'Every cloud has a silver lining' – Picnic PostNL gambling on young riders and buy-out cash to try to fill void left by Oscar Onley

When Oscar Onley's transfer to Ineos Grenadiers was confirmed at the end of 2025, Picnic PostNL quietly accepted a reported payment of several million Euros and quickly got on with preparing for the 2026 season and accelerated their search for the next generation of talented riders.

"We have full confidence in our structure and development pipeline," the team said in a carefully worded statement, with little sense of regret of losing the Scottish climber.

"We remain ambitious and trust in our ability as a team to continue producing world-class riders and be competitive with the talent that we have in the years ahead. We expect to return to full strength quickly."

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Picnic PostNL lost their men's team leader and Tour de France contender but not their soul or mission. In 2026 the Netherlands-based team will still chase success out on the road, whether that's UCI ranking points to ensure their WorldTour survival or working on developing their next breakthrough talent.

"What happened with Oscar is not a result of working poorly; it's a result of working well. It's a confirmation of our work," team manager Iwan Spekenbrink told Cyclingnews and Daniel Benson's Cycling Substack during the team's recent January training camp in Calpe, Spain.

"When you are successful, a lot of riders can do well. When you do a good job and a lot of people are successful, you have to make choices. That happened with Oscar, and we had to put the best interests of the team first."

Onley will be missed in 2026. He is now a proven Grand Tour contender and so Picnic PostNL will have to change their race strategy for 2026.

"On one hand, it's a blow for our plans but actually it's just the nature of sport and cycling," Picnic PostNL sports director Phil West told Cyclingnews in Calpe.

West is part of the core coaching and sports director group that includes fellow Briton Matt Winston, Head of Coaching Rudi Kemna, and others. They plan the team's race calendar, ambitions, ranking points strategy and also riders' training and development.

"We've had to rethink about what we do this year, and how we go about it. We can race a little differently without Oscar and try a different approach."

The UCI WorldTour structure is often criticised, but its open and competitive sporting and economic criteria allows for very different kinds of teams to coexist.

The WorldTour super teams with €50 million budgets fight for the biggest victories but Picnic PostNL, whose budget is around €20 million, have a different strategy. They find and develop young riders, still secure excellent return on investment for their sponsors, but let their riders leave if they are not happy or trade them if they have huge success and huge contract offers from rival teams.

Spekenbrink has managed the team since 2007. The likes of Tom Dumoulin, Marcel Kittel, Michael Matthews, Marc Hirschi, Jai Hindley and others have all left the men's team over the years, often clashing with the strict protocols and ways of working. Yet Spekenbrink refuses to change his ethics and philosophy, believing in the way he operates.

"Two years ago, few people knew much about Oscar, we have a way of finding talent," Spekenbrink said.

"If you look at what we do, we're good at recruiting riders and at rider development."

Playing Moneyball with Onley's millio Euro transfer fee

Spekenbrink will use the transfer fee he secured from Ineos – which is in the region of a few million Euros, with some publications estimating up to €6 million – to cover some holes in the team's budgets and invest in other riders for 2027 and beyond.

"We always want to grow," he said. "We're always thinking about where to invest money, in the middle term, or long term. It's always about balancing how you spend that money.

"We have confidence in what's coming. We are very positive about what and who is in the pipeline. And we try to keep the best guys longer, maybe by putting in high transfer clauses up front so that we are protected. We will do that from now on."

The 2026 Picnic PostNL roster is one of the youngest in the men's WorldTour. Their women's team is also weaker than in the past after losing Charlotte Kool and talented stage race rider Nienke Vinke.

The men's team has an average of 25.9 years, making Picnic PostNL the fifth youngest team in the 2026 WorldTour, just a year higher than fellow relegation battlers Lotto Intermarché. Lidl-Trek has the highest average rider age of 28.7, according to ProCyclingStats. The women's Picnic PostNL team has the lowest age average in the Women's WorldTour of just 23 but is also starting a process of rejuvenation.

Many of the eight signings to the men's 2026 team are 'Moneyball' style signings. Spekenbrink is no Paul DePodesta, nor Brad Pitt, but he has made calculated bets on Italy's Mattia Gaffuri after his success with the Swatt Club amateur team, on 26-year-old Irish rider Dillon Corkery, 20-year-old Oliver Peace who came via the Picnic PostNL development team and experienced mountain domestique James Knox and Timo de Jong, who won a stage of the Tour of Holland on the VAM-berg climb.

Trusted team leader Romain Bardet has retired and Tobias Lund Andresen has moved to Decathlon CMA CGM but Max Poole has recovered from the Epstein-Barr virus and will target the GC at the Giro d'Italia this year. Fabio Jakobsen has recovered from his Iliac artery problem, with Pavel Bittner and Casper van Uden as sprint and point scoring alternatives. Frank van den Broek will have more stage race opportunities, while Warren Barguil, Chris Hamilton and John Degenkolb are again veteran road captains and role models.

The Picnic PostNL development team now faces competition from rival WorldTour teams for the best young riders but has 16 ambitious riders on the 2026 roster, including Britain's Finn O'Brien, successful Junior Matthew Peace and Jacob Bush.

"People don't realise how young riders evolve and improve just in a year or two years, especially in modern cycling," West pointed out.

"Our development program is a massive thing and we've seen our work really come to fruition with Oscar, Max, and many other riders.

"Talented young guys to watch for in the WorldTour programme include Britain's Bjorn Koerdt who turned pro in 2025, and Juan Guillermo Martinez who was third at the Presidential Cycling Tour of Türkiye. We've also signed Dillon Corkery and Timo de Jong, who are older but will fit in our Classics and sprint groups. These guys who are bubbling underneath and benefiting from the exposure when they're racing with guys like Oscar and Max."

Picnic PostNL know they also have to chase UCI ranking points as they help their young riders develop in 2026. They do not follow a specific points scoring strategy like XDS-Astana but are well aware of the risk and pressure of a relegation battle.

"Obviously it's become bigger and bigger in the last two WorldTour cycles and it's always there, in our minds," West admitted, as a new three-year WorldTour cycle begins in 2026.

"But our philosophy is to first put our focus on the process and how we get the results, how we approach the race. Then typically when we get that right, the result and the points scoring feed into that. We know that if needed, we can always turn the dial up and try to harvest more points.

"But you could get easily distracted by chasing points. Some do it successfully but for us it's always proved more fruitful if we focus on the wider plan. How we race is the only thing we can control."

Max Poole's Giro GC ambitions and adding a bigger buy-out fee to his contract

Max Poole is the natural heir to Onley's stage race leadership role. He also came through the Picnic PostNL development and is still only 22. He has recovered from the Epstein-Barr virus that derailed the latter part of 2025 and is ambitious for the years ahead.

Poole won the 2024 Tour de Langkawi and impressed at the 2024 Vuelta a España, where he finished on the podium four times in the second half of the race and was fifth in the best young rider competition. Before being struck by Epstein-Barr in the summer of 2025, Poole was 11th at the Giro d'Italia despite a disrupted spring and two bad days, including losing five minutes on the gravel stage to Siena.

"I was good enough for perhaps fifth in the Giro, and that was with bad preparation," Poole told Cyclingnews.

"I want to try and do the GC at the 2026 Giro. This year, I hope to have a clean run, not chase anything and not have to worry about trying to cram in my training and build-up.

"There's definitely a lot more I can get out of myself, and obviously, I'll take responsibility for that. I'll also push the team around me and challenge them to also step up."

Poole's contract ends in 2027 but Picnic PostNL will try to extend it before a breakthrough result at the Giro in May. Spekenbrink knows he will face competition from rival WorldTour teams, as he did with Onley, but hopes to convince Poole to stay and sign a deal that includes a significant buy out clause.

Spekenbrink has already told Cyclingnews he is in favour of a structured and regulated transfer and rider trading system like those that exists in other sports.

"In football, you can change teams, but you have to agree to a transfer fee. Now, too many games are being played in cycling, especially by agents. It's chaos," he said.

"With a real transfer system, you know the transfer fee and you can think strategically and even prepare a reserve roster and make your own signings.

"We will adjust our contract strategy going forward. We've known Max for a long time, how he works and how ambitious he is. We hope to keep him in the team for a lot longer."

Losing Onley to Ineos could have forced Picnic PostNL to change their Grand Tour strategy and make Poole as team leader but they have stuck to their plans and philosophy.

"The important thing is to make goals that are really relevant and in the right direction for that ride," West explained.

"So we'll continue with Max targeting the GC at the Giro and we'll go to the Tour to be offensive and chase stages with riders like Pavel Bittner.

"Not having Oscar means we can also allow the young riders to step up and develop. We can expose them to something that maybe they wouldn't have been able to experience had Oscar still been with us. Losing Oscar was a pity but every cloud has a silver lining."