Vintage racing bikes, jerseys and memorabilia
Andreas Höhnen, indicating a line that runs well above his knees, "that's how high the water was here." At Christmas 1993, the Moselle burst its banks more violently than ever before. At the time, the Höhnen family home in an idyllic wine-growing village in Rhineland-Palatinate was home to his parents' clothing shop, which was hit hard by the effects of the flood.
However, Andreas Höhnen cannot imagine what such a high water level would do today. Because now that the shop is long gone, the rooms are home to countless historic racing bike treasures and a collection that is probably one of the most remarkable far and wide.
"I'm mad about cycling," says Andreas Höhnen succinctly. It all began in the historic summer of 1977, when Elvis Presley died and Didi Thurau rode for 15 days in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France. While Andreas Höhnen's love of music and rock 'n' roll developed on a more normal scale, his passion for cycling was almost manic from the very beginning.
The Peugeot PY 10 that he received as a child, he says with shining eyes, helped him to find his identity. And above all: "Cycling gave me good reasons not to have to play football in the village."
First foray into the world of cycling
The fact that Andreas Höhnen's collection today comprises more than 35 historic bikes, around 120 jerseys and countless memorabilia was of course unforeseeable at the time - although two photos from the 1983 Tour de France final in particular document how immensely he was gripped by cycling fever after he started racing at RV Schwalbe Trier in the shadow of his club mate Reimund Dietzen: Neatly arranged in a frame, they show the 16-year-old Andreas proudly standing next to racers Jacques Michaud and José Patrocinio Jiménez as well as his uncle.
At the time, he was a bigwig at Henkel, which sponsored the white jersey with its X-TRA detergent brand. This brought Andreas Höhnen into direct contact with the big cycling world for the first time. "I can still remember exactly how we rode the stage in the support vehicle," he says. At the wheel was a certain Jean Stablinski, world champion in 1962 and team boss of Bernard Hinault in his first professional season.
"That's how it all began," says Höhnen looking back. And by "all that" he doesn't just mean his collection, which he looks at fondly again and again, but all the stories that he associates with it - and which have shaped his life so strongly: "I couldn't live without cycling," he explains with conviction. He rides 10,000 kilometres in the saddle every year, takes part in major races and tours and feels "like it's Christmas" every single day.
Amore Grande: Italy and vintage racing bikes
And over the years, he has developed a great love for Italy, which is not only reflected in the fact that the rooms in his collection are painted in Italy's national colours. It is also reflected in the fact that all his bikes - whether current or collector's items - are made from Italian frames and components and are fitted with Campagnolo groupsets. The simple reason for this: "I don't like the uniform grey or black of the German brands - they lack soul."
Andreas Höhnen pulls out the bike that started his passion for collecting. "Bottecchia - how that sounds," he says enthusiastically. At a dealer in Milan, he found an unused steel frame made from high-end Columbus SLX tubes with a chrome-plated fork - exactly as Greg LeMond rode it in his eight-second victory over Laurent Fignon in the 1989 Tour de France.
Three words about the treasure hunt
"It took me more than half a year to put together what I was looking for," says Höhnen, pointing to pretty much everything Campagnolo had to offer at the time: a complete C-Record groupset, a pneumatic Electra saddle and Shamal high-profile rims. Completely NOS. New old stock.
Three words that make vintage racing bike collectors' hearts beat faster. Those old, unused parts were "still affordable" towards the end of the 2000s, as Höhnen says. "Back then, you could get a whole Campa groupset for a few hundred euros." Sums for which the packaging alone of some historical components are now traded.
Vintage racing bikes - Italian treasures
From then on, Höhnen sat in front of his computer for hours, even nights, obsessively searching for new dreams that he wanted to realise. What drove him? "All the emotions that I associate with Italy in particular." Cycling is a "landscape experience, an expansion of the senses, but also culture, history and design, pure passion", he says of the process in which his love of collecting took on a life of its own.
Today, his collection includes three Colnagos in a row. An under-chromed one, a C 35 - one of the first carbon monocoque frames - and a Master, just like Giuseppe Saronni rode when he became world champion in 1982. Or a Gios Torino equipped with Campagnolo's Super Record anniversary edition from 1983 and gold-plated emblems.
A Masi Special with filigree lugs, a Rossin time trial bike with the distinctive buffalo horn handlebars and aerodynamic Campa water bottle, or a Cesare M. with the distinctive Modolo Kronos brakes and a click pedal prototype from Cinelli.
Or the TI-Raleigh team bike with Nuovo Record groupset and Cinelli's cult Unicanitor saddle - just like Didi Thurau rode in the 1977 Tour de France. "This here is the icing on the cake among collectors," says Andreas Höhnen, pointing to the filigree engraved - in technical jargon pantographed - attachments, which can be found on the seat post and stem of a chrome-plated Coppi and on the fork bridge of the Bottecchia.
"I paid 100 euros for it"
However, there is a very special story behind Höhnen's collection. In a bike shop in Heidelberg, he discovered a frame that he thought was a Cinelli Supercorsa at first glance because of its colour. "I paid 100 euros for it," he recalls the situation when he realised that underneath the red paint was the Laser model - the steel frame icon of the 1980s.
When Andreas Höhnen approached Cinelli boss Antonio Colombo with the frame, he called frame builder Andrea Pesenti out of retirement to restore the bike to its original cool blue colour. The result: "More beautiful than the laser in the Museum of Modern Art in New York," Höhnen quotes the Cinelli boss.
His vintage racing bikes are not for riding
"Never in my life," says Andreas Höhen, would he ride a single metre on one of his collector's bikes. Especially not at events like the L'Eroica, where the good pieces would come under constant bombardment from dust and gravel. Of course, he has been there, but quickly realised that the hustle and bustle is "too much folklore" for him. Höhnen prefers to go his own way when it comes to cycling history. Professionally, he has built up networks on the management floors of large software and technology companies.
Greatest idol
And thanks to his communicative talent, he has long been known in the cycling scene like a colourful dog. The walls in the anteroom are full of pictures of encounters. Francesco Moser, Paolo Savoldelli, Gilberto Simoni, Rudi Altig, Jan Ullrich. Höhnen has got to all of them. Only Bernard Hinault, his "greatest idol of all", has the cycling fan not met in all these years.
But in the summer before corona, he sensed his chance. Hinault had announced that he would be coming to the "Tous en selle" bicycle short film festival at the Grand Rex cinema in Paris. "I was excited," admits Höhnen, who speaks fluent French, looking back candidly. But the champion recognised the situation when they met and said: "Let's have a beer first to calm down."
Since then, they have kept in loose contact, partly because Höhnen was able to impress the five-time Tour de France winner by having his shoes in his collection. "Hinault is a national hero in France, and for him I'm just the crazy German," he says. After all, Hinault later presented him with an old Milan-San Remo route sign.
Stories bring the collection to life
All these stories lend Höhnen's vintage racing bike collection an incredibly multifaceted vibrancy. He has a knack for bringing them together to create an impressive overall picture. With countless jerseys framed on the walls. With posters, stickers, packaging, caps, old Brügelmann catalogues and TOUR editions. "This is the most beautiful jersey of all time," he says as he walks past his Peugeot corner and stops almost reverently.
He then talks about 1978, the year in which he stood at the side of the Tour de France track for the first time at the age of eleven in Belfort and cheered on French star Bernard Thévenet. And the year in which Gregor Braun became world champion. Andreas Höhnen takes a picture frame off the wall.
How it all began
"This jersey," he says, "was given to me by my aunt." What this gift triggered can be admired today on the wooden floor not far from the banks of the Moselle, which is quite crooked from the effects of the flood. What does he like most about his collection?
Andreas Höhnen doesn't have to think twice. His fingers don't go to one of his bikes, but immediately to a simple Campagnolo pannier from the 1950s: "This is like a work of art to me." Despite the size of his racing bike treasures, it's the little things that he can still enjoy. And yet his dreams are far from over. "I'd still like a Cinetica Giotto," he says: "For me, it's the most beautiful bike ever built."
He looks up into the air and wrinkles his forehead in his typical distinctive way: "And I'd like to move the collection to my home town of Heidelberg to open a cycling meeting centre there with all the trimmings - that would be right up my street." But then his smartphone rings just in time for a business appointment. It rings with the intro to one of the greatest rock 'n' roll hits of all time.
