Frits didn’t come from a racing family, but he grew up on two wheels. By eight or nine he was already riding mountain bike trails, entering small races, and falling in love with the sport’s mix of freedom and technical skill. Before choosing cycling, he also played hockey, but when he became good at both, he had to decide.
“Hockey is a team sport,” he explains. “I was much better than my teammates, and at a young age it was difficult to be understanding. In mountain biking you can only blame yourself, so I found that was easier.”
It’s a line that perfectly captures who Frits is: driven, self-directed, and happy to take responsibility.
Mountain biking shaped everything — his technical ability, his race instinct, his preparation and discipline. Even now as a road and gravel rider, he sees the benefits clearly: “The technical skills, the training, the dedication… it’s almost the same.”
But his route to professional cycling was far from conventional. After his final U23 year on the mountain bike, no major team came calling. So he took a chance and contacted BEAT Cycling. They believed in him, offered him a half-year contract as a stagiaire, and encouraged him to try road racing. It changed everything.
Over the winter he reinvented himself, longer rides, more volume, meticulous nutrition, and the results followed. A strong prologue at the Tour of Slovenia, consistent road performances, and a rapid rise in confidence.
Then came the moment that brought his name to the wider cycling world: 2nd place at the UCI Gravel World Championships.
“It was really special,” he says. “I qualified earlier in the year, and because Worlds were in the Netherlands, I really wanted to be part of it. I had no expectations.”
One-by-one, big names, gravel specialists, WorldTour pros, dropped from the front group. “But I felt fresh. It was a strange feeling.”
Finishing second behind Vermeersch was a breakthrough that surprised almost everyone, except maybe the people who had seen his rapid progress throughout the season.
On the road, Frits sees himself thriving in hilly, hard races where everyone is suffering and the strongest simply remain. But he’s open-minded about where he might develop. “I don’t know what the future brings. I’m curious to see.”
What’s certain is his work ethic. His three-ish words to describe himself say it all: eager to learn, disciplined, focused.
He laughs that his most “interesting fact” is that he likes coffee — but the truth is that his story is already interesting enough: a mountain biker who rebuilt himself, discovered his potential on the road and gravel, and took one of the biggest results in Dutch gravel history almost by accident.