This was our Tour de France 2025

The plan was simple: fight for stage victories, show our colours, and race with guts. But as the days ticked by and Oscar Onley kept climbing with the best, something began to shift. What started as a Tour of opportunity turned into a Tour of belief. Here’s how the race unfolded — week by week — and how Team Picnic PostNL delivered one of its most memorable Grand Tours to date.

Week 1 — Sprints, punchy finishes, and a rising GC hope

From the chaos of stage 1 in Lille to the explosive hilltop finishes and sprints in the following days, the first week of the Tour was all about fast legs and fast thinking. Our team was built for this terrain — and it showed. Tobias Lund Andresen and Pavel Bittner were consistently in the mix on the flatter days, while Oscar Onley impressed with his explosive climbing and ability to read the race. His strong, consistent results in a tense opening block put him among the best young riders in the Tour — and quietly inside the top ten of the general classification. The plan to chase stage wins was still the focus, but in the background, a new narrative was starting to emerge.

Week 2 — Into the mountains

The second week may have been short, but it was brutal. Three back-to-back mountain stages blew the race apart — and confirmed what we were starting to believe: Oscar Onley wasn’t just surviving; he was thriving. Each summit finish pushed the limits, but Onley kept stepping up, climbing with names like Vingegaard and Pogacar. Stage after stage, the gap to the podium grew smaller, and so did the list of contenders. As a team, we adapted. The goal was no longer just a stage win — we were racing for the general classification. After the mountain time trial on stage 13, Team Picnic PostNL and Oscar Onley were in the top five overall, with momentum and belief growing by the day.

Week 3 — Dreaming big, delivering bigger

The final week was a test of everything: legs, nerves, teamwork, resilience. The legendary Mont Ventoux reappeared, and the Alpine double-header to Col de La Loze in stage 18 and La Plagne in stage 19 proved decisive. On stage 18, Onley rode one of the strongest performances of his career. Supported brilliantly deep into the climb, he finished fourth atop Col de la Loze, solidifying his fourth place in the general classification — a phenomenal result in his first attempt at riding a GC. The very next day, Frank van den Broek animated the breakaway and rode to second place in Pontarlier after a full day up the road. It was our 13th top-ten result of the race — a staggering testament to how consistently strong the team had been. The final stage into Paris, reworked with the steep Montmartre climb, brought one last challenge. Despite the rain and tension, our team stayed sharp and safe. Onley crossed the line with his teammates to officially secure fourth place in the general classification of the Tour de France 2025.

Built from within. Ready for more.

Six of the eight riders in our Tour line-up came through the Team Picnic PostNL Development program: Lund Andresen, Bittner, Märkl, Naberman, Onley and Van den Broek. This Tour was proof of what’s possible when you invest in talent, trust the process, and race with ambition.

We started this Tour hunting stages. We finished it fighting for the podium. And we did it together.

This was our Tour de France 2025. One to remember.