Cyclingnews understands that Picnic PostNL have refused a number of formal and informal offers from rival WordTour teams to buy Oscar Onley out of his contract. At least for now, the talented Scot is on their roster for 2026 and expected to arrive at the team's Spanish training camp on Tuesday.
Onley is currently traveling from Australia to Spain after spending the winter down under and recently riding the Tour of Bright event.
His fourth place overall at the Tour de France made him one of the revelations of 2025 and his UCI points helped save Picnic PostNL from WorldTour relegation. However, his success and future Grand Tour potential have sparked huge interest from wealthier rival teams.
Onley has a contract with Picnic PostNL until the end of 2027 but Cyclingnews understands he and his agent Eelco Berkout of the SEG agency have yet to agree a new deal that reflects and rewards Onley's 2025 results. Berkout preferred not to comment about any ongoing negotiations with Picnic PostNL when contacted by Cyclingnews.
Onley's comments about his future to Cyclingnews only fueled a report last week on Daniel Benson's Cycling Substack that Ineos Grenadiers are one of the teams working on trying to sign him.
"For now, yes. We'll see. But yeah, it's still things up in the air a little bit," Onley told Cyclingnews when asked if he would still be in Picnic PostNL colours in 2026.
When asked if he was considering Ineos, Onley told Cyclingnews: "It's quite obvious that there's going to be interest in me after coming fourth in the Tour, and there's been, I think, probably 15 teams that have reached out to my manager or reached out to the team directly.
"And you know … you also have to capitalise on what I've done this year, but, yeah, I can't really say so much just now."
Picnic PostNL refused to comment about Onley's future at the team when contacted by Cyclingnews on Tuesday. They expected Onley to attend the December training camp on the Spanish coast. The team has already planned their race calendar for 2026 with Onley scheduled to make his season debut at the Tour Down Under.
Picnic PostNL appear to be standing firm and refusing the offers from rival WorldTour teams, at least for now. Any deal would have to be a three-party agreement that satisfies Picnic PostNL, with the UCI then giving final approval based on their regulations.
Team manager Iwan Spekenbrink has regularly used 'rider trading' to boost his team's budget and release riders who claimed to be unhappy with the team's way of working and strict protocols.
Tom Dumoulin ended his contract early to transfer to Jumbo-Visma for 2020, while Marcel Kittel also left a year before the end of his contract to join Etixx–QuickStep in 2015. Other riders to make similar moves include Michael Matthews and Marc Hirschi.
If a huge offer arrived for Onley from Ineos or another big-budget team, Picnic PostNL may decide to ultimately cut a deal and invest the cash in other riders and future talents. However, they would lose their team leader and Grand Tour hope and would need other riders to score vital ranking points in the next three-year WorldTour cycle.
Rider trading has become more frequent in recent years as riders become unhappy and feel locked into long contracts.
Remco Evenepoel will be presented as a Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider on Wednesday in Mallorca after striking a deal to end his contract with Soudal-QuickStep a year early. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe reportedly covered a fee of six million Euro to secure Evenepoel's signature and become their Tour de France leader.
Lidl-Trek signed Juan Ayuso after his fallout with UAE Team Emirates, with reports the German team will pay ten million Euro as part of the deal.
It is unclear how much Picnic PostNL would be willing to accept and if Ineos even have the funds in place for such a deal. Ineos have also been linked to Derek Gee after the Canadian unilaterally terminated his contract with Israel-Premier Tech before the team was taken over by NSN.
