The bolstering of Jayco-AlUla's climbing group continues, with developing British rider Finlay Pickering signing with the Australian squad through 2027.
The 22-year-old Pickering, who has raced with Bahrain-Victorious the last two seasons, joins Alessandro Covi and Andrea Vendrame as new team members to help bolster the climbing ranks, which will be depleted by the departure of both Eddie Dunbar and Chris Harper to Pinarello-Q36.5 in 2026.
“We have been following Finlay’s progression as a rider keenly, and it is fantastic to have him joining the team next season. In his two years at WorldTour level, he has already shown himself to be a very promising climber," said Jayco-AlUla's newly appointed sporting manager Gene Bates.
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"His performance at the Tour of the Alps showed his strengths in the mountains and we believe he can fit in well with our climbing group, where he can provide valuable support to the team’s leaders as well as developing himself as a rider.”
Pickering fully launched into his first concentrated season of international racing as a 19 year old, joining development squad Equipe Continentale Groupama-FDJ in 2022 and quickly finding the top step of the podium with a stage and overall win at the 2.2 ranked Tour Alsace.
He then shifted to Trinity Racing in 2023 before moving up to the WorldTour with Bahrain-Victorious in 2024 and as Pickering continued to develop and step up onto bigger stages the solid performances kept flowing. This season the rider claimed the mountains classification at the Tour of the Alps and 13th overall at the Tour de Suisse as well as fifth in the youth classification.
The rider also received a late call up to replace Damiano Caruso, who fractured his hand, at the 2025 Vuelta a España. Despite the quick turn around, with Pickering getting just 24 hours notice that he would be lining up, it was a strong Grand Tour debut with an eighth place finish on the stage to Mos. Castro de Herville.
"I’ve learned a lot about being in the WorldTour over the last two years, and now moving to Team Jayco AlUla, I can hopefully develop into being an even better bike rider,” said Pickering in a team statement.
Along with other new recruits Covi and Vendrame, other key members of the climbing group Pickering will be riding with include Luke Plapp, who won a stage of the Giro d'Italia this year, and the team's clear climbing leader Ben O'Connor, a two-time Tour de France stage winner plus Vuelta a España and World Championships runner-up.
