u/Intrepid-Reward5183

The Rockets start there first of three stage races they are participating in this week tomorrow in France. The Tour du Limousin-Périgord - Nouvelle Aquitaine is a four day punchy race with constant hills and very tough racing. Last year the team participated in this race, with the best finisher being Adrien Maire, who finished in 14th in the GC.

Stage Profiles

Stage 1 - 174.9km with 2078 metres of elevation: Stage 1 is a punchy opening day with rolling terrain all through the day (a common theme in this race). Despite the constant rolling terrain, this stage is backloaded with three categorised climbs all in the last 40 kilometres, and the last being at 166 kilometres into the stage. This stage also finishes on an uphill drag, which could lead too an up hill sprint or a solo break over the late climbs.

Stage 2 - 184.2km with 2586 metres of elevation: Stage 2 sticks to the theme of rolling terrain, with many short and steep uncategorised climbs. There are six categorised climbs on the cards, with four of those in the last 30 kilometres one after the other, with will create a much reduce finally and some very draining racing.

Stage 3 - 181.8km with 3095 metres of elevation: Stage 3 is arguably the queen stage of the race with over 3000 metres of elevation and most of the longest climbs of the race in this stage. Once again, we have six categorised climbs like the day before, with the hardest being the Suc au May at 3.9km averaging 7.1%. This tops out at just over 30 kilometres from the finish with another category two climb just under 20 kilometres later. With these two climbs in the finale and all the other earlier on, there will be some big gaps made in this stage.

Stage 4 - 178.7km with 2540 metres of elevation: The last stage of this years race contains the lowest number of categorised climbs, but despite that it is sure too host some aggressive racing. The stage finishes with a 12 kilometre circuit around the Les Mas Blanc Climb (1.8km at 4.3%) which will provide fast racing. The riders will pass the finish line three times on this circuit, which is at the top of a 720 metre uphill drag at 5.8%.

Rockets Expectations

The rockets have gone here with a relatively weak team, which is understandable considering that Renewi Tour and the Lidl Deutschland Tour both overlap with this race, and the Arctic Race of Norway has just finished. Despite that, I still feel that the Rockets can aim for a top 10 in GC this race with one of Jannis Peter, Sergio Meris, Killian Verschuren and Eivind Fougner. For many of the riders lining up here, it may be one of the only chances they get to race for themselves. I especially have high hopes for Killian, as I feel that these shorter climbs suit him well.

Despite aiming for a top 10 in GC, I hope that the riders here race aggressively and possibly look to join some early breaks. Winning a jersey such as KOM is always nice, and with the constant rolling terrain and hard racing it can be very hard to control breakaways creating the possibility to win from a break.

Feel free too share your hopes and expectations for the Rockets at the Tour du Limousin-Périgord - Nouvelle Aquitaine!

EDIT: I know the title is spelt wrong, forgot to check before I posted it..

Rider Results:

Wout Poels: 7th (70 UCI Points)

Cedrik Bakke Christophersen: 8th (60 UCI Points + 25 for stage 4)

Odd Christian Eiking: 18th (6 UCI Points)

Owen Geleijn: 42nd

Ronan Auge: 55th

Karsten Larsen Feldmann: 65th

Total UCI Points = 161

A successful week in Norway for the Rockets with two finishing in the top 10 of GC and Cedrik winning stage 4. After two disappointing stages at the start for Ronan and Karsten with limited chances to sprint for a result, the three main GC riders for this week showed up for stage 3 and 4.

On the queen stage Wout and Cedrik both finished well in 8th and 12th, and Odd not far behind in 23rd put them in a strong position to finish well.

Stage 4 then went as good as they could of wished for, with Cedrik attacking away just within the last kilometre and managing to hold off the rest of the GC group behind by 3 seconds securing his first pro win! Wout finished in that group in 10th and Odd not much further back in 18th. Wout managed to climb one place on the last stage, Cedrik climbing up 4 and Odd climbing up 7.

This result shows promise for the end of the season for the three GC riders here, and I am especially happy for Cedrik for getting his first win. After a frustrating year for him with injury and illness hampering his amount of racedays so far, the work over the summer is proving to be working and he keeps improving.

Tomorrow the Arctic Race of Norway starts, which is a 4 day stage race which starts off the Rockets busy period all the way through August and into September.

The stages for this years race consist of two bunch sprints and two hill/mountain top finishes.

Stage 1: 181.9 kms containing 1628 meters of elevation, most of which is contained within three categorised climbs at 87kms, 140.5kms and 155 kms. None of these climbs are super hard and the last summits at 30kms from the finish, which unless a team pushes super hard on them (e.g. Uno-X) its will all come back together for a bunch sprint.

Stage 2: 180 kms containing 1161 meters of elevation. This stage is the easiest on paper with only two categorised climbs topping out at 26kms and 56.6 kms which suggests that this is a nailed on sprint stage.

Stage 3: 146.5 kms containing 1731 meters of elevation. This stage is when big GC gaps can be made, with three categorised climbs during the stage with the first two at 26.5 kms and 55.5 kms. These two climbs will not make a difference, but the stage finishes on the Storheia Summit which is 3.4 kms averaging 10.8%. This finish will hold the major battle for GC and whoever does well here puts themself in a strong position to win it all.

Stage 4: 190.5 kms containing 2217 meters of elevation. The longest stage of this years edition and the stage containing the most categorised climbs with four, it sets us up for a good finally of this race. The 4 climbs are fairly spread out, with the first three topping out at 46.5 kms, 126 kms and 141.5 kms and including gradients of around 8% before the stage finishes on the final climb of the race, a 2.8 km climb averaging 8%.

The Rockets have sent a mixed team to this race to target all 4 stages. For the sprints there is Ronan and Karsten, who can both aim for top 5 finishes on stage 1 and 2. The main aim however, is for the overall GC and stages 3 and 4 aiming to score as many UCI points as possible. For that, the team have sent Wout, Odd and Cedrik. Both Odd and Cedrik have finished in the top 10 of the race before, with Odd coming second in 2021, so they both have the ability to compete for a good GC result and along side Wout I believe they will be able too.

The Rockets have struggled on races similar to this throughout this year, but I expect that with the three "leaders" they have at this race, they should be able to get on in the top 10 at a minimum, and have a good chance of getting one or two more in the top 10 too. I also expect that with a "mini" sprint train, consisting of Karsten, Ronan and Owen they would be able to compete in sprints with either two of their younger sprinters and will be aiming for results in the top 5 in the bunch sprints.

Rider Results:

Killian Verschuren - 15th (5 UCI Points)

Clément Venturini - 26th

Lander Loockx - 33rd

Jelle Johannink - 51st

Sergio Meris - 62nd

Ronan Augé - 78th

Abram Stockman - DNF

While the main focus today was Stage 5 of the Tour of Denmark and defending the GC Positions of the team, a punchy squad was racing in Spain over a hilly course. Disappointing results for most of the riders with only one riders scoring any UCI points. Sadly these results are a constant reminder of how the team needs to improve their team on hilly/mountainous terrain.

Special Mention to Killian Verschuren who put in a good rider and finished 15th. After having a poor year outside of Fleche with not many racedays, it is good to see him get the Rockets best result today and his best finish all year!

The riders that finished in the top 20 mainly consist of puncheurs who can climb well in longer efforts or classic climbers, which may suggest that the team sent the wrong type of riders to this race, such as Clement, Lander and Ronan instead of more riders like Killian such as Adrien Maire who also performed well in Fleche.

Rider Results:

Lukáš Kubiš - 2nd (170 UCI Points)

Tomáš Kopecký - 7th (70 UCI Points)

Matyáš Kopecký - 9th (50 UCI Points)

Niklas Larsen - 14th (10 UCI Points)

Wessel Mouris - 41st

Martijn Rasenberg - 47th

Rory Townsend - 75th

Total UCI Points = 300

A very good race overall with all riders performing well and helping the team to the team classification and 3 riders in the top 10, in the Rockets best stage race performance this year! The team were very active through the whole race in creating opportunities to take time and to look for stage results.

This result reinforces the fact that the Rockets are strongest in the Classic style races and is a key way in which they will be able to score for the second half of the season. With a wildcard for Renewi tour recieved and other races such as ADAC Cyclassics and ZLM tour on the calendar there are still plenty of classic style races for the Rockets to close the gap on the top 3.