The park’s stated reason is to ensure the safety and enjoyment of everyone on the mountain, which it puts alongside the more than 600,000 walkers who reach the summit each year. It is a request rather than a byelaw, though the Countryside Act 1968 does require cyclists on bridleways to give way to walkers and horse riders. The restriction lifts on Oct. 1.