Franziska Koch is the signing of the season, right? Across the men’s and women’s pelotons. A solid if unspectacular domestique and Classics rider for six years at Picnic PostNL, the German moved to FDJ United-Suez this past winter and almost overnight turned into one of the most complete riders in the peloton. A win at Paris-Roubaix, third at Strade Bianche, two days in the lead of the Vuelta a España, and a number of other impressive results that we won’t list as we’re not Pro Cycling Stats. But the picture is clear. No signing has been better than FDJ’s inspired recruit of 25-year-old Koch.
“Well…,” the German hesitates to answer, too modestly, too humbly. “Maybe my teammate Lauren Dickson. She’s also been a great signing, a great find. Not many people knew her before, but now they do.” Fair point. Dickson was racing amateur races just two years ago and is now a contender to win pro races. But, nope, Koch is the signing of the season, whether she wants to admit it or not.
“For sure it’s taken me also by surprise,” Koch tells Rouleur of her brilliant season to date. “I was always hoping and planning of doing well in the Classics. My dream was to win a Classic – even a podium first would have been great, that’s also always been my dream – so that it became true this spring came as a bit of a surprise. But I was very happy about that.”
Just a week after setting up his teammate Demi Vollering to win the Tour of Flanders, Koch won Paris-Roubaix in a velodrome sprint against Marianne Vos. It was, remarkably, her first win outside of the German National Championships (that she’s won the last two years), since 2019. “It took quite a while after the race for it to finally sink in,” she says. “Only when things calmed down a little bit with all the media requests, maybe two weeks later, did I have some more time for myself and then I realised looking back at the pictures. Fuck! That’s actually way bigger than I thought!”
Koch finished third at Strade Bianche, with her teammate Elise Chabbey winning.
It doesn’t get much bigger than Roubaix, at least not in a one-day sense. What’s brought the revolution about? “For sure wins help but already at the start, even before racing in the first camp, within 20 seconds of arriving at dinner time, everyone was so nice, welcoming, really friendly, super relaxed, really inviting me into this group. There’s a family atmosphere that they really pay attention to. We all have nice dinners together, not just the staff but also with the staff, so everyone feels way more involved.”
From the outside, FDJ, led by Stephen Delcourt, certainly looks like a happy family. Led by Vollering, who in June became only the second woman to win all three Grand Tours after claiming the Giro d’Italia title, FDJ are undoubtedly the best team in the world right now. “Being around Demi for example, she is an amazing leader, very inspiring,” Koch says. “We all just level each other up. It really is an environment that makes you believe that everything is possible.”
The impact of Vollering, 29, cannot be understated. “Her slogan is ‘It all starts with dreaming’, and I think about that now way more often,” Koch says; she’s on the longlist to support Vollering at August's Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. “Dreams really can come true. She lives this slogan and it spreads to everyone around her. Also, even when she isn’t racing – like she did with me before Roubaix – she sends messages. She’s really caring. She’s a great role model.”
Koch isn’t a bad example to follow, either. She grew over six years at Picnic PostNL, showed flashes of potential, including a seventh place at the 2021 Roubaix, and demonstrated her versatility in various stage races in 2024 and 2025. But it was the move to FDJ that truly sparked her ascendency into one of the most complete riders in the peloton, one who can climb, sprint and do everything else in between. What’s next?
Is Koch going to develop into one of the sport's best time triallists?
“For sure they [FDJ] were buying me as a Classic rider for punchy courses, but what they also sold to me was their belief in my time trialing abilities,” Koch says. “I haven’t had the chance to show them yet [in her career] as I’ve never paid much attention to it and never had great support in it, but FDJ were like, ‘If you want, we can go all in, see what you can do there’. I thought it was a really interesting project.” At the recent Tour de Suisse, she finished fourth in a 24km time trial.
“I signed with them last April, but in the Tour last year I was good on the climbs and then finished fifth at the European Championships, also on a climber’s course,” she continues. The team said to me: ‘Franzie, we signed you as a Classics rider, we’re not sure what you can do on the climbs. The Classics are the first priority and then we’ll see what else we can achieve.” On the evidence so far, the sky is the limit.
