In 2007, Zone3 was founded by elite triathletes at Loughborough University. Since then the brand has built one of the finest reputations in the endurance sports market.
Zone3 has organically grown to become the world’s highest rated triathlon brand, with more award-winning reviews across the range than any other brand in the last 8 years. The original concept was drawn from a deep-rooted passion for endurance sports and an unwavering desire to create market leading product.
Founded by ex-pro athlete James Lock, Zone3 proudly maintains an athlete-centric approach when creating performance wear, working alongside a full spectrum of elite athletes and highly skilled sportswear designers. This ensures that each product is very carefully tested before being released. Each product is then manufactured with laser precision and uses some of the world’s most innovative materials and technologies.
This simple athlete-centric philosophy has cemented Zone3’s sterling reputation among the global tri-community and has resulted in more industry design awards than any other brand, including the first and only 10/10 review from 220 Triathlon Magazine and many others including Best in Class, Top Value and Game Changer of the year. In 2018 Zone3 was awarded a prestigious Queens Award for International Trade. The team were honoured to welcome members of the Royal Family to the Zone3 Head Office to receive the award.
“We take great pride in providing only the best product, utilising our experience as athletes, designers, industry leaders and multi-award winners, building on the past to create a better future. Just as the athlete will focus on their weaknesses in order to turn them into strengths, we as a business share this notion to work collaboratively to better ourselves. We have built a company culture that encourages leadership, teamwork and personal development. Without the individuals, departments, processes and structure we’ve created from the ground up, Zone3 would still be a mere idea in a notepad.” – James Lock when asked what he loves the most about Zone3.
“Our mission is to become the world’s chosen triathlon and performance brand”
History
Before he established Zone3, James designed and produced swimming accessories such as drag shorts and swim fins, selling them to members of his swimming and triathlon clubs. With his sporting pedigree as a national level swimmer James joined Loughborough University with a sports scholarship, fast tracking him on to the Elite Triathlon Program where he continued to refine his ideas and the Zone3 brand began to take shape.
James earned a 1st class degree in Engineering before turning his attention back to racing, becoming a World champion Biathlete and Aquathlete in 2006 before focusing on triathlon, racing in the GB series and the European Championships for a top tier French team.
Loughborough University, a world-renowned authority in sporting excellence, proved to be the perfect hot-bed for Zone3 and whilst James pursued his goal of becoming an Olympic champion, he continued to refine the Zone3 idea and began manufacturing wetsuits, the first of which can be seen in the video below.
“My initial aim for Zone3 was to make me faster and more efficient than my competitors and simply to sell enough products to pay for my overseas racing costs in pursuit of Olympic qualifying” – James.
James’s pursuit of becoming an Olympic champion ended when he sustained a long-term injury preventing him from running 10k faster than his PB of 31 minutes. At the same time Zone3 was gaining significant demand following a string of market leading triathlon media reviews so in 2011 James decided to focus solely on building Zone3 as a triathlon brand.
