From 2006, Team Milram was part of professional cycling and provided a sporting home for many German cyclists in particular. The ambitions were great, but the results never materialised. Even in 2010, there were no major successes: Milram only recorded ten victories, mostly in smaller races, and also competed rather inconspicuously in the Tour de France.
During the Tour of France, the team's title sponsor, the Milram brand of the North German Nordmilch AG, then announced its withdrawal at the end of the year. As a result, team boss Gerry van Gerwen was unable to find a new sponsor. The end of the racing team - and a turning point in German cycling. After the demise of Team T-Mobile in 2007 and Gerolsteiner in 2008, the last German professional team at the top level at the time also disappeared. TOUR shows how the riders from Milram's Tour squad at the time have fared since then.
Linus Gerdemann
Instead of training plans, Gerdemann is now all about menus. In the small town of Deiá, in the mountains of Mallorca, he has been running the Asian restaurant Nama since 2016 and has also become at home on the Spanish island.
Gerdemann had already bought the restaurant property in 2013 when he was unable to find a new team after his contract with Team RadioShack ended and took a year off. He spent most of this time on Mallorca and met his current partner, with whom he opened the restaurant and still runs it today.
In 2014, the Münster native returned to cycling once again, riding for MTN Qhubeka and Team Stölting, but ended his career for good in 2016 with the Münsterland Giro - partly due to persistent hip problems. In any case, he was no longer able to build on his earlier successes. After the doping scandals involving Jan Ullrich and Erik Zabel, the now 42-year-old was once regarded as a young and clean figurehead of German cycling.
In June 2005, the Danish team CSC signed the then 22-year-old to a professional contract. Shortly afterwards, Gerdemann was already the talk of the town thanks to his stage wins at the Tour of Bavaria and the Tour de Suisse - and was poached by Team T-Mobile for 2006.
In 2007, he celebrated his greatest success with a stage win at the Tour de France in Le Grand-Bornand. He also wore the yellow jersey for one day. He also won the Deutschland Tour in 2008. Gerdemann was regarded as a great tour talent. However, he was unable to fulfil the huge expectations. Although he won the Tour of Bavaria and a stage at Tirreno-Adriatico for Milram in 2009, he was unable to make his mark, especially as captain at the Tour de France. This also applied to the Tour of France in 2010.
Gerald Ciolek
The now 38-year-old was the centre of attention at Milram as a sprint captain, but like almost all the riders in the team, he fell short of his potential. He only won a stage at the Tour of Bavaria in 2010. At the Tour de France, he narrowly missed out on a success, finishing second behind Mark Cavendish on stage 5 in Montargis. The sprinter achieved three further top ten finishes at that Tour. After leaving Milram, Ciolek joined Quick-Step and grew into the role of sprint rider.
The Cologne native started his career with great expectations. At the age of 18, Ciolek secured the title of German Champion in 2005, followed a year later by the U23 World Championship title. Successes that immediately gave Ciolek huge expectations, which turned out to be unrealistic.
Nevertheless, Ciolek has had a remarkable career, which has always included major victories when nobody expected him. His sensational victory in the snow chaos at Milan-San Remo in 2013 is representative of this, as is his stage win at the Vuelta a Espana in 2009.
At the age of 30, he finally drew a line under his career in 2017 and initially took a step back from professional cycling. For several years now, however, Ciolek has been involved in grassroots sport and junior cycling. In 2019, he took over the sporting management of the German Continental team Dauer-Akkon. Ciolek has also been involved in the Cologne community project RennRad Cycling Club since 2019. He is also a trained barista.
Johannes Fröhlinger
Fröhlinger took part in the Tour de France for Team Milram in 2009 and 2010, when he mainly took on support roles. He then fulfilled the role of loyal domestique at Team Sunweb until 2019, before his contract was not renewed. Fröhlinger then ended his career. He never recorded a professional victory.
In 2020, he took up a position as a sports officer at the Baden-Württemberg Triathlon Association (BWTV) and is a support centre coach in Freiburg for U17 and U19 young talent for track and road cycling. He is now also a pundit for the Tour de France broadcasts on the ARD sports programme.
At the same time, the now 39-year-old studied at the Sport University in Cologne and is now a qualified coach. The title of his thesis: "Where do the professional cyclists of tomorrow come from? An analysis of the attractiveness of German cycling clubs for non-club racing cyclists."
Roger Kluge
The 38-year-old is still cycling today. However, he now rides for the German Pro-Continental team Rad-Net Oßwald. Previously, Kluge had earned a reputation as an outstanding sprint rider in road cycling: Together with the Australian sprinter Caleb Ewan, Kluge formed a successful duo with the Orica-Scott and Lotto-Soudal teams for a long time.
Meanwhile, Kluge contested his first of five Tours of France for Team Milram in 2010. After a crash, however, he had to abandon the Tour after stage 8 with a scaphoid fracture. Although Kluge mostly took on helper roles, he has his own victories on his CV, including a stage win at the 2016 Giro d'Italia, when Kluge rode away from the sprinters in the IAM Cycling jersey in the final kilometre and saved a few metres of lead to the finish.
However, Kluge achieved far more success on the track. In October 2024, he won the world title in the Madison in Copenhagen for the third time after 2018 and 2019 - this time with Tim Torn Teutenberg at his side. In 2008, he won the silver medal in the points race at the Olympic Games in Beijing. He also took part in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, 2021 in Tokyo and 2024 in Paris. And Kluge has already set his sights on the 2028 Games in Los Angeles - at the age of 42.
Christian Knees
At Milram, Knees was regarded as a promising talent for the Tour - after all, he finished the 2009 Tour de France in 19th place. Hopes were also high for the 2010 Tour: Knees finished 13th in the dress rehearsal, the Criterium du Dauphine, and won the German Road Championship shortly before the start of the Tour in Sangerhausen. However, Knees crashed on stage 2 of the Tour and, in addition to problems with his bum and leg muscles, was also struggling with a cold. He reached Paris in 88th place.
However, his performances earned him a contract with Team Sky after Milram pulled out in 2011. There, as a tall rider, he developed into a bodyguard and road captain for his team-mates on flat stages. Knees was part of the team's Tour squad for Bradley Wiggins' overall Tour victories in 2012 and Chris Froome in 2017.
Born in Bonn, he remained with the British team after retiring in 2019 and is now Sporting Director. Among others, the 43-year-old coaches Kim Heiduk in the team.
Luke Roberts
The 47-year-old is still active in professional cycling and has been the sports director of the Dutch team Picnic PostNL (previously Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) since 2015. In this role, he accompanied Tom Dumoulin in his overall victory at the Giro d'Italia 2017, among others. Although born in Adelaide, Australia, Roberts is now based in Germany and lives near Cologne.
Roberts celebrated great success as an active cyclist primarily on the track, winning the world title in the team pursuit in 2002, 2003 and 2004. He also won the gold medal in this discipline at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Meanwhile, his road career began in Germany with the amateur team ComNet-Senges from Stolberg.
After his success on the track, he switched to the Danish professional team CSC in 2004 and took part in the Tour de France for the first time in 2005. Robert then rode again for the German Continental team Kuota (previously ComNet) before joining Team Milram in 2010. At that year's Tour de France, he finished fifth in an escape group on the 15th stage to Bagneres-de-Luchon.
In 2011 and 2012, he again rode for the Danish team Saxo-Bank. He then ended his career with Team Stölting in 2014 and moved into sporting management for the first time.
Thomas Rohregger
Rohregger rode his only Tour de France with Team Milram in 2010, finishing 71st in Paris. The Austrian continued his career with RadioShack (previously Leopard-Trek) until 2013, before ending his professional career. His greatest success was the overall victory in the Tour of Austria in 2008.
After his active time, he returned to university and Rohregger studied law and economics. From 2015, he took on the role of technical delegate at the UCI cycling organisation and was mainly responsible for the 2018 World Championships in Innsbruck, Austria, his home town, as sports director and course planner.
In 2019, Rohregger joined the law firm CHG Czernich Rechtsanwälte in Innsbruck and passed his bar exam. In 2022, he moved to Munich to work in legal consulting at Deloitte Legal. Since 2023, he has held the position of Director Global Partnership at Lidl in Neckarsulm.
Rohregger has been following professional cycling for many years as an expert and commentator on the broadcasts of the Austrian TV channel ORF.
Niki Terpstra
Terpstra had the most remarkable sporting career of the Milram squad at the time. However, he finished the Tour de France after the 2nd stage due to a fever. At the time, he wore the jersey of the Dutch road champion. After leaving Milram, the Dutchman's career at Quick-Step gradually took off: For years, Terpstra was one of the best classics specialists for the Flemish spring races, winning Paris-Roubaix in 2014 and the Tour of Flanders in 2018, among others.
From 2019, the now 40-year-old completed his last professional years with the French team TotalEnergies, but was no longer able to achieve any notable results. Instead, he suffered several serious crashes. He ended his career at the end of 2022.
Since then, Terpstra has taken part in gravel races, been a guest on several podcasts and written columns for the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, in which he comments on and analyses current events in professional cycling.
Fabian Wegmann
The 44-year-old is still very much a part of the cycling scene today. As race director for the Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Radsports (GFR) and the ASO, he is responsible for the German World Tour events Eschborn-Frankfurt and, since 2024, the Cyclassics Hamburg. In the same position, he also manages the sporting processes at the Münsterland Giro and, since 2018, the Deutschland Tour. In addition, the Münster native has been a regular TV pundit for ARD and Eurosport since the end of his career in 2016.
During his active time, Wegmann was particularly known as a classics rider, winning the German road championship three times and Eschborn-Frankfurt twice. His greatest success was winning the mountain classification at the 2004 Giro d'Italia. Wegmann finished third on stage 3 in Belgium at the 2010 Tour de France. Otherwise, he had an unremarkable tour - also influenced by a cold. After leaving Milram, Wegmann rode for Leopard Trek (2011), Garmin (2012 to 2013), Cult Energy (2015) and Team Stölting (2016).
