Tom Gloag | Our man in Colombia

The British Continental

We’re really pleased to bring you what we believe is another very special episode. It’s an in-depth interview with Trinity Racing’s Tom Gloag, a rider who we have rated for some time now as one of the best under-23 British riders yet to turn pro.

Readers of our website will already know that we’ve long-lauded Tom’s potential. As a junior, for example, he took a stage win and finished second overall at the Kingdom Junior Classic, was third overall at the Sint-Martinusprijs Kontich Juniors stage race, and also took wins in the Spanish junior one-day races Zumarraga and Torneo Euskal Herria. He then capped the year off with a stage win in the Junior Tour of Wales.
Insiders at his club VC Londres – the club that has helped to produce talents including Ethan Hayter and Fred Wright – were also tipping him for a bright future. Our formal journal contributor George Jary, for example, told us that: “Tom is pure passion on a bike. A style reminiscent of Dan Martin, not scared to go long and a hunger to race. Never phased by setbacks Tom gets on with it and gets stuck in.” We duly included him on our list of first-year under-23s to watch.

Despite the hype, we weren’t expecting Tom to make the impact he last year. The transition to the espoirs ranks from junior level can be tough. And with few racing opportunities for Tom and his peers in 2020, our expectations for him were muted when he took to the start of the Baby Giro this year. Not least because he’d need to ride in the service of one of the pre-race favourites, and eventual winner, Tom Pidcock.

Despite this, he finished 14th overall, including two top 10 finishes on the toughest two stages of the race. He then topped his season off by finishing 7th on Spain’s biggest amateur one day race, the Memorial Valenciaga.
Since then, Tom has taken a rather different approach to his off-season training to most British riders, flying out to Colombia at the beginning of the year to train and race with the Chaves brothers, Bryan and his better known sibling Esteban. And it’s from his base in Tenjo, just north of Bogatá, that we caught up with him last month.

In this interview, we ask Tom tell’s us about what it was like growing up racing alongside Ethan Hayter, Fred Wright and others, why he’s only taken bike racing seriously until relatively recently, his Junior Tour of Wales TT cock-up, his Baby Giro exploits, his Colombia expedition, cheese donuts, the Chaves brothers, Twister ice lollies and much more besides. We think it’s a great listen, so we hope you enjoy.
Follow Tom's exploits in Columbia through vc.letsgetit on Instagram.

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