RAAW Inside Out - Sophia

Inside Out is a series of stories showing the people behind RAAW. Over the past eight years, the team has grown from a one-man band to an eclectic collection of individuals that handles everything from the development of the bikes to getting those bikes out to you wherever you are in the world.

Each person contributes to the unique RAAW vibe, and we’re incredibly proud to have them be a part of the business. So proud that we’d like to tell you more about them, what they do at RAAW, and show you their personal bikes and the reasons why they built them the way they did.

Next up, Sophia Pfiester, purple anodising fan and customer service zen specialist.

Luckily, Sophia did all her growing early on in life, meaning her wobbly old Stevens bike from 6th grade treated her well all the way through to 2018, when she bought a Cube hardtail. It wasn’t until a year later that she discovered the rabbit hole of mountain biking and soon after she was climbing up to the top diving platform and plunging headfirst into this new world. The bug really bit when a classmate took her to Albstadt Bike Park, got her on a downhill bike and gave her a quick crash course in the basics.

It was love at first turn, but she had to wait a little while to get together the funds to afford her first full suspension bike. Studying and a trip to South America took their piece of the money pie. But when she returned from faraway lands, she scraped together and invested in some full-suspension squish. She ventured into the Swabian Jura, just south of Stuttgart, and sent her bike down the hills until her heart was content, with her attached of course.

A short couple of years later came her first encounter with RAAW while down in Finale Ligure. Looking for a shuttle company to get her fix of trail blasting, she ended up with Niki Radtke, one of our best ambassadors at the time, running his own shuttle company down on the Italian Riviera. Niki’s words of praise for his Madonna and the company at large stuck with Sophia, who by this time was living in the Black Forest but often travelling up to the Pfalz for reasons of amour.

2023 rolled around, and she caught wind that RAAW was relocating its headquarters to Hassloch in the Pfalz. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it to the new HQ opening, and more importantly, home-made pizzas, but the seed of an idea was planted; working at RAAW would simply be a dream. Having studied print and media technology, in her eyes nothing to do with mountain biking, she refrained from a spontaneous application. But alas, all good things come to those who wait, or are egged on by friends.

In April 2024, a good friend of Sophia’s enthusiastically directed her to a job opening for sales and customer support. She rustled up all the courage she had, applied and voila, she became a part of RAAW.

In her own words, she was met with a small, fun family of people, all sharing a passion for biking. This is something she feels runs deep at RAAW and that really, is what the brand is all about. That family, she explains, supports each other and tackles things together. Having people to count on in the team is important, and she knows that if she ever needs help, she’s never alone.

A feeling of equality across all aspects was also a strong feeling. It didn’t matter the skill or fitness level, everyone was welcome to ride. And that makes the Tuesday rides her highlight of working at RAAW. For her, these rides were another confirmation that it’s all about riding bikes.

At RAAW, Sophia makes sure all our customers are happy, and we can tell you from experience that this is no easy task and often requires the patience of a saint. On a serious note, though, the RAAW community is made up of passionate mountain bikers all over the world, and Sophia makes sure each and every one of you is getting the assistance you need, via email, directly in the showroom or out at test events across Europe.

She’s the one who will be with you for any of your trepid questions before you pull the trigger, guiding you to exactly the right bike for your needs, as well as being there as a helping hand when things inevitably go tits-up and you need to give your bike a bit of love. Her technical knowledge is vast, and is well supported by her bike-geek of a husband, Fred. How many of you biking couples have bedtime conversations about leverage ratios?!

But above all her tasks and responsibilities, she just finds a huge amount of satisfaction in combining her passion with her profession. For Sophia, nothing in her day-to-day work beats the smiling faces and kind feedback from customers. It fills her stoke bag making people happy with her own hobby.

Despite getting to riding relatively later in life, she’s an impressively good rider already, and will quietly, and humbly, blow many people’s back doors off when things get fast, technical and have mandatory air time. This translates across any bike she throws a leg over, which is currently a lot as she goes through all the different RAAW models in their various frame and suspension configurations to expand her knowledge and feed it back into her job.

Your first truly special bike can come about for any manner of reasons. We won’t hold anything about that clapped-out Stevens or her Cube filling shaker. But Sophia certainly has hearts in her eyes for her Madonna. And not just because of the purple hubs.

Many of us at RAAW have been building bikes for a long time, so it’s a refreshing reminder of how special that first bike build is. Selecting all the components, checking all the standards, making sure everything fits, receiving all the boxes and then laying it all out in a big bike-shaped jigsaw. Sophia’s Madonna was her first from-scratch build, as up to then, it had only been complete bikes. She was adamant that she didn’t want any help, selecting all the parts herself, exactly the way she envisaged the bike in her mind’s eye.

Anyone who has built a few bikes from scratch will likely have once built one around a single, small component. For Sophia, that was the hubs. She absolutely had to have purple hubs, but was also insistent to lace and true the wheels herself. Blood, sweat and tears went into the wheels, but she succeeded and they are still running tight and true. 

Other, very clever, component choices are there to cater to Sophia being on the shorter and lighter side of things. She fought the marketing and selected an older Lyrik with its smaller diameter stanchions to give her front end more flex. Short, 155 mm, cranks help her stand on the bike with less of a twisted stance while not having to pedal enormous circles. Light action, big power Hayes Dominions slow her down, surprisingly not in purple. She didn’t go mad with the colour, and it only accents her otherwise murdered out black build.

The S size Madonna V3 frame is set up with a smaller, 27.5”, rear wheel to give her more trouser clearance and an easier turn in, and she’s probably tested more shocks than Pinkbike in the months that she’s had the bike, quietly taking notes that all feed back into her providing excellent customer service.

When things get fast, rough and the wheels are off the ground, Sophia is in her element. But when the trail steepens and gets really technical, she’s got a massive grin on her face too. That might be why her favourite day on the bike was in Squamish in 2024, another RAAW favourite hangout. The abundance of crazy steep rock slabs, loam filling your socks up and air miles for days had her forgetting if it was one day or two that she spent there riding.

To be fair, no matter the ride, be it a short blast or a long day in the saddle, she simply relishes the ride itself, knowing that she’ll be in the best mood ever when it’s over. Two wheels might just be the best medicine known to mankind.

Those dreamy Canadian trails certainly ingrained themselves in Sophia’s mind, with her longing to take her purple-black shred machine, her words, back to Canada and explore the history-steeped North Shore as well as Vancouver Island. No doubt at breakneck speeds and making some locals feel a little inadequate.