Troy Lee Designs (TLD) is an American action sports lifestyle apparel and custom paint company founded in 1981. Troy Lee Designs is a privately held company run by the founder Troy Lee and co-owned by investment partners SBJ. TLD's corporate headquarters is located in Corona, CA and their apparel is distributed worldwide.
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History
Troy Lee was the son of an artist and motorcycle racer named Larry Lee, and grandson of Bonneville Speed Trials co-founder Marvin Lee. Larry passed on his love of art and racing to Troy as a child. Troy was an aspiring professional motocross racer in Southern California in the early 80's who had started painting the helmets of several of his pro racing friends, eventually giving up the pursuit of racing fame to devote his full time and efforts to painting helmets. Besides custom paint, his early product offerings were limited to custom-made visors for motocross helmets, which he vacu-formed in the oven in his mother's house in Corona, CA. Due to the constant smell of burnt plastic permeating the house, Troy's mother Linda forced him to move the business out of her house, which he eventually relocated to a hangar at the Municipal Airport in Corona.
The terms of the airport lease were such that Troy was required to dedicate 40% of his business to aviation related services, so he began painting ID numbers on private aircraft. The business remained at that location and Troy started to develop a line of mountain bike helmets in cooperation with Shoei until 1991, when operations were moved to a newly constructed building in a business park complex less than a mile away. During that time, TLD worked with most of the top American motocross and supercross athletes, like Rick Johnson, Jeff Ward, Johnny O'Mara, Danny "Magoo" Chandler, Doug Henry, Jeremy McGrath, Ricky Carmichael and many more. The product line had grown to mountain bike apparel and helmets, helmet visors, stickers as well as sportswear. By 1998 TLD started to develop a line of motocross apparel, which by 2004 had grown to a full line of motocross and mountain bike apparel, helmets and protective gear.
Besides motocross athletes, over the years TLD has painted helmets for mountain biking legends Julie Furtado, Dave Cullinan, Brian Lopes, John Tomac and current superstars such as Steve Peat, Cam Zink and Brandon Semenuk. Other motorsports luminaries that have worn Troy's custom painted helmets include 5-time Daytona 200 winner Scott Russell, Kenny Roberts, Eddy Lawson, Jean Alessi, Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy, Robby Gordon, Ken Block, Danica Patrick, Kasey Kahne, Loris Capirossi, and Indy 500 winners Scott Dixon, Will Power, Dario Franchiti, Helio Castroneves, and Juan Pablo Montoya, 4-time World Speedway GP Champion Greg Hancock, and 1996 World Speedway GP champion Billy Hamill.
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Race team
In 2001, Troy formed a supermoto race team featuring himself and supercross and motocross racing legends Jeremy McGrath and Jeff Ward to contest the newly formed AMA Supermoto national championship series with equipment support from Honda and title sponsors Red Bull.
In 2003, Troy moved the business into the unique and historic former Ganahl Lumber building, a 22,600 sq ft facility that includes a 4,000 sq ft showroom and museum that showcases Troy's collection of unique sports memorabilia. The race team continued to grow in size with the addition of Doug Henry, Chris Fillmore and Cassidy Anderson. The team won multiple AMA Supermoto titles between 2004-2006 in both the 250cc and 450cc classes with Ward and Anderson. Ward was Supermoto gold medalist at the X-Games in 2006 and 2008.
The team broadened its focus to AMA Supercross in 2008, fielding a team in the West Coast 250cc division of the AMA Supercross Series. Upon the demise of the AMA Supermoto series in 2009, Troy turned the team's full efforts to Supercross. The team worked its way up from "C team" status to become race winners and championship contenders by 2011 with the support of Honda and title sponsors Red Bull and Lucas Oil. In 2015, the team changed equipment sponsors and began a partnership with KTM, which continues today. The team continued to achieve success with multiple race wins in both east and west coast 250cc divisions of the Monster Energy Supercross series, and the 250cc Lucas Oil AMA National MX series.
Retail and distribution
Troy Lee Designs products are sold worldwide by a network of distributors in 15 different countries that include UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Benelux, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, The Philippines, Argentina, Peru and Canada. Notable retailers in the U.S. include REI, BTO Sports, and Backcountry Sports.
Collaborations
In addition to designing the Troy Lee Designs product lines, TLD has collaborated with brands and race teams across several markets including Oakley, Adidas, Red Bull, Monster Energy, Mattel/Hot Wheels, KTM, American Honda Motor Corp, Rizla/Suzuki MotoGP, Polaris ATV Division, Nissan Motor Corp, Hyundai Motors USA, Mazda Motor Corp, KMC Wheels, Lucas Oil Products, Shoei Helmets, Bell helmets, Specialized Bicycles, Method Wheels, Sonic Tools, Lifeproof, Steve McQueen, Peter Fonda and many more.
References
External links
- Troy Lee Designs
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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