The Tour de France could hardly have got off to a better start for Oscar Onley’s DSM-firmenich-PostNL squad, with a stage 1 victory and overall lead for their veteran leader Romain Bardet. But even while Bardet is riding his last-ever Tour, Onley is currently embarked on his first, and after a relatively quiet first week, he’s itching to raise the bar a little for himself in weeks two and three.
At 47th overall, Onley confirmed to Cyclingnews at the start of stage 10 that Bardet’s victory and spell in yellow had reverberated deeply in the team, as well as personally and further afield.
Onley himself had still been adapting after a recent return from altitude training in the first part of the Tour, he explained, with the idea that it would work out for him well in the mid to long term in the race.
Starting with stage 11 through the Massif Centrale, he’s looking for that to happen, he said, given the day has breakaway written all over it. With 4,200 metres of vertical climbing, it should also suit the mountain specialists like himself. On top of what Bardet achieved, of course, can only help deepen his motivation.
“It’s definitely a big morale boost, to come into my first Tour and we win the first stage, that was pretty incredible,” the 21-year-old said before the stage 10 start in Orléans.
“The attention we got after that was something quite overwhelming. Obviously, this is Romain’s last Tour, so for him to get the yellow jersey - we’re all really happy.
“For sure, I grew up watching him and now, to be riding next to him and trying and help him where I can, that’s something very special.”
Stage 11, Onley said, was definitely a day that could suit him to strike out on his own account and be a stage for him to have a go “for sure".
His one Grand Tour to date was the Vuelta a España where he crashed out on stage 2, essentially making this July his Grand Tour debut. Aware that he was riding in a much bigger arena than anything in which he’s yet taken part, Onley was still keeping his feet on the ground about how it might play out.
“I’m hoping now that the stages coming up will suit me better, I’ve not really done anything so far in this race, so I’m hoping to try and get in some breaks and see how it goes,” he said.
“I’m still quite ambitious but I also know how hard the level is here. So first I need to get in those breaks and take it from there. Hopefully, I’ll start coming into my own now.”
Riding over the Galibier and through the Alps on stage 4 - where he placed 42nd - was good in some ways as a reference point, he said. But it also came a little too early in his own personal progress in the Tour to be a totally clear one.
“It was a little bit of both,” he explained to Cyclingnews. “Coming into this race, it wasn’t one of the stages I targeted. I’d just came down from altitude straight to here at the Tour, so I was quite realistic I would probably struggle in the following few days.
“But my goal wasn’t GC or anything, we knew that, and hopefully altitude camp I’ve done will help me this week now and in the third week as well.”
As has been widely predicted, stage 11 looks very much like a day for the breaks as happened in two other appearances. The Tour finished in Lioran in 2016, with a solo win for Greg Van Avermaet, and in 2020, when Dani Martínez won on the Puy Mary, which is the hardest climb of Wednesday’s stage.
“There will definitely be a big move from the gun,” Onley recognised. “On Sunday on the gravel stage, it showed that everybody wanted to be in the break, and there aren’t many opportunities for breaks this year, either, so far. So on a day when there is one good chance, everybody wants to be there.
“We have the numbers that can be there and we need to try and play it right, and hopefully we can have a few guys in it, particularly if it’s a bigger move.”
After Bardet’s early, spectacular victory in Italy, he concluded, “the pressure’s off [to win] but we’re also ambitious and we want to go on winning.
"It doesn’t matter if you win one stage or five stages, you’re always searching for that next one.” And in the mountains of the Massif Centrale, that could just be the place to make it happen.
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