1543. That was the year many historians date the transformation of science from primitive and dogma-based to modern and empirical. In that year two important books were published. One was De Humani Corporis Fabrica, the groundbreaking and breathtakingly beautiful woodcuts by the 28 year-old Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius. The other was Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, outlining his theory of a solar system revolving about the sun.
In its own small way, triathlon had its version of the same. You can date triathlon's technical coming of age to the year 1987, and the two occurrences that differentiated this sport from others. During that year, we saw the first use of the triathlon handlebar, and the first tri-specific wetsuit that gained traction in the marketplace. Prior to then the swim was cold, wet, slow and perhaps slightly less safe.
In this market we note the ape (surf wetsuits), the missing link (surf wetsuit marketed to triathletes), and the Quintana Roo fullsuit: the homo erectus of triathlon wetsuits. All spring from this one. On March 1 of this year QR celebrated 20 years since placing its "open for business" shingle above the door.
Quintana Roo continues these two decades later to be among the industry leaders in wetsuit sales and technology. The patterns are good, and have always been among the best in the tri wetsuit category. Also, the materials will be first-rate, the service and warranty cordial and prompt.
Two things are different between this QR and the QR of the past 19 years. The patterns changed a little, and the wetsuits are no longer made stateside. Yes, America's original -- and its final remaining -- triathlon wetsuit factory closed its doors, and these suits are now made in China. In so doing QR did not exactly turn traitor or sell out, it simply joined virtually every other triathlon wetsuit brand. Frankly, with the EPA and OSHA issues facing a company using the sort of glue required to forge a strong wetsuit seam, it was the prudent thing to do.
But these new patterns are not the work of the Chinese. The final thing QR's expert factory workers did before exiting for different pastures was create a set of patterns that would work well with QR's latest rubber, its Type-40 Yamamoto SCS which is, along with the jersey used on the inside of the suit, a bit stretchier than the #39 rubber used by QR and other wetsuit makers over the past decade and a half.
About that new rubber. You'll find the Type-40 in the Superfull, at a price tag of $499. The Hydrofull, one step down, is shown above and carries a price of $399. Whether this is a slower or less comfortable suit is debatable. The Superfull has pulling panels, but in our own testing a pulling panel is as likely to cost you time as grant it to you, depending on the brand of wetsuit.
The sleeveless version of the suit above is the Hydrojohn, at left. It enjoys the smallest audience of customers who ought to own it, because it's a high-end version of a low-end suit. If you are good enough to pay $400 or $500 for a wetsuit, you are wise enough to know that fullsuits are faster, and you ought to be in the suit pictured above right.
That established, a newbie that does not want sleeves because he hasn't yet learned the virtues of a fullsuit, but needs the hyrojohn because his (current) back-of-the-pack morphology requires the stretchy #39 rubber, is best off in this wetsuit right here. Just know that your next wetsuit -- once you shed a few pounds and learn the art of the swim -- is going to have arms.
There is a wetsuit without sleeves that ought to be purchased, and it is QR's price-point longjohn, the Ultrajohn. It is not pictured here, but is certainly the best selling tri wetsuit of all time -- it's the wetsuit style newbies buy.
You're going to give up about 30sec over the course of a 1500 meter swim in a sleeveless suit versus a well-made, properly fitting fullsuit, but QR's Ultrajohn is $199 (versus $299 for the sleeveless wetsuit above). It's a much better value, and you're really not giving up much. The point of all that stretchy shoulder rubber in expensive suits is to give you shoulder mobility. If the Ultrajohn fits you, then you don't need shoulder mobility, because you don't have shoulder restriction in this type of suit.
Then there is the Ultrafull, pictured at left. This wetsuit works very nicely, and at $219 is the best, fastest, most protective suit for the least money in QR's line. If it fits you well, buy it. You won't go very much faster in any other suit, made by this or any other company.
But if you don't fit it well, or if you lack shoulder mobility, then you do need to upgrade.
What I'm saying is, if you want to upgrade, your upgrade buck will be better spent if you're upgrading from a lower-positioned fullsuit to a more expensive one. Upgrade dollars are not as wisely spent if you're moving from one sleeveless to another.
Whether the fullsuit upgrade you need is to the Hydrofull or the Superfull, that's a hard one to answer. We have not tested these pulling panels to see how much speed they add, if any. But the mobility in the shoulders granted the swimmer through the use of the new Type 40 rubber is anecdotally impressive (in other words, the people whose opinions we trust rave about the suit when asked).
The Superfull is entirely redesigned for 2007. The previous model achieved that extra stretch through employing ribbed rubber in stretch-specific areas. But that technology was several years old. The Type 40 rubber -- and probably more specifically the jersey adhered to the inside of the rubber -- appears to be a step up in comfort and flexibility.
If you look on QR's website (rooworld.com) you'll note that Victory Wetsuits in Huntington Beach, CA, is the new warranty service center for Quintana Roo. Life often takes you in a circle. Twenty years ago a fellow in his late 20s, who'd not found appreciable traction working in any other industry, was toodling in the back of a surf wetsuit factory designing what would become the first Quintana Roo wetsuit. That idler was me, and that factory was Victory Wetsuits.
