Red Chili Climbing

Official Red Chili Facebook page.
Sun set when Stefan Glowacz and Uwe Hofstaedter reached the summit plateau of El Cap tired and exhausted, after climbing the “West Face” in only one day. Their feet were burning like hell in the way too tight climbing shoes they were wearing. And then it came upon on them, like a flash, like a vision. They saw a pair of shoes. A shoe that fit so perfect and so customized that even after twenty hard core pitches, or after half a day of bouldering, nothing hurts and climbing still is nothing but fun. The vision disappeared, but after this enlightenment, they knew that something had to happen.

At this time Stefan and Uwe were trying to distribute a Spanish climbing shoe brand in Germany, but over and over again they had to drown their frustration about late delivery and unsatisfied customers in gallons of Rioja red vine. It was on one of these nights, sitting in Uwe’s apartment drinking and listening to loud Red Hot Chili Peppers music, when they had their vision again. “Why don’t we fu$%&***in’ start manufacturing our own fu$%&***in’ climbing shoes? Who knows better than a climber what a climber really needs? You are a sales genius and I know how to develop and to build rock footwear,” Stefan said to Uwe. They began writing this vision down and after waking up the next morning the first thing they saw on this red wine soaked piece of paper were two words – Red Chili. They knew what they had to do.

Two years later the first pair of Red Chili rock shoes hit the stores. Stefan and Uwe were as proud as could be and still are. In a pretty short time, the Red Chili brand established itself as one of the leading climbing shoe manufacturers worldwide. Uwe still is the “marketing and sales force” behind everything that we are doing, whereas Stefan is the front man and the master mind in developing and researching new products.

In the meantime Red Chili is 20 years old. We have gained loads of experience in all respects and are more motivated than ever to build the most perfect rock climbing shoe in the whole wild world. Who else than we, the climbers, could do this job any better?

Rock’n‘Roll’n‘Rock