The Real Reason
Why We Ride With Armour-Ride
Every hub we film gets ridden on rock, root and loose Cape shale, and our bikes take the hit for it. Chainstays get chipped, bottom brackets get sandblasted, and a frame that looks battered on camera doesn't do the trail — or the bike — justice. Armour-Ride solves that without hiding the bike under bulky guards or ugly stickers, which matters when the bike is on screen every week.
It's not just our bikes either. Both of our helmets are wrapped too, and that's made a bigger difference than the frame protection in some ways. A helmet shell is far more fragile than a frame, and every knock, scrape or drop it takes is a knock it can't fully take again. Having that same custom-cut protection on our helmets means we're not second-guessing a scuff after every ride.
What sealed it for us is that Armour-Ride is a small, hands-on Cape Town outfit, not an imported film ordered off a listing somewhere. Custom-cut kits, made locally, for local riders who put local trails through their bikes. That's the kind of partner we want standing behind our gear.
Their Story
Built In Cape Town, For Riders
Armour-Ride launched in Cape Town in 2019 as one of South Africa's first businesses dedicated specifically to bicycle frame protection, at a time when most riders here were either going without or importing generic film from overseas. The idea was straightforward: cut protection kits precisely for each bike, rather than selling one-size-fits-all sheets riders had to trim themselves.
Their kits are built from a durable, transparent film that self-heals from light scuffing and holds up across carbon, aluminium and steel frames, without changing how the bike looks or rides. Coverage ranges from targeted high-impact zones — chainstays, bottom brackets, seat tube arches, the spots that take the most abuse on technical singletrack — through to full-frame kits for riders who want everything protected. The same custom-cut approach extends to helmets too, which matters given how much more fragile a helmet shell is than a frame.
What comes through in how riders talk about them is the personal, small-team service: bikes collected, wrapped by hand and returned on schedule, with a level of care that's hard to get from a mail-order kit. That reputation has carried them beyond bikes recently, into protective wraps for cars as well, but frame protection is still where they started and what most riders in the Cape know them for.