Tom Pidcock starts 2023 MTB campaign with Pauline Ferrand-Prévot this week

Just one week after landing on the podium of Liège-Bastogne-Liège behind Remco Evenepoel, Tom Pidcock will swap his skinny tires for fat ones as he builds toward the first UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in May.

Pidcock, the reigning European and Olympic Cross Country champion, will join World Champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot on Ineos' team for the French Cup in Guerét this weekend.

The pair will head to Switzerland for the UCI Hors Class (HC) Ökk Bike Revolution in Chur before the first World Cup in Nove Mesto as the build up toward the 2024 Olympic Games heats up.

The races will be the first of the season for Ferrand-Prévot, who signed with Ineos this year as the team's first female rider and part of their new mountain bike programme.

Last year, Pidcock also went straight from the Spring Classics into the MTB World Cup, winning two rounds in Albstadt and Nove Mesto before heading back to the road for the Tour de Suisse and Tour de France.

He returned from the Tour to race the European and World Championships, taking the title in Munich but missing out on the rainbow jersey in Les Gets and finishing in fourth.

Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) will not be competing in the pre-Tour de France MTB races, according to Sporza.

The Dutchman had planned to pick up the mountain bike after the Classics when the World Cup was due to start in Valkenburg at the start of May. However, the Valkenburg round never materialised.

Van der Poel will instead focus on the Dutch road championships and the Tour de France, building up to the Tour with a training camp in Spain and an altitude camp in La Plagne before the Tour de Suisse.

There is still time for Van der Poel to race on fat tires after the unified UCI World Championships in Glasgow in August.