Sante Mazzarolo brought three

generations of leather craftsmanship

and a decade of hands-on experience

designing sports footwear to fruition

when he founded Alpinestars in 1963. A

modern icon is born.

Sante and his staff of technicians begin

development of the first, dedicated,

technology for motorcycling footwear

by creating new concepts, like this

early off-road ‘motocross’ boot.

Roger De Coster: “Alpinestars puts

quality and protection first. They want

to be the best at whatever they do and

they put everything into that. That’s

what sets them apart.”

This boot is an example of how Sante and

Alpinestars became heir to the supreme

motocross throne. Drawing its inspiration

from the 1967 Corazzato, the boot features

a revolutionary strap closure system and

the now iconic steel shin plate.

Alpinestars develops the first road

racing boot using plastic compounds

for shin, toe and heel protection.

Development continued at pace, with the company producing boots for all forms of motorcycling, road and off-road, for competitive use and leisure, and in 1986 Gabriele Mazzarolo, Sante’s son, established Alpinestars USA based in Los Angeles, California. With Gabriele, Alpinestars USA started the development of its performance-leading mountain bikes, taking Mike Kloser to the podium of the 1990 World Downhill Championship.

For the first time, leather is

replaced by a man-made plastic

polymer as the primary material,

aiding both function and

safety performance.

Alpinestars introduces its first

line of motorcycling protective

apparel, composed by leather

jackets and gloves.

The GP Tech Mick Doohan Replica Boot

is put into production. Named after the

five-time 500 cc World Champion, the

boot goes on to become the biggest

selling boot in Alpinestars history up to

that time.

TECHNOLOGY

At the beginning of 2000

Alpinestars began pioneering an

advanced rider safety project with

the view to utilizing a wireless,

‘active’, electronic airbag safety

system.

To develop an electronic airbag system, huge

amounts of data from performance riding and

test crash scenarios is required. Alpinestars

data-logging research program moves up a gear

using a new integrated data-logger in the aero

hump of the leather suit.

Fernando Alonso wins the F1 championship in both 2005 and 2006, with full Alpinestars gear. He was the first and only Spanish to win the F1 Championship to this day.

Nicky Hayden wins the MotoGP World

Championship title aboard a factory

Honda in full Alpinestars gear. The so-

called ‘Kentucky Kid’ breaks Valentino

Rossi’s dominance of the premier class in

the last, drama-filled race in Valencia.

After years of intensive research, the racing airbag

system makes its debut in MotoGP. The system has, subsequently, continued in development and gone on to protects many of the world’s top rider’s; Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Marquez.

In 2012, fully supported Alpinestars

athletes make an unprecedented

clean sweep of all three world

championships: MotoGP with Jorge

Lorenzo, Moto2 with Marc Marquez

and Moto3 with Sandro Cortese.

7 of the top 10 MotoGP and 8 of the

top 10 SX athletes in the world race

in Alpinestars protective gear.