Registered Nation: Netherlands
Bicycles: Colnago
Components: Shimano
Key Riders: Denis Menchov, Oscar Friere
Title Sponsors: Rabobank is a Dutch bank

Rabobank was first founded in 1984 after the TI-Raleigh team split into two team because of a conflict between Jan Raas and TI-Raleigh team boss Peter Post. Post took seven TI-Raleigh riders and formed to the new Panasonic team, while Raas formed the Kwantum team with the rest. In its first year Kwantum won a stage in the 1984 Tour de France and the Amstel Gold Race and the Dutch national title. In 1985 the Kwantum team won two Tour de France stages, Tour of Luxembourg, Paris-Tours, Paris Brussels, Tirreno-Adriatico, and another Dutch National championship. 1986 was less successful so Kwantum looked to decrease its sponsorship involvement with the team and for 1987, Superconfex took over as title sponsor. The team was renamed Superconfex-Kwantum-Yoko-Colnago, with Raas as team manager. '87 saw the arrival of super-sprinter Jean-Paul van Poppel who gave the squad three stage wins the Tour de France and the Maillot Vert. In 1988 Kwantum withdrew as sponsor and the season was a hugely successful as they took victory at Paris-Brussels, Tour of Belgium, the Amstel Gold Race and six stages in the Tour de France. In 1999 the teams star sprinter Jean-Paul van Poppel defected and joined rival Peter Post at the Panasonic team, but even without Jean-Paul van Poppel, Superconfex still managed victories in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Tours, and two stages in the 1989 Tour de France.

In 1990 near-beer Buckler took over as team title sponsor, with wins in the Tour of Belgium, Ronde van Nederland and Dutch national road race championships. In 1991 Buckler signed Steven Rooks from Panasonic who won the Dutch national title. Buckler would also win the Amstel Gold Race and the Tour of Flanders that season, while 1992 season was the team’s worst with just 26 wins and the dearth of results caused Buckler to end its sponsorship at the end of the '92 season.

In 1993 a new sponsor was found in WordPerfect, a Utah-based software firm and the team had re-booted with Raul Alcalv°, but despite the new riders '93 has only 29 wins. In 1994, WordPerfect signed Leon Van Bon and Michael Boogerd and Viatcheslav Ekimov with just 25 victories.

In 1995, Novell Software took over as title sponsor and the team signed Uzbek sprint monster Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, who had won the Maillot Vert in the '94 Tour de France. Abdou managed only one stage win in the '95 Tour de France and at the end of the year, Novell pulled its sponsorship.

Rabobank signed in 1996 with Jan Raas as team manager, and ex-rider Theo de Rooy as team director.

With secure sponsorship from the Dutch bank, Rabobank hired the top Dutch cyclists of the 1990s including Adrie van der Poel, Erik Breukink, Leon van Bon, Erik Dekker and Michael Boogerd, with more success from riders like Rolf Sorensen and Robbie McEwen. For 2002 Rabobank set about building part of the team for stage races, signing Levi Leipheimer to lead the squad at the Tour de France. Leipheimer finished eighth in the '02 Tour de France but then crashed out of the race on the first stage of the 2003 Tour. At the end of '03 Jan Raas was ousted from the team he had led for almost two decades, with Theo De Rooy promoted to team manager and Erik Breukink as team director. In 2004 Leipheimer was ninth overall in Le Tour, but left

Rabonank at the end of the season. In 2005, Michael Rasmussen won the Maillot Pois jersey of Best Climber in the Tour de France and Denis Menchov took the Vuelta a Espana title after winner Roberto Heras failed a doping control. In 2006 Danish climber Rasmussen again repeated his win in the mountains classification of the Tour de France.

In last year's Tour de France, Rabobank looked like they would finally win the Tour De France with Danish climber Michael Rasmussen. But during the 2007 Giro d'Italia, it came to light Rasmussen had lied about his whereabouts in the months leading up to the Tour and this blew up in Rabobank's face at the Tour De France. Rasmussen was expelled from the Tour de France and later fired from the Rabobank team and in August '07 in the aftermath of the Rasmussen affair, Theo De Rooy was fired as as team manager during a major team shake-up. Denis Menchov and Oscar Freire saved the season for the Rabobankers with a great Vuelta A Espana with stage wins and the overall Vuelta title. Denis Menchov will focus on the Tour de France this seaons and had a solid 2008 Giro d’Italia (5th overall) as preparation, while Oscar "The Cat" Friere will be a strong candidate for sprint stage wins.