Bas Tietema and his friends have an annual tradition at the Tour de France. They wait until the final stage, fill up a car with Domino’s pizzas, and hand them out to riders after the race on the Champs-Elysées. It’s always a warmly welcomed gesture – some riders get their orders in early on Instagram – and the subsequent video on YouTube is usually their biggest of the year, gathering 270,000 views this summer, and almost half a million in 2023.
As he collected his pizza this July, Picnic PostNL’s Sean Flynn issued a throwaway comment: “Maybe soon you guys will also be here riding.” Flynn then smiled and rode away, but his words, in hindsight, now seem less far-fetched. A lot less. In fact, many might say it now looks likely that the team Tietema founded, the Unibet Rose Rockets, will make their debut at the Tour next year.
