🇧🇪 🪨 It's time for Opening Weekend!
Exclusive: the line-ups for this weekend, you can NOW buy our jersey, win VIP tickets for Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and join our social ride in Belgium!
Rocketeers!
Welcome back to the newsletter, it’s time for Opening Weekend!
(A special welcome to everyone who has been with us since our very first adventures, you’re receiving this newsletter in your inbox today. We hope you’ll continue to follow the Rockets story with the same excitement!)
🩷 We’re high on life at Rockets HQ after the incredible news about the Giro d’Italia, but there’s no time to rest: the Classics are here.
This newsletter:
🇧🇪 Classics season is here
💯 UCI Points update
🛒 Our team kit is now available!
📺 TONIGHT: We Are The Rockets ep 2!
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🚴🏻♂️ JOIN US ON OUR SOCIAL RIDE!
There are some final tickets available for our first Rockets on Tour Ride. Bas Tietema and Rob Harmeling will be joining the ride, and they promise that they will NOT be riding full gas. The experience is all about fun, and we have three different speeds/distances.
We will have a coffee stop with Rose Bikes, nutrition from MNSTRY, and an optional bike check from Cyclon. There will also be a goodiebag and hang-out at the end!
When: Friday February 27th
Where: 🇧🇪 Centrum Ronde van Vlaanderen, Oudenaarde, Belgium
✍️ Bas’ Notebook
Bas Tietema is one of the founders of the Rockets. Bas claims to be the one who actually knows something about cycling, so Devin and Josse gave him this notebook to share updates on what’s been going on with the team lately!
Hello everyone,
Let me start with some honesty - last weekend in France wasn’t the best for us. There was a big crash in the final, and even though Matyáš Kopecký was feeling good and in a great position, it hugely impacted our lead out. It’s disappointing, but we can also take positives with how well we rode together.
There’s always a balance (every race counts for our UCI Ranking!) but we also had an amazing week with our Giro d’Italia wildcard. That’s the duality of pro sports.
We know it’s impossible to perform every week. But, we are so connected, it feels so sh*t on a day we don’t perform. It takes perspective, every race you want to perform well.
🎬 It’s Opening Weekend time
Putting last week behind us, I am so excited for 🇧🇪 Opening Weekend:
📆 Saturday: Omloop Nieuwsblad (WorldTour)
Line-up:
🇳🇱 Joren Bloem
🇳🇴 Karsten Feldmann (WorldTour debut)
🇸🇰 Lukáš Kubiš
🇳🇱 Martijn Rasenberg (WorldTour debut)
🇨🇿 Matyáš Kopecký
🇨🇿Tomáš Kopecký
🇩🇰 Niklas Larsen
📆 Sunday: Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (ProTour)
Line-up:
🇳🇱 Dylan Groenewegen (winner in 2018)
🇳🇱 Elmar Reinders
🇳🇱 Hartthijs de Vries
🇳🇱 Martijn Rasenberg
🇨🇿 Matyáš Kopecký
🇩🇰 Niklas Larsen
🇮🇪 Rory Townsend
Last year, Omloop was our breakthrough WorldTour level race - we showed we can perform with the best when Lukáš finished in 6th place at Omloop.
We have those same riders, plus some great additions to our squad too. It’s also of course the first race in Flanders where there’s always a big crowd - even driving with our new bus to the Classics… I’m excited.
🎸 This Spring, we’re the Rockets on Tour.
We’ve already seen a lot of stages. But this spring? We’re stepping onto the biggest stages of them all.
This spring, we hit the WorldTour stage.
We return to races where we showed we belong. And we take on some new Monuments.
It’s going to be a wild ride. We’re the Rockets on Tour.
Our WorldTour dates:
🇧🇪 February 28th: Omloop Nieuwsblad
🇮🇹 March 7th: Strade Bianche
🇮🇹 March 21st: Milano - Sanremo
🇧🇪 March 25th: Tour of Bruges (formerly Classic Brugge-De Panne)
🇧🇪 March 27th: E3 Saxo Classic
🇧🇪 March 29th: In Flanders Fields - From Middelkerke to Wevelgem (formerly Gent-Wevelgem)
🇧🇪 April 1st: Dwars door Vlaanderen - A travers la Flandre
🇧🇪 April 5th: Ronde van Vlaanderen
🇫🇷 April 12th: Paris - Roubaix
🇳🇱 April 19th: Amstel Gold Race
🇧🇪 April 22nd: Flèche Wallonne
🌍 There are other races too!
Alongside Opening Weekend, we’re also racing twice in 🇫🇷 France this weekend (Faun-Ardèche Classic and Faun Drome Classic). Then we have a squad in 🇬🇷 Greece too at the Visit South Aegean GP and Region on Dodecanese GP. Racing in three places in one-weekend is crazy!
📊 In other words: UCI points.
You know the story by now, we continue to chase UCI Points across the world.
If we finish the 2026 season as one of the Top 3 ProTeams (the second level of professional cycling), we’re automatically qualified for all WorldTour races in 2027 - including the Tour de France.
We are currently the 5th best ProTeam, but it’s early in the season. As you can see, there are only 54 points between the Rockets and 3rd place. It’s still too early to take much from these rankings.
🇧🇪 Plans for tonight?
Finally, I will be at the Tour of Flanders Centre this evening (February 26th) for KoersKlap, a talk show. I’ll be talking alongside Mieke Docx, Tomas Van Den Spiegel, and Nathan Van Hooydonck.
This talk will be in 🇳🇱 Dutch, and there are still some tickets available here.
See you at the Classics,
- Bas
🎨 From Devin’s Creative Lab
Devin van der Wiel is the one behind the ideas, the visuals, the vibes. As the director of our videos, Devin gives the team its voice, and its style. If it feels like the Rockets, it probably came from this Lab.
Hello Rocketeers,
We have a new ‘We are the Rockets’ video coming up… TONIGHT!
In this episode, we’ll show you how we prepared for our biggest spring ever. We have some details on the sprint project led by Marcel Kittel, and some footage from Lukáš Kubiš’ family at home in 🇸🇰 Slovakia.
I’m excited for the spring to get started. Last year was already so good, but with our new same-day videos, I’m expecting lots of good content to come from the next few weeks.
Speak soon,
- Devin
💰 Josse’s Hustle Report
Now it’s Josse’s turn. Of the three of us, he’s the one chasing sponsorships, commercial deals, and this time…
Hello everyone,
I’ve had a busy few weeks working on the 🇮🇹 Giro d’Italia wildcard with the RCS, it’s so good to see it out in the open with everyone’s reaction.
🛍️ I promised in our previous newsletter that I would bring some good news about merchandise and kit, and I can keep that promise.
👕 The new kit is now available in our webshop.
Alongside everything that is on the website currently, you can also expect a cool item drop during Opening Weekend. I like to keep some secrets. 🤫
However, I do have some Opening Weekend news that I can share now:
🏆 Win VIP tickets for Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne!
Fill in our short form for your chance to win, and help us get to know our fans better, so we can create even better content, events and experiences for you.
- Josse
🚀 We are firing!
The season is now fully starting.
We’re not saying that the races so far haven’t been important, but Opening Weekend marks the traditional start to the cycling season. Be sure to come and say hello at the team bus, and support us from the side of the road.
And remember, if there’s anything that you’d like us to cover in these newsletters, please comment below.
See you all soon! 💜
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