After signing with Netcompany-Ineos late last year having spent five seasons with his previous team, Picnic Post-NL, illness and injury hampered the opening months of Onley’s stint with his new team. Having been signed as a leader, Onley’s early season results did not match the potential he had shown in 2025, with a fourth place finish in last summer’s Tour de France a particular highlight of last season.

However, the second half of this season was a different story entirely for Onley. His most notable results were his sixth place in the general classification standings at the Vuelta a Espãna, where he also picked up the white jersey for best young rider, before an outstanding ride for GB at the World Road Cycling Championships saw him secure a top 20 finish in the road race.

Oscar Onley won the white jersey for best young rider at the 2026 Vuelta a Espana (Image: Getty Images)

Having ended his season last week with a fourteenth place finish at Il Lombardia, Onley has already begun his preparations for 2027. Netcompany-Ineos’ first training camp of the off-season is currently underway in the Danish city of Copenhagen and Onley hopes to build upon his impressive recent results as he begins to prepare both his mind and his body for next year.

“We have a camp in October where we sit down and reassess the season and look towards next year, and that's where the first ideas come for the races next year. I do have a say in the races I want to do throughout the year but, ultimately, it's the team's decision on who they want to take to those races. ” the 24-year-old Scot said.

“Coming into this year having joined INEOS, we looked at this as a bit of a transition year.

“Obviously I wanted to perform but it takes some time to get used to how the team works. I think that part went quite well but then there's other things that were out of my control. I've learned a lot this year, and it was good to get back on track in the Vuelta a Burgos (in which Onley was second) and the Vuelta.

“It was nice to be back fighting for wins and top results, and that's something I can take forward into next year.”

2027 will, there is little doubt, be a monumental year for Onley.

The Kelso native will, firstly, be aiming for greater consistency throughout the course of the season but there is one race in particular that is especially significant for Onley.

The 2027 Tour de France has, twice before, in 2007 and 2014, begun in the UK but next year the biggest bike race in the world will, for the first time ever, begin in Scotland.

With the Tour’s Grand Départ taking place in Edinburgh next July, home rider Onley will be one of the star attractions and while it’s too early for the Scot to be certain that he’ll be on the start line of the 2027 Tour de France, he’s quick to acknowledge that riding a stage of the Tour in his home country would be a career highlight and it will, he hopes, generate a similar boost to the sport that happened 12 years ago when the Grand Départ took place in Yorkshire.

“It's going to be special having the Grand Départ in Scotland and then going through the whole of the UK,” he says.

“If you look at the last time the Tour was in the UK, in Yorkshire, and what that did for British Cycling - that was something quite big. Basically, all the riders in the British team are people that grew-up watching the Tour in 2014.

“For me personally, to be on home roads in that first stage would be really special so I'm looking forward to it, but I've still got to get there first - and nothing ever goes smoothly in cycling.

“I'd love to be at the Tour next year, not just because it starts in the UK but because it's the biggest race in the world and every rider wants to do it. And, with it starting in Edinburgh is extra motivation.”