Summer, 2007, somewhere between Purmerend and Medemblik

A bit above Hoorn, near Nibbixwoud, a man in his early sixties cycles northwards. He pedals a strong, steady tempo and sits beautifully still on his bike. His legs are unshaven. He is wearing black cycling shorts and a cycling jersey in colours like they only made in the 1990s. Out both sides of his helmet, his long grey hair flaps in the wind. From behind, you can see that his right ankle points a little further outwards than his left—the result of an old injury.

René van den Berg is in his element. He is where he most loves to be, doing what he most loves to do. Even better: today, his son is with him. For the first time, Julius is cycling with him to the campsite in Medemblik. Julius is ten. He is on a mountain bike, wearing football shorts, and a loose, fluttery T-shirt that is way too big. His helmet is borrowed from his brother Jesse. Julius sways stubbornly on his dad’s wheel. His mouth is wide open and sweat drips from his chin. René knows that his son is having a hard go of it, but doesn’t adjust his tempo. René thinks that cycling means pushing on; if you get tired, that’s just fine. The ice cream will soon taste all the better for it.

Something is dawning on René’s rear wheel. As hard as Julius is working, as much as he already wants to be in Medemblik and to dive into the Ijsselmmer, Julius realises, to his own surprise, that he likes this, that there is something almost joyful in pushing through the pain. He doesn’t want to ask his dad to slow. He for sure won’t let the wheel go. Later, when he sits with a cup of lemonade on a camping chair beside the tent and the pain in his legs has just about gone, he tells his mother: “That was super cool, Mum!”

Julius van den Berg is a happy, active boy who prefers to be outside. After school, he’ll pop home for a moment, before disappearing again to the neighbourhood square. The neighbourhood is in Purmerend. At home, he has two older half-brothers—Jesse, from his mother Nynke’s first marriage, is ten years older than Julius and Jeff, from his father René’s earlier marriage, is sixteen years older than him.

Julius plays with a few good friends. His classmate Dave is always one of them. The two boys see each other day in and day out and do what all the boys in the neighbourhood do—play football and table tennis, play hide-and-seek, play Playstation, and get up to some mischief. On that front, Dave goes further than Julius. That fits with what both of Julius’s parents say about him: he is the easiest kid you could imagine. Without apparent effort, Julius finds his way, fits in everywhere. He is kind with everyone, has more empathy for others than is normal for children, who are mostly focused on themselves. Julius often asks to go to his grandma’s.

“Otherwise, she is so alone too. I find that sad.”

Julius’s friend Dave is a bit of an outsider—he says so himself later. He is a bit shy and his weight makes him a target for bullies. In those moments, he relies a lot on Julius. If need be, Julius will stand up for his friend, sometimes literally. That feeling of camaraderie remains in Julius. When, in 2018, just after he became Dutch U23 champion, he is interviewed in front of Wielerflits’s camera, he brings up his teammate Peter Lenderink. Lenderink has just ridden his last race; a pinched artery in his groin has made a future as a pro impossible. When Julius starts to speak, tears leak from his eyes. He loses his voice. He is clearly shocked by it himself.

“Yes. It can go like that too, you know….that is just a real shame.”

Julius plays football for VPV Purmerstein, usually as a central defender. He is strong, enthusiastic, and can keep going and going. He is missing the finesse of the footballer pictured on the poster he has pinned to his wall: Wesley Sneijder. That doesn’t bother him. Until he is about 14, Julius is determined to become a professional footballer. But, eventually he realises what was true all along: it is not going to happen. That is what it is. Julius is a better than average footballer, but still not as good as the best. It is almost like in gym class at school: he gets along well, but doesn’t stand out. He does when they do a fitness test though. Julius leaves everyone, including the best footballers and toughest boys in the class, behind him. Afterwards, they stand, gasping, around him, looking at him with a mix of wonder and disbelief. Suddenly, Julius is a couple of steps higher in the hierarchy.

Julius goes to a Montessori school, a school that gives pupils a lot of freedom. At the start of the year, the kids get a card for each of their subjects that says which tasks they have to get done by the end of the year. The tempo at which they work through the tasks is up to them. If you do your very best for a couple of months, you can take it easy for the rest of the year. That suits Julius. He never needs supervision and never gets caught out at the end of the school year. That is not to say that he puts in an extraordinary effort. He has good brains, but is satisfied with good enough.

Montessori schooling fits with what his parents Nynke and René find important: that their son has the opportunity to develop in a way that suits him. They bring him up according to the motto: always think for yourself and never just follow others. That is also in Julius’s parents’ blood. Julius’s father founded the local chapter of the Pacifist-Socialist Party in Alkmaar and livedin a past life as a squatter in Amsterdam. René is just about the most nonconformist and authentic man that you can imagine: he seems like a free-spirit, a bit of a long-haired hippy. He likes to have fun and is creative and stubborn. That is only part of the story. René is a dropout, who was kicked out of school when he was 13 and went to work at a bakery. Later, via night classes, he worked his way up to a career as an academic in pedagogy. He might seem laid-back, but when he sets a goal for himself, he is very disciplined. It will become apparent just how much his son shares those characteristics with him.

Nynke, a teacher, is a warm, sociable, and kind woman, who is very involved with her children. She is less strict than she thinks that she should be, and sometimes peeks through her fingers. René is more straightforward and can at times be very strict.

Two teachers with a child together: it seems like a project that cannot go wrong. In the most important ways, that is true. Julius grows up without real stress, fits in well and never causes a fight. What maybe could have gone better is if Nynke and René could hide the tension that is rising between them. When they split up when Julius is ten, their son mostly feels relief.

“At once, there was no arguing anymore, and that was nice.”

From then on, Julius lives half of the week with Nynke and the other half with René. On Sundays, during the ‘hand over’, they eat together. The divorce works out well for everyone. The stress is gone and over time Nynke and René get on very well again. The first time that I meet Julius’s parents, at the U23 Paris-Tours in October 2015, they stand cheerfully together at the finish. They had driven to France together.

Julius’s expanding love for the bike and the pain that goes along with the sport only gets stronger after his ride to Medemblik on the mountain bike. Whereas it always was René who asked him to come along, Julius starts to take the initiative more and more himself. René stokes his enthusiasm. René regularly rides evening races on the track in Spaarnwoude and after, at the dinner table, tells fantastic stories about the races in the epic style of early Tour de France commentators. His son loves them.

When growing pains in his knees stop him from playing football for a bit, the moment comes for Julius to join the Zaanlandse Cycling Club DTS. He is fifteen. Later he will describe it as a direct click. He loves the training, and enjoys the pain, pushing himself hard on the bike, and having fun attacking and attacking in the practice races, time after time after time. One of the club managers speaks to René by the side of the track during one of his first training sessions.

“So, he’ll go a long way.”

The only thing Julius has trouble with is riding in the bunch. Because he started cycling a bit later than most of the others, he is often scared when they ride with a big group. So, he races all of the regional races and club races from the very back. The first national-calibre race he takes part in is a classic on the 18th of March in Lierop: the Meeus Race. Nervous as a mouse, mostly because the peloton will be so big, he starts right at the rear of the peloton. Beside him, with a tough look on his face, is a boy from the racing club Jan van Arkel. For the whole race, Julius rides at the back, but doesn’t get dropped, and is satisfied to finish the race. He has no idea what has happened at the front. The sprint, from a group of 17, is won by Fabio Jakobsen.

For the next classics, Julius goes for a similar race plan—start at the back and try to hang on for as long as possible. It’s not a matter of his physical capacity. It is already very clear that he is second to none amongst the best riders in his age group when it comes to riding a bike hard. That’s most obvious when the races break into echelons. Julius finds that much easier to oversee and less stressful than riding in the middle of the peloton. When the criterium season gets under way, his fear has mostly disappeared. The pelotons in the criteriums are a lot less big and you keep riding the same lap, so there are no surprises in the corners. Julius soon realises that he can make use of a completely different tactic in the criteriums, one that is just as simple as it is effective: ride beside the peloton to the front and then ride away. Or jump with a break. At the end of July, during the Acht van Chaam, he does just that and soon finds himself in a group of four. In the sprint, he finishes third and soon stands on the podium of a national-calibre bike race for the first time in his life. He is so shocked that he forgets to take his helmet off for the ceremony.

A month later, he gets his first win. In Heerhugowaard, Julius is feeling good for the whole race and goes on the attack with five laps still to go. Since no one has heard of Julius van den Berg, there’s no reaction. When the chasers realise that he won’t come to a standstill, it’s too late. Julius comes solo over the finish. Later, with the juniors, that will be the script for almost all of his victories: ride away, pedal hard, and stay away.

For now, 'Fabio & Julius' is only available in Dutch. Readers can buy the book from De Muur.