Lazer has an influential history with pro riders. So influential, in fact, that Lazer’s general manager Sean van Waes claims responsibility for pushing the peloton to wear proper head protection in the days before it was mandatory.
As he tells the story, it was the late-1990s, and most riders in the Grand Tours did not wear helmets, or only put them on for sprint stages. After riding a flat stage of the Tour de France, Australian cyclist Robbie McEwen gave an interview where he was asked why he was wearing a helmet. In response, he simply pointed at Van Waes and said, “That guy makes me wear it.”
Van Waes, seeing an opportunity to gain some press coverage for his company, compared wearing a helmet to wearing a condom. The ensuing column inches, combined with Lazer’s inspired idea to start putting diamonds on the helmets of riders who had won a stage, meant Lazer suddenly changed the perception of head protection within the pro peloton. “We made helmets more chic,” says Van Waes.