team

When we started hearing about Isa within the community here, it normally centred on one topic: that she’s very, very fast. Not only fast, but with endurance to match. She began attending our fast paced rides in 2022 and quickly became friends with the members of our expansive community, hanging out for beer and pizza at the end of the rides and, in addition to the already well formed idea of her competence on two wheels, made a reputation for being a very nice individual (She won the PNS Plus One Race in 2022, too). Skip to the beginning of 2023 and we’re looking for a new employee, ‘why not ask Isa?’. We did, she said yes and, as simple as that, this cyclist with a cult status within Zürich is now part of our team. Isa has a wealth of knowledge relating to how to sustain, both physically and mentally, on the bike. She knows how to prepare, how to fuel and what to wear/ take with you/ consider before you head out on a long, ambitious tour.

Having been a customer of ours for some years, Andre popped the question of whether we had any open positions in the early months of 2021, during the grip of a Covid lockdown. Looking back, we can’t believe our luck. André’s passion, knowledge, hard-working nature and ability to engage with anyone he meets (not least our Portuguese and Spanish speaking clients) continues to propel us in the right direction. He’s a quick wit and keeps the team morale sky high with his humour.

André is a strong roadie, a strong mountain biker and a strong gravel rider: the complete package. No one else in the team matches his effortless seated track stands and whether rides are long or short, hilly or flat, dry or wet, it can be a challenge to keep up with him.

The most recent addition to our team. Philip started as a part timer in the summer and through his hard work, cycling knowledge, organisation and ability to lead our (very fast) group rides throughout the summer, he’s become a pivotal part of the team. He has an extremely broad reach across the riding community in Zürich and is liked by everyone he meets.

Philip rides a lot. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this makes him the strongest member of the team on two wheels. He has extreme endurance - proven on our Ascension Day 265km/ 5800m ‘social’ ride with Sam and Andrew - a formidable punch and can climb with along with the best of them.

Alex visited one quiet March in 2022, disturbing Sam and André’s peaceful morning. He showed an immediate interest in what we do and insisted he was a good mechanic. Spending many hours with us that day, he impressed us with his knowledge (a proper nerd) and, after offering to build a bike from the box, he impressed us with his meticulous attention to detail. Competencies aside, he’s just a very enjoyable person to be around. We had to hire him.

Alex is a bike packer, through and through. With friends, his gravel bike, somewhere obscure in the wild cooking elaborate outdoor dishes, he’s in his element. The rest of the team have now pressured him into building a road bike, a venture leading him to produce his own custom Steel/ Carbon frameset. We’re all very excited to see how he and it perform.

Finding a good mechanic is a tricky task, finding a good mechanic who fits into the current team, understands the store philosophy and generally elevates the day-to-day mood is something we had almost lost hope of finding, after all, Alex set the bar very high with his arrival in 2022. Then, restoring our waning hope, a guy called Ralf came along. Having cut his teeth as a mechanic in the professional racing realm, working in the most demandning environment a mechanic could ever find themselves in, Ralf is very, very good at his craft. It seems he’s seen everything before. Beyond this, he’s just proper nice and a real hoot to work with.

Ralf is very tall and his bikes are very big and, after years of working in the pro circuit, he can often be found on the road mimicking pros in colourful team kits of the past. Not quite in keeping with the CSZ aesthetic, but we like it nevertheless.

In the early 00’s when Dani was selling bikes, dreaming of the day when he would own his own shop, Erwin was alongside him fixing them. Now a partner of Cycle Store Zurich, aside from being an exceptionally good mechanic, he is also a professional photographer and has helped shape the brand image of CSZ from the very beginning (take a look at our 2022 PNS Plus One Race photos for a good example). With a busy schedule, mostly taking pictures, we don’t see him as much as we’d like to but when we do, it’s always a pleasure. He just a really, really nice guy.

Erwin is an explorer. Touring some very remote parts of the world along with his camera, he’ll ride up to very high altitude in complete solitude, photographing baron, moon-like landscapes in the process.

The longest serving member of the team. Sam visited Zürich from the UK in the summer of 2018, along with his road bike and a youthful, naive charm. A visit to Cycle Store Zurich only came about as a result of him seeing that the Bastion frameset (of interest as a mechanical engineer) was on display in their ‘new store in the heart of Zürich’. A visit led to a coffee, a coffee led to a group ride, a group ride led to Sam asking Dani whether a part time employee might be needed over summer, the rest, as they say, is history. Over the years, Sam has seen the store steadily grow to where it is today and takes great pleasure in keeping all aspects of the business in top shape.

As a cyclist, Sam is lazy. Training plans are not his thing and weeks can pass with him being too preoccupied with other things to turn his pedals. When he does ride, it’s usually on the road, usually involves a lot of elevation and - rarely using the saddle to get him up a climb - to the annoyance of the others, he’s usually pretty fast.

The chief, the founder.

Having worked in a bicycle shop with his friends many moons ago, there was always a dream to open a shop of his own. In 2017, when Cycle Store Zurich’s doors opened and bikes began rolling in and out of them, Dani’s dream became a reality. His attention to detail, indefatigable nature and passion for world class customer service have put CSZ on the map as one of the finest bike shops in the business.

On the bike, Dani doesn’t like long rides, however much the other team members try to persuade him. Instead, short, fast, hilly rides are Dani’s specialty. If you can’t find him at the shop, hang around on the top of Buchenegg or Albispass, our local climbs and ones Dani rides on an almost daily basis.