Story of Steel Vintage Bikes Café

How it all began...

Alex and Tamara met in Berlin in February 2013. They both had the desire to build a cycling community and create a cosy "pit stop" where "cycling aficionados/fans" could hang out. They thought about the concept for a couple of months, visited cycle cafés during a business trip to London in order to get the "grit of it".

The Café’s final concept really only cemented itself during the building phase which coincided with the L'Eroica race (in Gaiole in Chianti, Tuscany-Italy). That’s when Alex and Tamara knew they were doing the right thing: by trying to incorporate and honour Gaiole’s beautiful cultural heritage in Berlin, by trying to make it a daily habit, and not just an annual event. L’Eroica takes place on gravel roads with vintage road bicycles and traditional woolen jerseys. Fueled by rich Italian food and wine, this world famous race captures the golden era of cycling.

After having taken part in the race, offering Italian wines produced by Francesco Moser to our customers just seemed like the natural thing to do. The long, picturesque drive to collect the wine by hand will continue to inspire and infuse us with new energy and ideas.

Crowdfunding

We needed to raise start-up funds for the Café and build a new kitchen. We decided to use Startnext, a Berlin based crowdfunding platform.

Crowdfunding means raising  little bits of money from lots of people, rather than lots of money from a few people. We set a target of €10’000 and our campaign ran in January and February 2015. We ended up exceeding our wildest expectations, raising a bit more than €12’000 from well over 100 fantastic donors.

We would like to express our gratitude to our amazing supporters in every way possible. It was amazing to experience such a level of goodwill  and the support that they offered us.