https://rocketscycling.substack.com/p/victor-lafay-tells-the-story-behind

Bas Tietema: "10 wins. For the first time ever that we Rockets Cycling are reaching that number in one season.

2025: Five wins.

2024: Four wins.

2023: Three wins.

Yesterday, Cedrik Bakke Christopherson won the final stage of the Arctic Race of Norway bringing us to a milestone we'venever reached before as Rockets: 10 victories in one season.

We've spoken a lot this year about our growth in UCI points and rightly so. But there's another number that says a lot about our development: more and more often, the Rockets are the ones crossing the finish line first.

I was on my way back from the Hamburg Cyclassics in Germany when I saw Cedrik take the win. A pretty good way to end already a beautiful weekend, because the Hamburg Cyclcassics showed what makes cycling so cool: thousands of fans riding the Cyclassics themselves,a finish right in the heart of the city, and a professional race afterwards bringing everyone together. That combination of riding the bike ourselves, a professional World Tour race to watch and growing cycling (and Rockets!!) community in Germany is exactly what made this weekend so fun.

Next up: Deutschland Tour and Renewi Tour

Ps: our media team was almost as fast as Cedrik himself. Within just a few hourse of the finish,they already had a fantastic Youtube video online about Cedrik his first ever professional victory.

We Just Won a Stage at the Arctic Race of Norway! 🇳🇴

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVIYSrSVDWo

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!

https://www.instagram.com/rocketscycling/p/DcJmqTgDHTt/

Rockets: "🥇 MY FIRST PRO WIN

It feels amazing to finally get paid for all the hard work I’ve been putting in for so many years. 😍

But this season hasn’t been easy. After a crash in April, I developed concussion symptoms that kept me off the bike and out of racing for several weeks. 😔

Together with the best specialists in Norway we did everything we could to get back as soon as possible. I’ve spent six weeks sleeping in my altitude room, done countless heat sessions, and, in general, the training has gone really well. 📈

I returned to racing at the Norwegian Championships and after a good feeling at the Tour de l’Ain, I came to the Arctic Race with a lot of confidence. 💪

To finish it all off with my first professional victory in Norway is something I will always remember.

🇳🇴 Cedrik Christophersen"

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, besides Arctic Race of Norway and ADAC Classics, the Rockets will race on La Polynormande and typical 'Coupe the France' 1.1 race. The races starts at 12:!5 and is expected to finish between 17:05 and 17:30.

Parcours:

Looking at the profile, the race looks 'punchy', but when taking a closer look, the gradient percentages are quite low and in recent years, sprinters have been able to get some good results as well. Because the final meters are uphill, 'puncheur/sprinter' types (by that i mean riders like Lapeira and Venturini) could do well.

Competition:

Decathlon, FDJ and Lotto-Intermarche are the only World Tour teams present on the startlist. Other proteams are Cofidis, TotalEnergies, Equipo Kern Pharma and Polti. Rest of the field is filled with Conti teams including Visma development team.

Race favourites:

- Lapeira / Isidore (Decathlon)

- Gaudu (FDJ)

- Aranburu (Cofidis)

- Dujardin (TotalEnergies)

Also I think from the smaller teams Hardouin (Van Rysel Roubaix) and Kerckhaert (Beat) could do well.

Rockets expectation:

Venturini finshed 5th in this race in both 2022 and 2023. I think the race will be difficult to win for him as he probably lacks some pure speed vs riders like Lapeira and Aranburu. However, I think this is the type of race where he could get a top 5 again. As usual in these French races, I expect Venturini to be the leader for the Rockets with Loockx as a second leader.

Source: https://x.com/BasTietema/status/2088663837335581168

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https://www.instagram.com/rocketscycling/p/DcEabLBDc5X/

Rockets: "WorldTour weekend starts here. 🚀

☕️ Coffee at the u/rose_bikes shop in Hamburg and a chance to meet up with our fans.

Thanks for having us, and we hope to see you all tomorrow at the race! 🫶"

https://www.instagram.com/rocketscycling/p/DcBCaENDc2a/

Rockets: "Finally, it’s time to race again for u/dylangroenewegen. 😁

After an intense Giro d’Italia, quickly followed by the Copenhagen Sprint, our sprinter has been putting in the work behind the scenes the last two months, with a strong block of training in preparation for the final part of the season. 🏋️

😋 And there are plenty of opportunities ahead, starting this Sunday at the Cyclassics Hamburg, where Dylan will pin on his numbers again.

The fast guys will get more chances at WorldTour level, with the Renewi Tour next on the calendar. Let’s go! 🚀

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.

August 13-16 - 2.pro - Artic Race of Norway (Procyclingstats or short PCS: Christophersen, Eiking, Poels, Augé, Feldmann, Geleijn)

August 16 - 1.UWT - ADAC Cyclassics Hamburg (PCS: Last year winner Townsend, Kubiš, Groenewegen)

August 16 - 1.1 - La Poly Normande (PCS: Venturini)

August 18-21 - 2.1 - Tour du Limousin (PCS: Johannink, Peter, Meris, Verschuren, Fougner, Ťoupalík, Savioz)

Slide 2:

August 19-23 - 2.pro - Deutschland Tour (PCS: Venturini)

August 19-23 - 2.uwt - Renewi Tour (Hartthijs de Vries, Kubiš, Groenewegen)

August 25-28 - 2.1 - Tour Poitou Charentes

August 30 - 1.uwt - Bretagne Classic (Hartthijs de Vries, Venturini)

Riders can change before the race on PCS

Cycling calender Unibet Rose Rockets: https://www.procyclingstats.com/team/unibet-rose-rockets-2026

02/09 - 06/09	ZLM Tour	2.1
06/09	GP Industria & Artigianato	1.Pro	de Vries
13/09	GP de Fourmies / La Voix du Nord	1.Pro
15/09 - 18/09	Il Giro d'Abruzzo	2.1
20/09	Gooikse pijl p/b Lotto	1.1
27/09	Paris-Chauny	1.1
27/09 - 04/10	Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi	2.Pro
04/10	Tour de Vendée	1.1
11/10	Paris - Tours Elite	1.Pro

There could be races added. The cycling season stops in october until january (while there might be some races, there are not a lot). When riders have some time-off to prepare for the next season.

https://www.instagram.com/rocketscycling/p/DbtEGoojZcn/

Rockets: 'Another great opportunity for us. 🫶

💣 We’ll conclude August with a big one, as we will be at the start line of the Bretagne Classic in France. A really nice, but also really hard race on WorldTour level, through the stunning Brittany region. 🌻'