Netherlands is a country of many things. They have some of the world's most picturesque canals, a wide selection of the finest beer and soon to be a cycling team which can compete with the best (sorry Jumbo-Visma, you're not quite good enough).
Roompot is coming for the throne....but wait a second, what has prompted all this resurrection talk, what exactly transpired to influence such a great coup.
Flashback
Spring of 2014
Eric Breukink, former professional cyclist and former manager of Rabobank had decided with his pals Michael Boogerd, Jean-Paul Van Poppel and Michael Zijlaard to launch a foray into the UCI Pro Continental ranks. He saw that there was no Dutch team in this level of cycling and realised the potential of a team who'd become an academy of the nation's finest talents. With the sponsorship help of 'Roompot Vakanties' his team had become less of a dream and more of a reality. The following day of this deal, there first rider was signed, Johnny Hoogerland, signalling the teams' focus on Dutch talent.
Eric Breukink
2015-2018
The 2015 season was the start of something new. There weren't too many expectations set on the team, but the aim was to find talent. Throughout the season, Roompot-Oranje Peloton (as they were know back then) managed 3 wins and unearthed young talent such as Dylan Groenewegen. Unfortunately, Dylan's victorious first season with Roompot was a temptation teams could not resist as he was snapped up by WT team, LottoNL-Jumbo. Therefore, the gyst of the experiment has been fulfilled at least by one rider.
On came 2016, and the new arrival of an aging star (at least in the level of racing), Pieter Weening. Pieter was a success as he gained a couple of stage wins and even a GC win. The team achieved success, but in moderation and hoped for continued development in their riders. Additionally, another rider was signed up by a WT team, Maurits Lammertink after his GC win at the Tour of Luxembourg and an overall great season.
Pieter Weening
2017 was much of the same as 2016, good results in smaller Continental races, espcially Dutch ones, but mixed to bad in the big WT races. There weren't any major sales either to WT teams as most of the riders were performing at the same level as before. However, Wouter Wippert was signed for 2018.
Wouter brought fresh energy into 2018 and the hope of something more. However, this exuberance was quickly dashed as Wippert managed one solitary victory for the season, a mediocre season at beast. We managed a couple victories here and there, but there was no real progression. Pieter also showed signs of aging as our best rider managing only a couple of good results with a decent 2nd in the Tour of Croatia and a breakaway stage win in Austria.
Suddenly, Roompot were not achieving there goals, bringing fresh Dutch talent. There were no riders who were signed by WT team's, while most went to the CT instead, worriyng signs for the organisation. There needed to be some more impetus and perhaps some fresh faces...
Present
With the thoughts of the last couple of average seasons in mind, Roompot had a shuffling of leadership. All but the initial mastermind, Bruekink, remained as the teams new ambition was to challenge for promotion by widening their nation pool. Roompot had signed many Belgian riders for the 2019 season. Additionally, the team are looking to continue their scouting into neigbouring country, Germany, for the future. The philosophy for young talent will also carry on as an overarching notion.
With this in mind, Roompot are a team hopefully on the up. They will no longer settle for middle of the road mediocrity and will and strive for the best. To be the best cycling team in not only the Netherlands, but the world.
Story Information -
Database: PCMWorld 2019
Level: Extreme
Crash Ratio: x1.0
Can only sign riders from Germany, Belgium and Netherlands
Lars is our man for the cobbles. Incidentally, at the same time, he many not be our man depending on the day and form as we have other cobble riders who are as good or a little worse than him. Moreover, his TT ability could earn him some high placings. Lars is hoping to revive his career and Roompot are the perfect to do it with after a couple of dull seasons.
Sean de Bie -
Sean de Bie is an all-round god-send for the team. He will certainly be our sprinter, but will also serve as our cobble leader in certain races in which he can make the finish. Additionally, his all-round ability lends him to be a versatile rider for the squad. There is no doubt he should be the one with the most Top 10's for Roompot.
Maurits Lammertink -
The Dutchman has re-united with the team after a spell in the WT, thankfully for us. The mountains beckon for him and there is no other rider that his kind of ability on such terrain. He is also punchy, packing a good finish and should feature prominently in the hills as well.
Super Domestiques/Secondary Leaders
Jan-Willem Van Schip -
If Jan-Willem could be described in one word describing his cycling ability, it would be 'engine'. He is supreme in the flats and can ride as a sprint leadout or in the breakaway. The cobbles are also to his favour and he should be able to provide strong support to Boom and De Bie there.
Boy Van Poppel -
Boy was once touted as a supreme sprinter, but his promise was not realised in the WT. Hopefully Roompot can provide solace for the Dutchman, who himself needs a resurrection. His main role is to sprint when De Bie is not available or be his leadout man.
Oscar Riesebeek -
Riesebeek is competent at most things, whether it be hills, cobble or mountains. Therefore he is a good option for us on the days we don't have our leaders. He can fulfill many roles and will be used a 'Swiss Army Knife' type rider.
Pieter Weening -
Pieter Weening will go down in Roompot folklore. The veteran has probably racked up more than 200 breakaways during his career and he will continue this trend at Roompot. Weening is never shy and will attacked whenever. For Roompot, he will be a secondary leader or lieutenant for Lammertink (that is if he doesn't decline too much).
Domestiques
Huub Duijn Nick Van der Lijke Michael Van Staeyen Elmar Reinders Stijn Steels Jesper Asselman Sjoerd Van Ginneken Senne Leysen Arjen Lyvens Matthias De Witte Justin Timmermans
This concludes the summary of the squad, up next will be the rider objectives for our leaders.
Sean de Bie will be heavily involved in our cobble campaign and will be the leader Kuurne-Brussels Kuurne. After this, his main objectives are the Belgium Tour and Paris-Tours from which the sponsors would like a good result from. Hopefully, he will also be able to spearhead our sprint team along the way.
Maurits Lammertink
The first objective for Maurits is an important one, the Tour of Oman. He will be mixing it with the big boys in that race and we hope he can perform at his peak there as it is also a sponsor objective. Other objectives include stage races such as the VOO Tour of Wallonie and the Arctic Race of Norway. There aren't too many mountain races for our team to race unfortunately, but he will try his best on the one's available.
Lars Boom
Lars will lead the charge, on the cobbles. Dwars door Vlaanderen is his main goal for the season. The Tour de Luxembourg is also on his radar as the parcours suits his riding capabilities. Additionally, the GP de Wallonie will be his final goal for the season.
Team Focus -
The team are aiming to be at their best in the cobble season especially and hope to also be competitive as possible in the Ardennes and hilly classics.
Next post will be the first race of the season, the Down Under Classic.
Elia Viviani Marcel Kittel John Degenkolb Nikias Arndt Niccolo Bonifazio
Race Action
Positioning was to be crucial for the breakaway riders on such a short stage and so it proved initially as J.Coyle was the first to launch his move followed by A.Porter, M.Vink, K.Richards and S.Bowden.
O.Kent-Spark joined them shortly after, but the breakaway never managed to gain much time at all from the peloton. The maximum they received during their stay out in front was 50 seconds as the sprinter teams set a blistering tempo.
There was no let up, especially from Jay Thompson and so the breakaway was caught almost 25km from the finish. Our 3 man train was set up fairly early going in such order: Van Schip - Van Staeyen - De Bie. A barrage of attacks continued, but none could get away and with 4km to go, Roompot rather incredibly had control of the race thanks to the brilliant efforts of Van-Scip
But, DISASTER STRIKES, our train is completely blocked by Hollenstein, the rider coming off of Katusha's train 2km from the line. We lose all momentum and fall 10m behind the other sprinters. Van Staeyen continues to get blocked for what seemed like an eternity and from what seemed like an excellent position; turned into a putrid one. Up in front, Viviani wins the stage in an extremely close finish. Meanwhile, Van Staeyen finishes the best of our lot, in 12th.
Post Race Interview
Journalist- "Michael, how did the race come crashing down for you out there."
Michael - "Well, we were in such a great position, but the Katusha rider came out from Kittel's train and completely foiled our train causing us to lose considerable ground. I can't believe it, it was shaping up to be a great first race and with a couple kilometres left I had Sean in my wheel and I was sure we could get something out of today...but nothing was to come out of it."
Stage Results
1
Elia Viviani
Deceuninck - Quick Step
1h06'55
2
Niccolo Bonifazio
Direct Energie
s.t.
3
John Degenkolb
Trek - Segafredo
s.t.
4
Marcel Kittel
Team Katusha - Alpecin
s.t.
5
Andrea Pasqualon
Wanty - Groupe Gobert
s.t.
6
Jacopo Guarnieri
Groupama - FDJ
s.t.
7
Max Walscheid
Team Sunweb
s.t.
8
Michael Albasini
Mitchelton - Scott
s.t.
9
Enrico Battaglin
Team Katusha - Alpecin
s.t.
10
Nikias Arndt
Team Sunweb
s.t.
...
12
Michael Van Staeyen
Roompot - Charles
s.t.
17
Jan-Willem Van Schip
Roompot - Charles
s.t.
18
Sean De Bie
Roompot - Charles
s.t.
Spoiler
Do you guys like this kind of format or would you prefer it shorter, especially for stage races. Also, next race is San Juan.
Laurens de Vreese (Astana) is the solo man in the breakaway.
However, the peloton push hard to bring him back and do so fairly quickly. Lutsenko and Mas Bonet soon provide a counter and make a two-man group up front.
The peloton soon slow down and two more attackers creep off the front. Unkown riders V.Ocampo and W.Roberto. As the break are about to be caught, the bunch split into two. 24 riders are in this first group including two of our men, Van der Lijke and Steels. The GC riders in this 24 man group are Aru, Pinot and Kwiatkowski, whilst the rest are dwindling behind, 1 minute down.
The gap increases as the leadouts begin. We are positioned well, but Van der Lijke does not have the outright power. He still produces a stellar result in 6th. Gaviria wins the sprint.
The group behind end up 2 minutes in arrears containing most of the GC men. All in all, it was an excellent result considering Van der Lijke's inferior sprinting ability to those around him.
Much like the previous stage, the break were only given a small threshold before the first intermediate sprint. Following this, most of the riders were caught, but after the Cat 3 a new break formed which were made up of unknown riders. Subsequently, the break were caught 40kms from the finish line, before the last Cat 3. Immediately following this was a slowing down of tempo by all riders and teams as the chase was a fierce one in the heat of the Argentinian summer. However, at the 20km mark the sprint teams asserted themselves and forced a gap of about 40 seconds over other riders. Roompot were not caught out of this and every rider on the team managed to stay at the front of affairs.
However, it was soon back together with 7km to go. In this time, our chosen son for the stage had become Lammertink, with van der Lijke leading out. We were once again in good position for the sprint with only a couple of kilometres to go...
It's difficult to see who won from this angle, but it was Arnaud Demare who snatched it. Meanwhile, we gain another 6th place, but this time with Lammertink. We can't really complain after being in such good positions twice in a row. We were just beaten by the better riders.
Spoiler
Unfortunately, I forgot to export the results so you'll have to deal with this instead.
We were never really going to challenge the best, but considering the field, Maurits performed fairly well. In GC we're a fair way back, thus aiming to be in the breakaway with numbers on the Queen Stage. Tomorrow though is another flat one.
The pace of this story thus far has been frenetic, I must admit, but I promise it will slow down as school starts tomorrow. I wanted to get as much as I could done before it.
The break were remarkably on and off for the first 100km. Finally, a 4-man group had established themselves as the official BOTD with 60kms to go. Riders include Rumac, Brandle, Jaramillo and Barrientos, however they did not establish an advantage of more than 2 minutes at any time.
Eventually the break were caught. As the sprint teams jockey themselves at the front, there is a crash right at the front! Lammertink is involved in the fall and is almost guaranteed to lose severe time with only 5km's to go. A messy sprint ensues.
Fernando Gaviria takes it as most sprint trains collapsed during the end of the stage due to the crash. Van der Lijke and Riesebeek both finish in the top 10 in a bitter sweet stage for us. There appears to be considerable time gaps as only a 31 rider grouped seemed to finish together.
The team's goal on this stage is to get as many riders possible in the break. It's the only mountain stage and probably also the only stage the break will be allowed to get some sort of allowance. However, two got away early before our riders could make it to the fore. We realised this was perhaps not the perfect time to attack as the peloton were pacing very hard. Soon after 3 of the Roompot boys attacked, 2 of them however failed in their quest. Lammertink was the only one who managed to reach the break, at least temporarily. The break lacked cohesion and Lammertink missed the vital move to follow the 4 riders whom advanced and were not caught. So the team decided to stay put in the pack for now, with Van der Lijke being the leader. Over the penultimate climb the break had managed to create a distance of 4 minutes on the peloton despite the steady tempo.
As the riders embarked on the Alto Colorado the final climb of the day, the break had 2 minutes. The climb was actually easier than first expected, revealing a possibility of a Van der Lijke survival on the easier gradients.
But the GC teams did not want this. They set up a very strong pace throughout the climb and the strength of pace eventually brought a group of 9 clear with 2km to go. Lammertink and Van der Lijke were in the 2nd group quietly doing a good job.
Lammertink had a resurgence after the pace slowed in the 2nd group to capture many positions in the final straight. Up front, Dan Martin captured the stage
Van der Lijke on the other hand was struggling a little more. Could he hang onto a decent GC spot?
Lammertink had an incredible second wind during the climax of the stage and nearly made it to the top 10. On the other hand Van der Lijke was hanging on the coat-tails for dear life managing to stay up with the 3rd major group.
Dan Martin overhauls the GC lead, but the main story for Roompot is the incredible riding of Nick van der Lijke. He manages to slide into the top 10 after a doozy of a climb gaining 5 positions overall even though he finished 26th on the stage. Lammertink's performance can also not be understated as he rode solidly to finish inches behind a top 10 stage placement.
The BOTD consists of 8 riders, but are merely there for show as the peloton have control of their advantage. Over the first 2 KOM's Jimenez asserts his dominance, but loses all his companions and gets caught. A second break is formed thereafter consisting of a smaller pack of 5. Eventually, the break is caught as the sprinters cue up towards the front and we decide to ride for Van der Lijke rather than Lammertink.
The Roompot leadout has simply been stunning throughout the race and they are able to establish themselves at the front once again. The sprint ensues.
Gaviria takes the stage. Meanwhile, Van der Lijke finishes in 6th, our 3rd time we have finished there in this race. Another excellent result, whilst Lammertink also earnt himself a top 10.
Huub Duijn
Nick Van der Lijke
Adelaide, 50.2km 
Elia Viviani
Marcel Kittel
San Juan, 7 stages
Mikel Landa
Nairo Quintana
Ilnur Zakarin
Daniel Martin
Michal Kwiatkowski
