Today Specialized announced that it will be sponsoring the FDJ-SUEZ team for 2025, coinciding with both the team’s 25th anniversary and the signing of Dutch superstar rider Demi Vollering.
This ends the French team’s long-standing partnership with Lapierre, and follows the same path as the FDJ men's team (though the two aren’t connected besides sharing a title sponsor), who swapped from Lapierre to Wilier for the 2024 season.
In a short statement provided to the press, Scott Jackson, head of S-Racing at Specialized said:
“FDJ-SUEZ immediately impressed us with their dynamic international approach to racing, bold vision for the future and rich history in French cycling. Together, we look forward to elevating the future of women’s sport, driving innovation, and sharing our passion to pedal the planet forward.”
This is not the first time that a bike sponsor has moved teams along with a key rider, and it is not unusual for it to be either part of the signing contract for the rider, with some cases where the bike sponsor agrees to pay the star rider’s wages. Cyclingnews has not been party to the contract negotiations in this case. Specialized followed riders like Peter Sagan his whole career, coming on as the bike sponsor for the lower league TotalEnergies squad while the Slovakian was still racing in the final years of his career.
While Specialized is taking on a new team with FDJ-SUEZ, it is continuing to partner with SD Worx-Protime for the foreseeable future too, with a deal in place through to the end of the 2028 season. Given that SD Worx-Protime still has Lotte Kopecky, the current road race world champion, on the books it seems unlikely that it would want to seek some kind of early termination.
Specialized is certainly a bigger name in terms of bike sponsorship for the FDJ-SUEZ team, but as well as fresh equipment, and a new star rider, the team has also bolstered its roster with the likes of French road race champion Juliette Labous in an effort to provide Vollering with the best support possible. General Manager, Stephen Delcourt said of the partnership:
“We are extremely proud to enter into this collaboration with Specialized, an undisputed leader in the cycling world. This partnership represents a tremendous opportunity for our team to reach new heights by combining our strengths and expertise to achieve our ambitious goals.”
As per other Specialized sponsored teams - the likes of AG Insurance-Soudal and SD Worx-Protime - FDJ-SUEZ is covered by the brand for the full package: Frames, wheels, and finishing kit. In the pictures we have seen the groupset is provided by Shimano (the top-spec Dura-Ace, naturally), which will be a departure for Vollering who raced on SRAM components while at SD Worx-Protime.
Perhaps most interestingly is the tyres, with the photos indicating that the team will be racing on sets of Continental GP5000 S TR for 2025. In the photos, these have been set up with inner tubes, but we expect the team to use tubeless for races rather than photoshoots. Specialized sponsored teams, be that SD Works of the likes of Soudal-QuickStep in the men’s peloton, tend to also race on Specialized tyres, using the Turbo Cotton, or the S-Works Mondo in the cobbled races.
