A food engineer develops sports nutrition in his garage because everything on the market tastes too sweet and too artificial. Twenty years later, his company supplies a WorldTour team. The headquarters are still in Baar, Canton Zug, the workforce is manageable and the founder still formulates the products himself. This is what it looks like when a boutique brand arrives in professional cycling.
2001-2006: From wrestler to food engineer
Remo Gugolz was a wrestler and food engineer. Three cruciate ligament ruptures ended his sporting career. What remained was dissatisfaction with the sports nutrition available on the market: too sweet, too artificial, too many compromises in terms of tolerability. So in 2001, he began to develop his own formulations in his garage - drinks that his body could actually use during exercise instead of fighting against.
In 2002, the work bore its first fruits: with his own supplements in his luggage, Gugolz won another wrestling match. Four years later, in 2006, he founded WINFORCE AG, based in Baar. A one-man company with a clear thesis: sports nutrition must be formulated in such a way that the body does not waste energy on digestion.
The first test: RAAM 2006
The company was only a few months old when the first big test came. Dani Wyss took part in the Race Across America - 5,000 kilometers, 50,000 meters of altitude, across the USA - and won. His food: Winforce. For a start-up that had been in existence for less than a year, this was a reference point that would be hard to beat. Wyss' body had functioned for days without his nutrition becoming a bottleneck.
Swiss cycling scene: From the TORTOUR to the Engadin
From 2009, Winforce supplied the TORTOUR, the largest multi-day non-stop ultracycling event in the world: 1,000 kilometers, several Alpine passes, two days without a break. A logistical challenge for any nutrition sponsor and a practical test under the most extreme conditions.
2021 saw the addition of the Swiss Cycling Alpenbrevet - Furka, Gotthard, Tremola, Ticino. In the same year, the Cyclotour du Léman around Lake Geneva. Winforce is the presenting sponsor of the Engadin Cycling Marathon in Zernez: Carbo Basic Plus, Hydro Energy and Panforte are available at the refreshment stations, both on La Svizra (117 kilometers over the Flüela and Albula passes) and on the shorter La Cuorta.
Anyone who rides bike marathons in Switzerland can hardly avoid Winforce. The brand has quietly and systematically established itself in the infrastructure of the Swiss long-distance scene.
Cancellara, IAM and the first WorldTour contact
The name Winforce first appeared in a professional road racing context around 2012. The RadioShack Leopard Trek Team - with Fabian Cancellara in the squad - and the Swiss IAM Cycling received food from Baar. In mountain biking, Winforce also supplied the Multivan Merida Biking Team, which has won over 30 World Cups as well as Olympic gold and silver. The exact dates and details of these partnerships are sparsely documented, but they marked the company's entry into professional cycling.
Groupama-FDJ: A rider who refused
The path to the current WorldTour peloton went through a single rider. A member of the Groupama-FDJ squad simply refused to use any other sports nutrition. The team took notice, tested - and made Winforce its official nutrition partner. Remo Gugolz called it "a long-cherished dream come true" on the company website.
Since then, Winforce has been working directly with the Groupama-FDJ medical department. The team supplies data from the race, Winforce adapts formulations. CHO MAXX is the most widely used product in the team bus. What began as a rider's individual initiative is now a structured collaboration between a boutique company from Baar and a French WorldTour team.
CHO MAXX and the question of compatibility
The 1:0.8 ratio between glucose and fructose has become standard in sports nutrition. Most manufacturers rely on maltodextrin as a source of glucose. Winforce takes a different approach: instead of maltodextrin, CHO MAXX uses a combination of natural starch and isomaltulose. The result: significantly less sweetness, more stable blood sugar levels and up to 120 grams of carbohydrates per hour.
Remo Gugolz developed the formula over three years. The problem he wanted to solve: The common 1:0.8 mixes are often so sweet that they remain barely drinkable for hours. Anyone who has to replenish carbohydrates in high doses every hour on a 200-kilometer cycling marathon needs a drink that will still go down in the fifth hour. CHO MAXX has a deliberately mild taste. This is no coincidence, but the result of a choice of ingredients that places tolerance above flavor intensity.
Why we carry Winforce
Winforce is a Swiss company founded by a food engineer, not a marketing team. All products are developed and manufactured in Switzerland. The Panforte bars are handmade in a Swiss bakery. The formulas are developed in collaboration with a WorldTour team, tested under real racing conditions and are certified doping-free.
At Kilometro, we stock Winforce because the brand shows what happens when food science meets endurance sport. No mass-produced goods, no global corporation - a boutique from Baar that has landed in the WorldTour peloton and still supplies the refreshment stations on the Albula Pass.