FEATURE
Respect the consumer For 20 years, the brand has focused on protecting riders on two wheels, earning their trust and their respect. And that’s largely thanks to their origin story: When avid motorcyclist Dr Chris Leatt started Leatt in 2004, he took his son to a motocross race. At the race, there was a fatal crash, and he was asked to help. Shortly before, his four-year-old had just gotten his first dirt bike. Leatt loved riding motorcycles, but he was suddenly confronted head-on with the dangers of the sport.
“He started thinking, there’s got to be a way to prevent or
help reduce the chance of a fatal neck injury,” says Zaffke. “He started putting all of his time, energy and money into developing a neck brace. He got the design patented and asked friends to help fund the company. The Leatt Brace revolutionised rider safety in motocross and gravity mountain biking. That’s how it started, with this true, authentic purpose, and that’s part of the company’s culture today.”
Respect the distributors and retailers While direct-to-consumer sales are part of the brand’s sales, Zaffke says that there’s nothing more important than the education piece that comes from their distributors and retail partners, who help the consumer find exactly what they need—and create long-term fans and buyers in the process. “We have some really long-term distributor partners around the world, and we’re in this business together,” he says. “That’s a contrast to other places I’ve worked, where the executive team is like ‘do we even need a distributor, imagine how much money we could make if we just cut them out!’ Those conversations simply don’t happen at Leatt.” “I think in the earlier days of e-commerce, a lot of brands
forgot how important it was to have real people who could help consumers navigate an overwhelming number of options,” he adds. With more choice than ever before, people want those IRL recommendations. “Core bike geeks might know what they’re looking for, but then there’s this wider world of people that are interested in bikes, and they really benefit from the helping hand of a knowledgeable human being at their local bike shop.”
Focus on the long-term opportunities “When the pandemic bubble burst, when the bike boom slowed down, so many companies started downsizing rapidly,” says Zaffke. “Short-term metrics were top of mind. I shouldn’t be so critical, because they had businesses to run; there are lots of reasons why they had to hit those performance metrics by the quarter and by the fiscal year, and that stuff is important. But the big difference with Leatt has been a long- term vision and a commitment to investing in growth.” In fact, Zaffke himself came to Leatt because of that bubble bursting—and since then, the brand has brought in more of the best talent in the industry. “We’ve attracted a lot of
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Chelsea Kimball. Leatt team
talented people that weren’t getting the support they needed from other brands,” he says. “Imagine you’re a highly talented product developer without the tools or resources to bring new products to life. Where would you want to work?”
Go in-house as often as possible While many helmet and soft goods brands rely on third-party sources for fabrics and foams, Leatt’s research and design team actually creates proprietary materials for most of their products. This costs more at the outset, says Zaffke. But in the long run, it frees them from licensing deals that could come with added costs, “Working alongside the factories we use, we’re learning about what’s possible together,” he says. “On the apparel side, we create our own fabrics and our own membranes. Every fabric we use is special to Leatt, so, for example, when the product developer for apparel is listing his needs, one of the top priorities can be how we minimise our environmental impact. It’s pretty exciting to be able to tune that, and it might not make a difference on a single piece of apparel, but when you look at 1000s that are created, it really starts to add up.” “I think we really benefit from having that stuff in-house,” he adds. “We have a complete understanding, versus a lot of helmet brands that are simply talking to a factory and basically ordering ingredients and technologies off a menu.”
August 2026 | 21
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