Tom Pidcock may be both the world and Olympic mountain bike cross-country champion after Saturday's success in Glentress Forest but he knows he remains an "outsider" in the discipline's tight community.

Leeds star Pidcock, who was once a key member of the Bradford-based Paul Milnes team, underlined his supremacy in Saturday's cross-country Olympic race at the UCI Cycling World Championships.

He shrugged off mechanical problems to comfortably beat Sam Gaze, with 10-time world champion Nino Schurter taking bronze.

But after a weekend of recriminations over preferential grid placements given to a handful of star riders - something Pidcock condemned despite benefitting from - and complaints over his aggressive racing style, the 24-year-old admitted his titles do not give him full membership of the club.

Pidcock, who once opened a purpose-built cycling track at Horton Park Primary School on the Canterbury estate in Bradford, secured bronze with a late lunge into the final corner of Thursday's race.

But in doing so, he sent Luca Schwarzbauer to the ground, and the German then complained that "no mountain biker would do this at all, like a pure mountain biker, (of) the community".

Pidcock had defended his riding style after the race by quoting Ayrton Senna, saying "if you no longer go for a gap, you're no longer a (racer)".

Asked about Schwarzbauer's comments yesterday, Pidcock told PA Media: "For sure I am an outsider. I don't know everyone super well. I know the people I see frequently and race against and the British guys, but I am an outsider.

"I don't do all the races. I don't know everybody. I only know a few teams that I've worked with in the past, but I am an outsider and when I'm at a race I feel that."