Interview: Flavio Zappi

It’s 9am on a cold, blustery Saturday, and outside Zappi’s Cafe in central Oxford the street is slowly filling up with cyclists of all ages, many of them sporting distinctive black Zappi’s cycling gear.

The weather is not exactly conducive to cycling, but for the Zappi Cycling Club this weekly ride is sacrosanct.

As the riders set off, I retreat to the warmth of the cafe in the company of the man responsible for all this activity — the Italian former professional cyclist Flavio Zappi.

What’s remarkable about Flavio is that he turned pro early, retired early, pursued a completely different career for more than 20 years and then returned to cycling after a chance meeting with an old cycling friend in his native Italy.

Now, at the age of 54, he is very much back where he belongs, completely immersed in the sport he loves and passionately determined to encourage young people into the saddle.

He was brought up in northern Italy, where cycling is hugely popular.

“In Italy cycling is the second biggest sport after football,” he says.

“So it was easy for me to get into cycling, especially as my older brother was very passionate about it. I started when I was about 14 years old.”

Before long, he was showing his prowess as a climber and later as a sprinter, regularly winning amateur races before being signed to the Italian race team Hoonved-Bottecchia when he was just 20.

“Obviously if you’re strong and you’re good, eventually you get picked up by a professional team, and that’s what happened to me,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Twenty is a bit early, actually — the average age to turn pro back in my day was about 23 or 24, but I was doing well so I was offered a contract.

“Looking back now I probably went too early and needed a little more time to mature.”

His first victory as a professional was winning a stage of the Giro del Trentino in Italy.

After moving to the Metauro Mobili-Pinarello team in 1983, he recorded impressive finishes in the Milan-San Remo and the notoriously challenging Paris-Roubaix, and led the points classification in the Giro d’Italia for two weeks of the three-week-long race, earning him the right to wear the coveted green jersey — something he looks back on as one of the highlights of his career.

Yet, despite all this early promise, after just five years as a pro cyclist he quit, disillusioned with the prevalence of drug-taking in the sport.

“I didn’t want to get involved,” he says. “I knew there was something going on and I got disappointed. I was too young to fight and I decided, this is not my game any more, which is a pity.

“The doping issue started in the mid-80s and was very bad in the 90s, but it is much more controlled now, luckily, so that’s why I’m back. I believe there is now hope to do the sport I grew up with.”

After walking away from the professional cycling scene, Flavio went into catering, building up a hotel and restaurant business in Italy. By this time he had met his English wife, who was working as a travel agent, so in 1997 they made the decision to move to Oxfordshire.

“I had to start all over again,” Flavio says. “I came over here and had to be a waiter.

“Then I became manager of Petit Blanc, then I started my own business and set up five cafes, one of which was Zappi’s Cafe in Walton Street. That’s where I started Zappi’s Club in 2007.”

The cafe quickly became the meeting place both for the club and for Team Zappi, which started at around the same time.

It has since moved to St Michael’s Street, where it nestles cosily alongside Bikezone.

So what inspired Flavio to return to cycling after a gap of 20 years?

“My dad passed away, and I went to his funeral in Italy.

“One of my friends turned up, and he was a cyclist, so he was really fit. Back then I was overweight and smoking, and I thought, my dad just passed away from lung cancer and he was a big smoker, so I thought I’d better do something about it.”

Zappi's Bike Cafe in St Michael's Street in the centre of Oxford

What he did was to rescue a bike from a skip, spruce it up a bit and use it for his daily commute between Abingdon and Oxford. Very quickly, the thrill of riding returned.

“Within a few months I was racing again, just for fun,” he says. “I was focusing on losing weight and getting healthy and fit. Then I got too obsessed and had to slow down a bit.”

Sadly, Flavio is currently out of action again after a near-fatal crash last year, in which he cracked the second vertebrae in his neck.

“You normally only get a one per cent survival rate from an injury like that, so I’m scared to go back on the bike,” he admits.

“I’m not allowed to yet anyway, because the injury was so bad the fracture will heal very gradually.

“It was either die or be paralysed from the neck down, and I managed to avoid both, so I feel I’ve used up all my luck.”

Will he ever get back in the saddle?

“It’s a good question,” he sighs. “I think I probably will, but at the moment I need to get more confidence back. And it’s nothing to do with being brave — I don’t want to lose this. I’m becoming a grandfather in April, so I want to be around for that.”

For now, Flavio is just happy to be involved in the cycling world, even if it means cheering from the sidelines.

“We want to encourage young people to get on the bike. That’s why we’ve got this racing team. We want to create the passion.

“I just want to see whether I can help these kids to get professional, and if my team eventually becomes semi-pro, that would be nice.”

For more information about Zappi’s Cycling Club, see zappis.cc