Outdoors

When I’m not at a keyboard or in a cockpit, I’m usually outside — on a bike or on a mountain.

On the bike

I ride a road bike out of Zurich. Most weeks that’s the local climbs — the Albis, the Whiskypass — but the days I remember are the big alpine ones: the long haul over the Gotthard pass, around 88 km and more than 2,300 m of climbing in a single day, or the longer loop up to the Col du Pillon — 113 km and 2,580 m of climbing, the hardest day I’ve put in on the road.

In the mountains

On foot I’m happiest high up. I hike the Swiss Alps and the Jura — the Uetliberg above Zurich on an ordinary day, bigger summits past 3,000 m when I can. The one I keep coming back to is a three-day hut-to-hut traverse through the Engadine, topping out on the west summit of the Tschima da Flix at 3,301 m. I keep a quiet tally of the peaks I’ve stood on; the climbing is the point, not the speed.

In the cockpit

Flying has always fascinated me, but I kept on looking at it as something unreachable. Recently, my life path has taken a new direction, and I discovered that with dedication and patience one can touch the sky.

In Oct, ‘21 I started my journey to become a private pilot, and in June ‘23 I passed the checkride for the PPL(A) SEP Land license. I am currently enrolled in a course to obtain the Basic Instrument Ratings (BIR).

Since 2024 I’ve also served on the board of the European Pride in Aviation Network — a community for LGBTQIA+ people who love aviation, from pilots and cabin crew to engineers and everyone in between.

If you’re learning to fly yourself, I’ve kept a page of the resources that helped me along the way — training material, ground-school courses, simulators, and flight-planning tools.

With HB-ELJ, a Beechcraft Debonair C33, on the island of Majorca (on the left), and somewhere above Stendal (DE) during the Pilot Safety Course organised by the European Bonanza Society in 2025 (on the right).