In a quiet workshop in the English countryside, Kate Jennings has spent the last three decades helping riders protect what matters most.
If you spend any time around serious riders in the UK, the name Hideout Leathers tends to come up sooner or later. For more than three decades, the small workshop has been quietly making some of the most respected bespoke motorcycle suits in the country. At the centre of it all is Kate Jennings.
Kate didn’t originally set out to work in motorcycling. Her background was in fashion and textiles, studying tailoring and design in London. While looking for someone who could produce leather garments from her designs, she came across a small workshop near Cambridge run by Peter Hamlett.
Peter had been making motorcycle leathers for racers and road riders since the early 1980s. What started as a collaboration between designer and craftsman soon became something more. Kate joined Hideout in 1995 and began working alongside Peter, learning the details of motorcycle clothing from the inside out.
At the time, Hideout was already doing something unusual. Working with Dr Roderick Woods from Cambridge University, the workshop helped develop and test riding suits to what became known as the Cambridge Standard of Performance. The goal was simple: understand how motorcycle clothing performs in a crash and improve it.
For Kate, that experience shaped the way she looks at riding gear. A leather suit isn’t just something that looks good on the bike — it’s something that needs to work when things go wrong.
When Peter retired in 2005, Kate took over the business. Since then Hideout has continued to operate much the same way it always has: a small team, working closely with riders to build suits that fit properly and protect properly.
Every suit starts with a conversation. How someone rides. Where they ride. What they expect from the gear that protects them. From there the measurements are taken and the suit is built around the rider.
Over the years that approach has attracted all kinds of customers — road riders, racers, tourers and emergency service riders — but they tend to have one thing in common: they take riding seriously.
And when riders invest that much in their equipment, it makes sense to look after it.
That shared thinking is one of the reasons Hideout and BMIC have begun collaborating. BMIC has been supporting riders and their equipment for several years, and more recently introduced the BMIC Collective, a community initiative built around the idea of riders looking after the gear they rely on.
Through its work with riders, BMIC has developed practical initiatives designed to help maintain, repair and support high-value riding equipment — from helmets and riding gear to the kit riders depend on every day.
For riders who take their gear seriously, the collaboration makes a lot of sense.
The BMIC celebrates all the work Kate and team at Hideout does for the biker community. We highly encourage you to visit the website Hideout Leather and follow their socials on Facebook and Instagram
*This article was put together with a little help from AI to keep things clear and informative.
**credit to Phil Jones for his wonderful title picture of Kate at the Hideout shop. To see more of Phil glorious Instagram biker photography here and his creative commercial website here