German bike shop boss Wolfi on how the UAE got the cycling bug

When a young German started selling bicycles in the corner of his brother’s car repair shop, he had no idea that decades later he would be considered by many as the face of cycling in a faraway land.

However, that was how Wolfgang Hohmann — known to most as simply Wolfi, a name also given to his shops— began his career, that brought him to Dubai 20 years ago where he opened his first shop in the UAE.

Since then, he has had a front row seat from which to observe an explosion of interest in cycling across the country, which has led to the UAE being viewed as an international hub for the sport.

It's a very different story today to when he first arrived in Dubai.

“When I first came here in 2002, I had a 40-foot container, half of it had furniture and the other half was bikes,” said Wolfgang, 50.

“I opened the container in front of my first store on the Sheikh Zayed Road and walked into an empty showroom and that was the start of it all for me.”

The shop, which is well known to anyone in the Dubai cycling community, is the first of four he now has in the Emirates.

The cycling infrastructure in those days was in its infancy.

“Back then, the facilities weren’t what we have now. There were less people living here and the interest was quite small,” he said.

“I remember our first riding group, the Dubai Roadsters, we had maybe five or six people.

“Now in Dubai, if you look at the Al Qudra track alone, there are thousands of cyclists there at the weekends, people have to arrive around 5am to be sure of finding a parking space.

“It’s almost like being at a concert every week when you see so many people gathered in one place.”

Wolfgang Hohmann with the bike on which Tadej Pogacar won his first Tour de France in 2020. Photo: Wolfi

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