TOUR·KINETIC

Picnic PostNL · 2026 Tour de France
Road captain and sprint lead-out — the squad's elder statesman
John Degenkolb

The last man to win Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix in the same spring (2015) is now the sage of the peloton, starting his 11th Tour in his 16th professional season.

John Degenkolb paper-collage portrait in the 2026 Picnic PostNL kit

The last man to win Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix in the same spring (2015) is now the sage of the peloton, starting his 11th Tour in his 16th professional season. Back in the organisation where he turned pro in the Argos-Shimano days, the 37-year-old German fought back from a horror Tour of Flanders crash in 2025 and marshals Bittner's sprint train as road captain — he has just extended his contract into 2027.

Palmarès

  • Paris-Roubaix winner (2015)
  • Milan-San Remo winner (2015)
  • Gent-Wevelgem winner (2014)
  • 10 Vuelta a España stage wins (2012–2015)
  • Tour de France stage 9 winner on the Roubaix cobbles (2018)
  • Paris-Tours winner (2013)
Cut-out factWhen the junior Paris-Roubaix ran out of funding, Degenkolb personally stepped in as sponsor to save the race — cementing his love affair with the Hell of the North he won in 2015.

The squad

Riding the 2026 Tour with Warren Barguil, Frits Biesterbos, Pavel Bittner, Robbe Dhondt, Niklas Märkl, Julius van den Berg, Frank van den Broek — see the full Picnic PostNL team page.

Portrait: AI paper-collage render (gpt-image-2) after a reference photograph — source: Wikimedia Commons, author: Nicola, license: CC BY-SA 4.0. A fan project — not affiliated with the Tour de France or A.S.O.