One-day races and Classics Nicolas Roche (/ˈroʊtʃ/; born 3 July 1984) is an Irish cyclist, who competes in gravel cycling for his own NR GRVL team.

Since retiring from road cycling at the end of the 2021 season, Roche has worked as a directeur sportif for UCI Continental team Trinity Racing and as a commentator for the international television feed at the Tour de France alongside Anthony McCrossan.

Roche had good performances in the Vuelta, nearly winning stage 18 into Las Rozas, where he was outsprinted by Imanol Erviti after a 17-man breakaway.

Roche along with Deignan and Roger Aiken made up the Irish team for the 2008 World Championship in Varese.

For the most part of the year and after a solid performance in the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, Roche was in consideration for the Tour de France team and after winning the road race at the Irish National Cycling Championships for the first time in June, Roche was selected by Ag2r–La Mondiale to ride his first Tour de France the following month.

After a good early season, where he finished 10th in Paris–Nice, 5th in the Volta a Catalunya and 2nd in the Irish National Road Race Championships, Roche was chosen as the co-leader of the Ag2r–La Mondiale team in the Tour de France and during the race he wrote articles for the Irish Independent newspaper.

After the Tour, Roche finished 8th in the Clásica de San Sebastián and in September, he led Ag2r–La Mondiale at the Vuelta a España.

His performance was even better than during the Tour de France, as he was really close to the best climbers of the race, losing very little time in stages with a mountain top finish.

He got in a number of unsuccessful breaks in the final week, hoping to grab a stage win, and eventually finished 26th overall.

Roche moved up to seventh overall on the first mountain stage seven which finished on La Planche des Belles Filles.

On stage 18, Roche broke clear of the peloton in the last 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) with Luis León Sánchez.

The pair passed the day's breakaway and looked set to contest the stage win only for Mark Cavendish to sprint past in the final 200 metres (660 feet).

Roche, along with Dan Martin and David McCann, represented Ireland in the Olympic Games Road Race.

[24] Throughout much of the season with Saxo–Tinkoff including the Tour de France, he rode as a domestique for Alberto Contador with few results.

After a good performance at the Clásica de San Sebastián finishing 5th, he was given leadership at the Vuelta a España.

Roche had few early season results before participating in the Giro d'Italia which started on the island of Ireland and was given the role as co-leader with Rafał Majka.

[32][33] After a disrupted winter training due to more than one spider infection while riding,[34] Roche struggled with few early season results.

At the end of April Roche competed in the Tour de Yorkshire looking for a good result.

His form faded over the race but helped his teammate Mikel Nieve win the mountains classification.

In September 2018 he confirmed that he had agreed a contract with Team Sunweb for 2019, with a role as a domestique for Tom Dumoulin in the latter's effort to win the Tour de France.

[41][42] In May 2023, Roche took a third-place finish at the UCI Gravel World Series event in Nannup, Western Australia.

[47] They were eliminated at the quarter-final stage, finishing in 6th place (with an average of 17.4 points), after losing the dance-off to Ellen Keane and Ervinas Merfeldas.