The 2025 Tour de France was a voyage of discovery for Oscar Onley as he realised he could compete for a podium place in the biggest race in professional cycling.
The 22-year-old Scottish rider finished fourth overall, 12:12 down on Tadej Pogačar, after losing a third-week battle for the final podium place with Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
The German rider eventually gained 40 seconds on stage 20 to La Plagne to secure third and the best young rider's white jersey ahead of Onley. The two riders were the revelations of the 2025 Tour de France, enjoying their own battle behind Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.
Onley will next race at the Tour of Britain, then head to Canada for the one-day WorldTour race and then to Rwanda for the World Championships, where he is expected to share leadership of the Great Britain team with Tom Pidcock. He wants to return to the Tour de France in 2026 to 'back up' his results of 2025.
Onley is quiet-spoken and modest and admitted he started the Tour in Lille with lesser goals, despite his strong showing and third place at the Tour de Suisse.
"Coming into the Tour, there was no focus on GC," Onley revealed to Luke Rowe during the latest episode of the Watts Occurring podcast.
"But we got to the TT and I was in a decent position and was just told to go all out, just see where you are. In the days after that, it just happened quite naturally that I kind of slid into the top 10.
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"I had never done the long climbs, especially with the level of riders in the Tour, so I was fully expecting to crack one day or lose time. But I knew that I was still in good shape, so I wasn't really stressed about it."
Onley finished fourth on the aggressive stage to Rouen and third on the uphill finish to Mûr-de-Bretagne, rubbing shoulders with Pogačar and even Mathieu van der Poel.
During the second and third week of the Tour, he climbed from 11th after the time trial to seventh and then up to fourth. His consistency and calm were impressive.
"In the first week, I set myself goals of wanting to be up there on those kind of punchier stages, and so even though they are big riders, it was really cool to be up against them," he said.
'In the back of my mind, I kind of expected to or I hoped to be there, but it was really on the mountain stages that surprised me. OK, Pogačar and Vingegaard were a little bit ahead, but I was kind of third or fourth, with Lipowitz and Roglič.
"On the Col de la Loze stage, I think that was the real defining moment, when it was just the three of us in the final two kilometres, that was quite special. I remember riding behind them and thinking, it doesn't really get much bigger than this. It was quite cool."
Worlds in Rwanda and the 2026 Tour de France
Oscar Onley with Tadej Pogacar and Florian Lipowitz during the Tour de France (Image credit: Getty Images)
He then enjoyed a few days off but is already at his base in Andorra, using the altitude to prepare for the end of season and especially the World Championships in Rwanda that will be raced at a similar altitude and includes 5200 metres of altitude gain.
'That's the real big goal for the end of the season," Onley confirmed.
"A lot of guys are at Vuelta or other races, so I'm trying to take that advantage and really focus on Worlds. With good preparation and hopefully coming out of the Tour, then maybe I can make a step up from last year. I was in the mix until the last lap and then the lights really went out."
In the Tour of Britain, Onley will witness Geraint Thomas' retirement, and, in many ways, he has become the Welshman's Grand Tour heir apparent and potentially the best British Tour de France rider for the years to come, as the Yates brothers also near the end of their careers.
"Hopefully, I can also step up from this. Obviously, it's given me a lot of motivation, but to be honest, it's not something I was even sure I could do," Onley admitted.
"I had never gone all out every day for three weeks and especially not on longer climbs as well. So before the Tour, I wasn't really sure what kind of rider I was. I had a decent kick on an uphill finish and obviously like the shorter climbs, but I'd never really tested myself over the longer climbs.
"But I think I'm realistic as well. I know that just because you got fourth this year doesn't mean you're going to podium or even get fourth next year. There's so many guys that can step up. It just takes one bad moment or a bit of bad luck and it's over. I'm also aware of that."
"Obviously, for the long term, it's focusing on trying to at least finish on the podium. I don't want to say I want to win it because I haven't really thought of it, but I guess it's definitely a goal or a dream at least."
A logical step would be to target the Giro d'Italia or the Vuelta a España before targeting the Tour de France. Yet Onley has fallen in love with the Tour.
"I was saying this to someone a couple of weeks ago, that after you do the Tour, you don't really want to do another Grand Tour because it's so much bigger," he said.
"I've never done the Giro, and I did one stage of the 2023 Vuelta, but the Tour is so much bigger than every other race, so that now I need to keep doing it. The sport doesn't get bigger than this.
"At least for now, I'm really motivated to go back to the Tour to try and back it up."
Stephen is one of the most experienced members of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. Before becoming Editor-at-large, he was Head of News at Cyclingnews. He has previously worked for Shift Active Media, Reuters and Cycling Weekly. He is a member of the Board of the Association Internationale des Journalistes du Cyclisme (AIJC).
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