Team Unibet Rose Rockets: Three YouTubers want to go to the Tour de France

Even after thousands of years of evolution, there is something inherently animalistic about humans. And so three Dutchmen have ultimately used Pavlov's reflex to successfully market a cycling start-up that is now worth millions. The sight of the Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Champs-Élysées boulevard in Paris has probably made many a professional cyclist salivate in recent years. Largely unnoticed by the global public, a special reception committee was waiting in a side street for all Tour de France finishers: the three Youtubers Bas Tietema, Josse Wester and Devin van der Wiel had been having fun handing out free pizza to the professional cyclists since the finish in 2019 - welcome junk food at the end of three weeks of toil.

The pizza connection

A classic win-win situation: the starving professional cyclists were fed for free, while the three Dutchmen received fairly exclusive material for their YouTube channel "Tour de Tietema". After all, what fan wants to meet their idol while eating pizza - even if you can only get up close and personal virtually? In any case, hardly any professional cyclist missed out on the snack, brought in by the videographers from a Parisian pizza parlour. With such and similar actions, the trio of fans became known within the professional peloton like colourful dogs. A fame that now benefits them. After all, they have earned themselves a reputation as professional cyclists' saviours - men who know what professional cyclists need. Or wish for. Or find funny.

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GROENEWEGEN WANTS TO GET BACK TO HIS OLD STRENGTH

The internet fun has now developed into a serious company. With a very ambitious goal: the three cycling fans have become team bosses. And they want to take their team, Unibet Rose Rockets, to the Tour de France. As soon as possible. To the astonishment of many insiders. "I couldn't have imagined that it would be so serious and that they could start a professional team," says Dylan Groenewegen, who has already stocked up on pizza with his compatriots in Paris. Now the 32-year-old Dutchman, six-time stage winner at the Tour, has been the star of the Rockets' colourful team since the start of the season, which is currently starting as a pro team with a second-class licence and has to hope for invitations to the most important races. Still. It can be seen as a first attempt at flirting that the current team boss Bas Tietema jumped around on straw bales and car roofs in the vastness of France for a video in 2019, presenting the song "Dylan Groenewegen" to a pounding soundtrack. The minstrel song in the style of a Dutch après-ski hit made it onto the radio in his home country. Later, Wester, dressed as Dylan Groenewegen, gave interviews for the YouTube channel on the side of the track. "It almost started as a joke," says the professional cyclist himself about this incident, which has now become a serious and permanent working relationship. "Most teams only make videos about cycling. This team, on the other hand, also makes funny videos and shows the humorous side of training camps and races," emphasises the veteran.

Fun becomes serious

But for all the fun, for all the desire to do things differently in the rather conservative sport of professional cycling, it is of course increasingly about performance, about results for the trio and the riders they employ. There's no other way to make it to the Tour de France. And that's where Groenewegen plays an important role, as a sprinter who is expected to deliver victories and thus ranking points. They were already close to a starting place for 2026. However, the wildcards went to the French team TotalEnergies and Caja Rural from Spain at the end of January, where the Tour starts this year. But that only slows down the high-flyers in the peloton to a limited extent. In the three years since their debut in 2023, the cyclists in the colourful design have celebrated seven professional victories - but none at World Tour level so far. This is set to change soon - thanks in part to Groenewegen, who didn't really get into his stride last year and now won his first appearance in the new jersey, at the Clasica Comunitat Valenciana at the end of January. "Together we can build something great. I'm happy to have this opportunity to realise my full potential," emphasised the Dutchman in an interview with TOUR. He is not the only prominent newcomer who has succumbed to the charm and certainly also the increasing financial opportunities of the newcomers. The modern marketing strategy, for which the trio creates a lot of its own content and works more creatively and less conservatively than the competition, is attracting financially strong sponsors and high-performing professional cyclists. The German bike manufacturer and mail-order company Rose has joined as the second main sponsor of the team. In sporting terms, the team has been strengthened with Groenewegen's compatriot Wout Poels, winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2016, and the French Tour stage winner Victor Lafay. The prominence of the squad is growing fast.

A HEART FOR PROBLEM CASES?

To put it bluntly, you could say that the trio specialised in problem cases in cycling. Groenewegen, Lafay, de Vries - they and others went through form crises, motivation problems, physical and mental challenges, suffered from bereavement and the pandemic. The problems faced by competitive athletes on their way to the top are manifold. Hartthijs de Vries, one of four racing cyclists who were founding members of the project, also knows about this. He suffered from cardiac arrhythmia for a long time, then there was the serious illness and death of his father; there were no opportunities to prove himself during the pandemic years - this is, in a nutshell, the biography of de Vries, who was actually already out of cycling before he got the chance to turn professional with the Rockets for the 2023 season - and celebrated his first professional victory the following year, the second in the team's history. "I think cycling could use some new vibes, a new kind of team like this," says de Vries. The Rockets want to create opportunities to take off. Lafay had already declared his professional career over last autumn at the age of 29, before team boss Tietema was able to change his mind during a joint cycling tour and recruit him for his own racing team. "What Bas told me about what the team stands for made me realise that I wasn't finished yet. I just needed the right environment to feel alive again," said Lafay on the occasion of his signing.

GERMAN TALENTS AND A DOPING CASE

The project also helps German cycling: the sprint-strong young rider Tobias Müller, on whom the new sprint coach Marcel Kittel has high hopes, and the all-rounder Jannis Peter (new from Team Vorarlberg) can now show how much talent they really have on the world stage after their time in third-class teams. The chances are increasing. "We get more respect in the peloton. That also makes it easier for us in the races," observed de Vries. However, things don't always turn out well when athletes are given a second chance: Italian Giovanni Carboni gave the image-conscious cycling marketers the first doping case in the team's still young history. "It's a real shame. It happened at a time when he wasn't yet part of our team. But of course our work is affected by it," says Tietema. The UCI justified the ban with anomalies in Carboni's biological passport during 2024, when he was still riding in the jersey of the Japanese Continental team JCLUKYO. A judgement is still pending - but the Rockets had their first negative headlines.

Wester is the "top cuddler"

The distribution of roles within the team is clear. Tietema is the more or less secret boss, the man with the sporting expertise. After all, the son of Dutch coffee house chain founder Hans Tietema was on his way to becoming a professional cyclist himself, finishing third in the U23 edition of Paris-Roubaix before health problems slowed him down. Van der Wiel is the man for technology and content production, usually behind the camera and therefore rarely seen. "I'm the creative one of the three of us," says van der Wiel, who defines the image of the project: "How do people see the Rockets?" Wester is something like the "head cuddler", as he tells TOUR with a wink. According to the Rockets' storytelling, he has a connection to the racers, hugs and comforts them after falls and disappointments. The cuddling course can be considered a success: He sent the messages to Groenewegen that eventually got the latter to sign the contract.

WILDCARD FOR THE GIRO

The Rockets could make their first major appearance of the new season at Milan-San Remo, to which race organiser RCS has invited them for the first time, as well as at the Giro d'Italia, which will be the team's first Grand Tour. They are also starting the new year with a certain amount of uncertainty as to what their racing programme will look like over the course of the season. "That's the disadvantage of having a pro team," says Groenewegen. The door to the Tour de France and Vuelta a España remains closed to them this year. "2026 will still be an incredible year," wrote Tietema when he learnt that his racing team would not be taking part in these races this year. They have recently hired a CFO, a head of finance. "He makes sure that we don't make any stupid decisions and just spend all the money," says Wester, adding: "You can definitely say that the three of us are exceptionally talented at making stupid decisions." But this is where they see their brand essence: being different, sometimes making decisions that others might find stupid or irresponsible - for example, the crazy idea of sending their own professional racing team to the most important cycling race in the world after watching a few YouTube films as fans of the Tour de France. Without having any idea of how exactly this would actually work. In the meantime, they have found supporters and followers on their way to the top. Groenewegen is determined to win another stage of the Tour for his new employer. Lafay has never finished the Tour in his home country and wants to make up for it in the new team colours. Ambition unites everyone in the team. And the boys from the Tour de Tietema have only just begun to tell their story. A quick happy ending would be downright bad for business. The material should last for a few more years.