In the age of Enduro it’s easy to find yourself stuck with a tooth pick in a gun fight. Leatt’s 3DF Hybrid knee pad brings a bit more firepower …
- Sturdy, tough downhill and enduro knee pad from Leatt
- Plastic reinforced 3DF soft protection
- Hybrid combination, Soft and comfortable, 3DF foam Deflecting Hard Shell
- MoistureCool wicking fabric
- Silicone lamination to keep protector in place
- CE certified for impact protection EN1621-1
- £54.99
In these days of enduro, everyone is wearing less and less protection and running shorter travel bikes, open-face helmets and narrower tires … but we’re all still riding the same tracks we used to hammer on our downhill bikes and the ground certainly isn’t getting any softer!
Leatt’s 3DF knee guard is a reassuringly tough thing to wrap around your knees … as I found when I was tomahawking over the bars in South Wales and sliding down the Madeira dirt. Like all of Leatt’s kit it was designed in the Leatt Lab in South Africa, inspired by Chris Leatt’s life-altering experience of treating a victim in a moto-enduro race. More on that in the next issue of Wideopen where we chat to Chris about the science behind Leatt…
The ‘Hybrid is a sort of “knee pad and a bit” with a solid 3DF impact-foam pad over the knee cap and a hard plastic shell over the top of the tibia. The result is lots of coverage of the precious bits of your knee and a very comfortable, confidence inspiring package. There’s 2 sturdy velcro straps on each pad and some substantial, but not overly bulky padding to the sides to ward off blows from your top tube, rear shock etc. So far they’ve proved themselves excellent on all sorts of rides from all-out downhill to pedal-powered hacks around the woods … and especially on our recent trip to Madeira where crashes came faster than the local Poncha!
“regardless of the size they’re one of the most comfortable pads I’ve ever ridden.”
You may have already written these pads off as being “too bulky” or be saying “they look too hot for pedaling”. Sure, they’re not as low-profile as a Leatt 3DF Airflex (effectively a sock with some extra protection) but regardless of the size they’re one of the most comfortable pads I’ve ever ridden. The material is lovely and soft, the straps are handcuff-secure without creating any chaffing or pinch-points and the knee-cap cup inside the pad creates a really comfortable, chaff-free contact point.
Total weight for a pair is 514g which is heavier than the less substantial Fox Launch (396g) or POC VPD (300g). The weight and warmth probably rules them out for long, sweat-your-nuts-off rides but works great for me on anything from uplift riding to those “enduro” rides where you’re happy not to be first up the climbs and want to go fast on the way down and need some added security.
Should you buy these?
For light-weight trail riding? Nah, probably not. But you know that.
For downhill, absolutely. For enduro, absolutely. As long as you aren’t that rider that immediately claws their pads off at the bottom of the track and hates anything but the most minimal of padding. They are super comfortable and impressively light and cool considering the above-average protection.
You can read more about the 3DF Hybrid and Leatt on their website here.
