We'd seen him a thousand times on screen in recent years, without ever really seeing him in the flesh. His voice, however, had never left us: calm, clear, almost clinical at times, capable of capturing a race in mid-air and dissecting its invisible elements. Fritsch. A name that snaps like a pendulum movement, almost mechanical. Yet, when we find it face-to-face for 3bikes, there is nothing mechanical about him: only someone extremely present, humble in listening, demanding in thinking, anxious to follow through with ideas without ever forcing the point.
By Jeff Tatard – Photos: Nicolas Fritsch
The decor is simple: one table, two cafes.
The world could fade away around you; nothing would matter but the thread of the conversation.
We come to paint a portrait. Not an inventory. A portrait: that of a man who has lived several lives in the same body, and who keeps on his lips this somewhat gentle way of looking at effort as a language.
Before the bike, the strides
Before the gears and the pelotons, there was the stride. The running race…
He remembers very precisely the moment when he realized he liked it. A cross, won. Small. “It’s not the victory that matters; it’s what opens up behind it.”The sensation of a body surpassing itself. Of a breath that carries further. Of a moment when the “we feel connected to something bigger than ourselves”.
The scene is nothing spectacular, but it is fundamental.A silent first stone.
In fact, that's where he begins when asked about his beginnings. He could immediately mention cycling, the cycling family. But no. He talks about racing. As if everything else came second, a logical offshoot of a first love.
Why running in a cycling family? Perhaps because his father, a cyclist, wanted to prepare him without burning him out, we said to ourselves... Perhaps because it was necessary to learn first the effort, the commitment, and only then the technique.
In his words, this appears as a correlation rather than a contradiction.
“You don’t become a cyclist by chance” ; we become so because we have already learned to love effort.
And then, one day, the bike takes its place. A first race. Then a first victory, then US Créteil. The story accelerates...
The call
In him, the spark does not come from an inaccessible idol, but froman image that has remained engraved.
Summer 1989In his grandparents' living room, somewhere in Italy, he watches on television the insane duel between Fignon and LeMond, this time trial that turns the Tour on its head by just eight seconds. The room is quiet, the screen crackles, and suddenly everything changes: that day, something takes root. A vision. A vertigo. A click.
What he retains is not so much the figure of the hero, but the possibility: “You can be there!”
The bicycle is now a must. Not as a revelation, but as an evidence that thickens. And time accelerates.
Go pro, seize the opportunity
"The day we become stag"We're changing air. It's not the same altitude at all."
We are in 1997. A founding year for French cycling : birth of Cofidis and FDJ. A new lease of life. A youth of projects and ambitions.
Nicolas is one of the two youngest stagmembers of the peloton, alongside Loïc Lamouller, who passed through Aubervilliers. He arrives directly at Française des Jeux.
Our first memory of Fritsch among the professionals. A well-known and renowned race in Bretontagmid-August in Brittany. He's on the start list, he's not much older than 18, and it's hard to grasp the scale of the leap he's just made. In the end, he doesn't finish the race. Emmanuel MagThe Festina team won that day.
It does not matter. It's not the race that matters; it's the gateway..
| He discovers the professional environment... “No long explanations. No formalized teaching. Just immersion.” |
He evokes his FDJ years with lucidity. No hard feelings, but one observation: “Nobody really explained to you the reality of cycling at the time.”
In an environment marked by doping scandals, where the peloton sometimes moved at two or even three speeds, young people like him, who arrived without any reference points, found themselves facing a world to which they were not given the keys. “You weren't clearly told what you could expect, or why you wouldn't win.”
This lack of speech, more than the harshness of the sport, is what he remembers: "we did not prepare the neophytes to understand the system they were entering."
No teaching, no perspective, no explanation of the real limits of performance at the time. In other words : "There was a structure, but young people were not told what was really behind it." We entered the high level without explanation, without context, without instructions.
Result: some quickly understood the unwritten rules of the environment... and the others remained on the edge of the route.
He is progressing quickly despite everything also because he is a real talent... Tour of Finistère. Tour of Switzerland. It shines. Not with brute force: with subtlety. By do notlligence. For precision.
He is meticulousHe searches, measures, dissects. He conceptualizes before repeating. His strength is not only physical. It is cognitive. He observes, not only the world around him, but his own body. He asks himself: “What happens when I train? How can I improve it? What is the real effect of what I do?”
In his way of telling the story, we understand that performance was never an end in itself. It was a process. A dialogue with oneself.
A game of hypotheses and proofs.
From his FDJ years (lto French Games, as it was called at the time) compared to his time in Spain at Saunier Duval, he also notes a clear cultural difference between the French organization and certain foreign structures.
"Among foreigners, there is a stronger, more immediate form of belonging.", he said. Not something theorized, but a felt evidence: a team where commitment goes beyond the simple pay slip.
For example, he says that a mechanic would have been ready, an hour before departure, to disassemble and then reassemble his bike if necessary, without discussion. Not because it was his job; because it was their common cause.
He does not criticize France nor hexagonal structures, but it reconborn that abroad, at Saunier Duval in particular, reigned an atmosphere which engaged moretage, almost organically.
He observes. He compares. He learns.
Even when the media storm of the Riccò affair broke out, "the Cobra," yet another demonstration of a cycling system fractured at several speeds, he could have lost himself in this turmoil. He crosses.
If he had to relive a day as a runner, he wouldn't necessarily choose a victory. He would choose a moment of grace. One of those extremely rare moments when everything aligns: the legs, the head, the context, when the body seems to detach itself from the world, as if the route opened for you alone.
He sees Paris–Corrèze again. That day, he escaped. No one came back. The gap climbed and climbed, reaching eight minutes on a fast-moving peloton, led by the greatest leaders of the era.
A smile appears as he says: “They were all in front, turning to go back in… but they weren’t coming back to me.”
Upon arrival, some, incredulous, asked him: "Did you get help from the motorcycles?" He bursts out laughing as he tells it. No. Not at all. Just a day in a state of grace, where one touches the untouchable.
And then there is another image, which he keeps like a jewel in a case.
Mont Ventoux. Next to Armstrong. For many, an inaccessible fantasy; for him, a physical memory, to the point that he said to himself that day: “Even if my career ended tomorrow, at least… I will have experienced this.”
He finished 9th in the stage. And yet, it's not the ranking that counts. It's the feeling, that of having fully inhabited his place, if only for a moment, on these lunar slopes where the legend is measured by breath.
Two images, two flashes: Paris–Corrèze and VentouxTwo suspended moments, where the life of a runner is reduced to the essential: being there, exactly there, in the trajectory that is his.
The end, or rather: the other beginning
His professional career ended in 2008.And very quickly the question arises that no athlete escapes: " And now ? "
Liberation, vertigo, rebirth? Probably a bit of all three at once.
He's leaving the professional circuit, but not the sport. For him, effort isn't a parenthesis; it's a way of inhabiting the world.
So he switched to triathlon. Why?
Because he needed somewhere else. A new language. A challenge without landmarks, shrouded in fog, where no one awaits him anymore.
He launches himself. First Nice, a first time, to learn, feel, understand. Then ten years later, he returns thereAnd this time, everything comes together: a crazy qualification for Hawaii.
In Nice, he won all categories combined, and above all, he ranks just behind the fifteen professionals, like a discreet reminder that the former rider is still there, very much alive, transformed, but intact in his capacity to surpass himself.
He recounts this day without emphasis. No grandiloquence, no mythology. Only facts, sensations: "the body that traces its route, the breath that says yes, the endurance that expands.”
A few months earlier, in April 2018, he had already set the toneA training weekend, as insane as it was obvious to him:
- On Saturday: 180 km of cycling,
on a Van Rysel that Decathlon had just given him the day before.
- Sunday morning : Paris Marathon in 2 hours 50 minutes, exactly the pace calibrated to win, two months later, his ticket to Hawaii.
We were there, 3bikes had already crept into this piece of preparation, as if we had a feeling that something was happening.
It wasn't just training. It was a transition. A moultThe moment when a man understands that the end of a story is never anything more than a threshold towards another.
It seems like an illogical story. But it must be understood: for him, endurance is not an exercise; it is a breathing technique.
In Hawaii, the heat isn't what affects him most. It's the humidity. This climate that the body absorbs like an extra, invisible weight.
He goes into robot mode. He moves forward. Always.
With this strong constitution, this ability to heal, mentally and physically.
What does he find in triathlon? A form of totalityThree disciplines that divide the effort into several variations. A way to prove to yourself that you can still learn.
And the fundamental simplicity of man reappears. Speaking of great triathletes, he drops this sentence, almost as a statement: "In each of the three disciplines, they would have a largely international level."
No false modesty, no exaggeration.
Just respect. “The great are great.”
He is thinking in particular of Kristian Blummenfelt, Olympic triathlon champion, capable of chaining together 180 km of cycling at 45 km/h average, then a marathon in 2 hours 30 minutes, as if human limits had never existed.
At the mention of his name, Nicolas smiled, a smile mixed with admiration and disbelief: “I admire these guys. What they do… it’s unreal. You have to see it to believe it.”
For him, what impresses is not only the raw performance, but this mental constancy, this way of remaining present in the effort, minute after minute, where the body would like to collapse.
He doesn't just see a stopwatch. He sees a story. An interior architecture. A total commitment.
In Nicolas, admiration is never naive. : she is lucid, sensitive, inhabited. She says something deeper: "that sporting greatness is not only in victory, but in that quiet courage which consists of standing at the very end of oneself."
Fitnext, the other school
In his career, he became certified, obtained a diploma, passed his competitive exams, learned coaching, transmission but also physiology, biology, biochemistry, etc. and all that from experts and then there was also Fitnext… he joined Erwann Menthéour in 2016. There again, he does not seek to magnifyHe says what there is to say: “It wasn’t all good. But I learned. About the body. The mind. Nutrition. Relationships with others.”
He takes. He retains. He absorbs. Always learning. Again…
Becoming the voice, entering the media
Then comes another transition: entry into the media, the role of consultant. For most cycling enthusiasts, this is where it becomes familiar. His voice on Eurosport, calm and precise, is one of those that we reconis born immediately, like a companion of route capable of illuminating a fragmented peloton or revealing what cannot be seen on screen.
This passage to the microphone takes place without a hitch, almost naturally. He settles into it as if he were in a familiar room.What he likes? Analysis, but not the kind done cold, once the race is over. What drives him is live analysis, hot off the press, when the breath of the race is still present, when nothing has been written.
“You can be wrong there. It doesn't matter. What matters is being there. Being right in the intention.” He describes this work as a balancing act: too much emotion, and you lose your way; too much neutrality, and you lose your life. You have to navigate between passion, precision, and pedagogy, being both in the race and just above it.
What makes it unique is thathe allows himself not to know. " I don't know. " Three rare, precious words that maintain a space of honesty. For him, a good analysis is not one that is right, but one that allows us to see: one that reveals the invisible, that opens the viewer's horizons, that allows them to experience the race differently.
The podcaster: letting the words breathe
Late Cycling. Then Bistrot Vélo.
In these formats, he explores another relationship with speech. Freer. More human. More sensitive.
He looks for what isn't on the air. The "off the record." The unspoken. The gray areas.
"Here, we don't comment: we listen. We let things live."
What does he want to create? A place where you leave somethingNot just information, but a part of oneself.
"There is a framework. Yes!" Because you need a compass. But "80% of the time, it's the exchange that guides you. 20% is improvisation."
He says it as if it were obvious: "You can't summarize an hour of conversation into a two-minute column if you haven't already done the work." This work of condensation, sorting, filtering, hierarchizing, is a skill that is acquired patiently.
At home, this process does not take place sitting behind a desk.. His real laboratory is when he runsThis is where ideas emerge, come together, and rub shoulders with each other. The final wording comes later, often in the car taking him to the Eurosport studios. La route then becomes the last airlock before the antenna : a place where thoughts settle and take on their coherence.
His guests surprise him. Always. But when he talks about the one who surprised him the most, he talks about Paul Seixas. "A brilliant runner," he describes him thus: "He's not just strong, he's very intelligent. And power only makes sense if it's thought out."
Modern cycling, between lucidity and tension
His vision of contemporary cycling is not nostalgic. It is lucid. Nuanced.
More scientific? Yes. More unbridled? Perhaps. More short-term? Certainly. He's surprised himself that he's never loved cycling as much. Perhaps because it's become so televised. Which worries him, though: “the disappearance of certain amateur teams, these reservoirs of talent, these essential nurseries.” A silent hemorrhage. The risk: "that future champions are captured earlier, but more brutally." "We ask cadets to live like professionals. Three training sessions per week are no longer enough to "be competitive."
The bicycle changes. But the human? He remains the same. And that's where the danger lies.
What sport taught him
Sport is a school of selfIt places you in front of yourself. It forces you to answer questions you would never have asked.
When asked what he learned, he remained silent for a long time.
Then… “Sport taught me to know myself. It’s not an answer. It’s a given.”
He talks about balance. Humility. Adaptation.
His greatest pride is not a victory. Not a ranking. Not a trophy. No. It's a transition. He remains modest at this moment and we won't confide in you the intimacy he shared with us.tagHe's off the record, but he talks about his children, his daughters, and the lessons he tries to teach them through sport.
Having left professional cycling, having found another path, having built a new identity, all this without bitterness, without bitterness. With elegance.
So, cycling isn't his life. It's just one of his languages.
Philosophy of life
When asked to summarize his philosophy of life in one sentence, he smiles. He is looking, not for a formula, but for a truth. And what he offers sounds like a silent promise: « Do your best, but always stay curious.”
Simple. Pure. True.
Let us conclude with understated grace and depth.
Nicolas Fritsch is not a legendary cycling hero. He didn't build his life on a track record.He didn't try to become a figure to be celebrated. And yet. He possesses that rare substance: the ability to reinvent himself, to move, to continue learning, without losing his center.
Childhood running, professional cycling, triathlon, media, podcast… Each chapter does not erase the previous oneThey add up. They build. He never defined himself by what he did, but by how he lived it. Precise. Thoughtful. Curious. Human.
In his words, we find a simple truth: “Sport is not just what you accomplish, but what you become through it.” His journey is less a straight line than a series of adjustments. A dance with life.
What is striking is that the silent coherence of it all. As if, despite the turns, he had always been exactly where he was supposed to be. Hetagand his gaze without trying to convince. He tells without trying to impress. He analyzes to reveal, not to shine. And perhaps that is the most beautiful thing in this story: Intelligence is never a weapon for him, but a tool at the service of understanding..
Strength is never domination, but exploration. Cycling, triathlon, speaking, listening: all these disciplines say the same thing. That life is a movement. That meaning is not given. That it is constructed.
And if we remain curious, if we remain alert, if we agree to start again, then nothing is lost: everything is transformed. Nicolas Fritsch is one of those who move forward quietly., with this quiet class which does not seek to show itself, but to transmit.
His voice on Eurosport, his conversations at the Bistrot Vélo, his view of the world, all contribute to drawing the same thread: Understand, and make others understand. See, and make others see. Learn, and transmit.
So, if we had to remember one thing from this portrait, it would perhaps be this: In a world that demands certainty, he prefers nuance. In an environment that celebrates peaks, he honors passages. In an era obsessed with the short term, he cultivates depth. Because sport isn't just about watts, it's about the soul. Because an athlete isn't just a body, but a being. And because the greatest victory, the one we often forget to celebrate, is perhaps simply becoming ourselves.
=> If you want to hear his voice, take a moment to discover this exchange in Bistrot Vélo with Paul Seixas: Bike Bistro with Paul Seixas
=> And here, if you want to discover all our other portraits: All our Portraits articles
