Zedler’s bicycle castle

On Friday, June 29, Dirk Zedler celebrated the opening of his new company building in the industrial area Hundshalde in Eglosheim. The costs for the building amount to several millions of Euro. Zedler-Group that have been promoting the safety issue in the world of bicycles like hardly any other institute in the region for 25 years now underline their commitment to the future of the bicycle.

Ludwigsburg: Kings build castles, successful entrepreneurs company buildings that make think of castles. In 25 years Dirk Zedler has achieved something that you will hardly find again in the world of cycles. The young graduate engineer from Ludwigsburg started small. His opinion: If there are professional test institutes for cars and other things, why shouldn’t there be test institutes for bicycles as well? What started as pondering turned into the invention of test engineering which is state-of-the-art in bicycle research to date.

Cool architecture

Zedler’s new company building which takes considerable account of ecological aspects is an absolute picture of external and internal radiance. The style of the façade, a combination of the naturally renewable resource of wood with the cool style of concrete walls and glass is continued consistently inside.

But Zedler wouldn’t be Zedler, if he hadn’t rare bicycles to be admired as well. About 130 models from all bicycle epochs hanging down the walls and standing all around lend the building the certain something. This mixture is the visible expression of what is lived at Zedler-Group: a (professional) life for the bicycle.

Unfortunately, the publicity of Zedler-Institut was in an inverse reciprocal proportion to his significance in Ludwigsburg und beyond. What we want to say is that prizes and awards, important book publications and numerous editorial articles in bicycle magazines could not avoid that only insiders and specialists were familiar with Zedler’s name.

There were not many in Ludwigsburg who knew that major brands of the cycle industry, from Merida-Centurion to Canyon, had their new bicycles tested thoroughly in Eglosheim, before having them produced in series. Now, with the move of the company from the facilities of a well-known bike shop into the outstanding new building, this should change.

Making bicycles better

Bicycle safety - Whoever thinks of a bicycle lock providing protection against bicycle thieves only should make a tour through the Zedler building at the next opportunity. Because yet more important than the fact that a bicycle is safeguarded against theft is the certainty that it is reliable. Both Dirk Zedler’s experiments and expertises delivered inestimable knowhow for that. “Making bicycles better” - this were Zedler’s credo says Bernhard Lange of Paul Lange & Co. in Bad Cannstatt (Shimano) during the opening in Eglosheim. Dirk Zedler and his employees most convinced of the glorious future of the bicycle have ideal frame conditions now to continue their successful way. But there was another thing that became clear on Friday. The engineer, the triathlete and the cycle enthusiast Dirk Zedler who like all cyclists goes for a friendship service in spite of all rivalry in the field has become a very successful business man in addition. This is possibly his real achievement.

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Author/Photos: Michael Langjahr