About Us
YETI, AOTEAROA.
TENA KOE
We're Black Seal Imports — Yeti Cycles' New Zealand home since 2010. Founded in Dunedin. Run today out of Rotorua.
We sell one brand. Properly.
KASHI
Kashi Leuchs is a three-time Olympian. One of the riders who put New Zealand on the mountain biking world stage.
Born in Dunedin. Turned pro in 1999 with Volvo Cannondale and based himself in Annecy, France to chase the world's biggest races.
Over thirteen years on the international circuit, he represented New Zealand at three Olympic Games — Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 — and two Commonwealth Games, finishing 4th in the XC at Manchester 2002. Raced for Cannondale, Bianchi and Trek.
The peak: July 2006, winning the Val Thorens round of the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Cup in France. Followed by 7th overall on the 2007 World Cup circuit.
When the racing ran its course, Kashi went looking for the next thing. The chance to bring Yeti Cycles to New Zealand came up. He took it.
Kashi and his wife Roshni have two kids — Jasper and Laksmi. The family moved from Dunedin to Rotorua in 2022 — closer to Roshni's family, and the riding's pretty good too.
BLACK SEAL
Founded 2010, Dunedin. Fifteen years of distributing the brands we loved.
Now we do one thing: Yeti.
After fifteen years of carrying multiple brands, we made the call — focus on one. Yeti Cycles. The bikes Kashi rode. The bikes we'd recommend to a mate if no one was paying us to. The brand we want to put the next ten years into.
One brand. Yeti USA builds them. We bring them home, build them, back them, and ride them.
WHY DIRECT
In 2026 we made the call to move to a direct-to-customer model with a locally-serviced network.
This wasn't a cost-cut. It was a structural choice.
The old distributor-dealer-customer chain takes a margin at every step and leaves the workshop time — the part that actually matters to riders — underpaid. The shops we worked with carried Yeti out of love, not because the economics worked.
So we changed the economics. Bikes come direct from us. The shops in our Service Centre network get paid properly for every Yeti they touch — every build, every warranty job, every first service. The customer pays once, and gets a fair price plus a real local mechanic. The shop gets paid for its work, not its floor stock.
We've been told this is a risk. Maybe. We think the bigger risk is staying with a system that's slowly failing the people who build, sell and ride these bikes.
In 2013, Commencal made the same call and they don't regret it. In 2026, neither will we.
THE ROTORUA HQ
The home base is on Amohau Street, Rotorua. Right alongside Ride Rotorua.
Drop in. The sliding door's usually open. Have a look at the bikes, talk to whoever's around, grab a coffee from next door. We're a small team and you'll often find it's just Kashi in the back of the workshop — please, feel free to knock or open the sliding door to say hello.
THE COMMUNITY
We don't run on customers. We run on riders.
The Yeti NZ Ambassador team — racers, packed-lunch enduro crews, parents teaching kids to ride. The Devo Team supporting NZ's next generation of pro riders. The Yeti owners' demo days. The Sunday rides. The group rides our Service Centres put on. The trail builds we kick in for.
→ See the Ambassadors · → See the Devo Team
WHAT'S NEXT
In 2026 we launch the Service Centre network. Coming up next: a bigger Rotorua HQ on the new Lot 8 site, more demo bikes around the country, a customer-account portal with bike registration and service history.
We're not done. Still down.
STAY IN TOUCH
We send a short monthly email — community stories, new gear, demo days, occasional deals. No spam. Easy to unsubscribe.
(Newsletter signup widget — to be embedded at build time)