The Kelso rider watched local riders race from his window – then beat them all by the age of 15 as he rose to top of the sport.
Team Picnic PostNL team’s Scottish rider Oscar Onley (Image: Getty Images)
Scottish cycling sensation Oscar Onley decided he’d compete in the Tour de France after watching the race on TV with his mum when he was ten.
The kid, from Kelso ,has now proved all doubters wrong, thrilling millions with his heroics in the world’s biggest bike race.
Oscar, 22, is currently in fourth place in the gruelling, three week spectacular, fighting it out for the white jersey prize for the best young rider.
He looks set to match Robert Millar’s best ever finish for a Scottish rider – fourth in 1884.
Friends and family in Oscar’s home town have told how he very quickly put all his eggs in one basket – throwing everything into his quest to be a top cyclist.
His sister Harriet, 19, said: “We are all thrilled at what Oscar is achieving in the Tour de France and he is doing even better than we hoped for.
Cyclist Oscar Onley posted a photo of him and sister Harriet on Instagram after a great start to this year’s “Tour”
She said: “We do all think that his success was very unlikely because he just took a notion for it when he was watching the race on TV with mum when he was around ten.
“He’d done various other sports and he was a very good cross country runner – but the cycling thing quickly stuck.
“The next thing he was asking to go along to the local club and he’s been pretty much obsessed with cycling ever since.”
Harriet, who studies marine biology at university, said Oscar had taken little interest in school once his passion for bike racing took hold.
“He got very focused on getting better and better and he was urged to get a back-up plan but he didn’t really bother with that.
“So we’re all very proud to see him doing so well in the Tour de France.”
Harriet said she had spoken to Oscar only a few times since the big race, which covers more than 2,000 miles over 21 stages.
She said: “He rides hard all day and then he has a lot of stuff to discuss with the team, We we don’t really like to bother him too much while he’s racing.
“But he is having a great time and he wants to keep it going until the end.”
Cyclist Oscar Onley with David Burgher
David Burgher was Oscar’s next door neighbour and the Kelso Wheelers club time trial champion when 10-year-old Oscar was taken along to the club by mum Sharon in 2013.
David, 54, said: “He was just a little guy who wanted to the 10 mile time trial and but he was so young that we couldn’t let him out on the open road on his own.
“We had to ask his dad, Steve, who was a black Hackney taxi driver, to accompany him on the ride.
“Steve wasn’t a serious cyclist but he got his sleeves rolled up and did the event with Oscar.
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“After the first event I don’t know how long Steve would have been able to keep up with his son. But there were lot of grown men, decent cyclists, who would have been outstripped by this skinny wee boy in the years to come, including myself.”
David, 54, said the club time trial route went past his and Oscar’s homes, which may have ignited the youngster’s cycling flame.
He said: “I was club champion for a couple of years and very much in the twilight of my competitive cycling when Oscar came along.
“I said I would retire when Oscar started to beat me, which he promptly did when he was a mere 15 years old. That said, he was beating everyone on the hill climbs well before that.”
Oscar’s talent was, by this time, being noticed by top teams and coaches.
Cyclist Oscar Onley as a young boy with Kelso Wheelers cycling Club
David said: “Four years ago, in the Tour of Britain, former top pro Steve Cummins commented to a friend on how if he’d improve on his descending he’d be world class. He was slow going down but more than made up for it on the hills.
“After crashing and breaking his collarbone three times he has certainly improved his bike handling and descending.
Oscar’s talent was spotted by bosses of French team AG2R, who signed him for their development team- meaning he was given the best of coaching and a gruelling training schedule.
He later joined the Dutch DSM team, which meant training specifically for top events and scaling hundreds of miles uphill to supercharge his climbing ability.
Viewers among the four billion worldwide audience have witnessed young Oscar mixing it with the best in the world, including three time champ Tadej Pogacar and double winner Jonas Vingegaard.
Oscar is in a dogfight with Florian Lipowitz, both for a top three podium finish and the coveted white jersey.
He hopes the young German, who is two minutes ahead, will crack in the two remaining big mountain stages.
Oscar, whose parents are English, had his big breakthrough win in 2022 at the Giro Valle d’Aosta, an Italian stage race, before he finished third at the CRO Race – a stage race in Croatia.
Cyclist Oscar Onley as a young boy with Kelso Wheelers cycling Club
In 2023 he finished third at the Tour of Switzerland then made a debut in the Tour de France in 2024 – finishing 39th.
After starring in the first week of this year’s Tour de France, Oscar posted on social media a photo taken by his mum from 2013 – of him and little sister Harriet – just after his cycling journey started.
Kitted out in Team Sky gear, he had watched their star rider Chris Froome race to second on the day and tighten his grip on the leader’s yellow jersey.
Oscar wrote: “We were on holiday somewhere in Brittany in 2013 when we watched the TT that finished at Saint-Michel. We also went for a day in San-Malo, so I could remember it a little bit.”
The Tour de France ends on Sunday.