About Us

Hi, I'm Elsa.
I started CAPETREAD because of my mother.

She’s 64 now. And for years I’ve watched her plan her day around her knees. Which staircase to take. How long she could stand. Whether something was worth doing… or not.

She doesn’t complain. But you can see it.
The world gets smaller.

And two years ago, I felt the start of it myself. That moment on the stairs where you hesitate — and think, not me too.

We tried all of it. The R299 sleeve from Clicks that rolled down by lunchtime. The imported brace that arrived wrong three weeks later. The orthopaedic one the specialist wanted us to pay R4,200 for — bulky, too much for an everyday knee.

And none of them solved the real problem.

Because it’s not just the pain. It’s how much you start thinking about it. That’s what wears you down.

So I stopped looking for a brace and started building one.

I spent a year with a team in Cape Town figuring out what was actually missing — and the answer kept coming back to the same thing. Most sleeves try to hold the knee by squeezing the leg. But squeezing isn’t support. What the knee actually needs is to be held steady above and below the joint, adjusted to the person wearing it.

That became the CAPETREAD SureStep™.

One size, fully adjustable. Thin under clothes. Breathable for the Cape summer. Built for the ordinary tired knee, not the operating table.

My mom still wears hers. She’s not running marathons. But last Sunday she stood through the whole lunch and did the dishes after — something she hadn’t done in two years.

She doesn’t talk about her knee the way she used to.

And honestly — that’s the goal. Not what something promises in the first week. What it quietly gives back over time.

If that sounds like what you’ve been waiting for, have a look at what we made. And if it doesn’t make your days easier, every order is backed by our 90-day guarantee. Email me directly at info@capetread.co.za.

— Elsa
Founder, CAPETREAD