Quick release ankle panels sounds like a welcome addition. My only gripe with my roka is that it's a bit difficult to get off the feets in T1.

I have this past season's Maverick and it has the release panels that are great! By the look of the new version I think it may be a bit bigger.

The stretchier (and therefore also more fragile) ankle panels have been on the Rokas for a while. Just eyeballing this, I see pretty new graphics but not much that seems particularly new. But I'm sure it's been tweaked in subtle ways, which may yield subtle benefits for some.

Does anyone know it the actual manufacturing cost of a single wetsuit it? $925 is nearly double of what my last Helix from Blue Seventy cost. Any stats on what these companies pay to have one made?

I'd like to know that too. I hear the margins are quite good. It does seem pretty ridiculous.

I'm sure the margins for a Maverick X sold at full price are high. Factoring in all of Roka's revenues and expenses, I'm guessing they do okay overall, but I doubt they're raking it in in a big way. But if you're price sensitive at all, why not either wait for the huge sales that pretty predictably come along a few times a year and/or buy one of the suits farther down the line that give up at most very marginal levels of performance?

Only somewhat relatedly, there was a Maverick X Concept (XC), with a slightly higher price, that showed up on the website and in online ads recently, but the links were always broken. Anyone have any idea what that was?

I wear my stuff until it practically falls off me. I ride my bikes until they are so old it's hard to find parts at regular retail shops. In fact, I'm still on the old 20 mm tires. Price sensitive is a good way of saying it I guess. I can afford one, but I'm in general, am cheap/thrifty& think lots of stuff is overpriced (like Wattie Ink clothes or Zipps). I don't like to spend a lot of $$ on equipment & really get my mileage out of it--so I'm an "infrequent" customer to a lot of tri supplies. I buy sales stuff/end of season stuff when I need to swap out stuff. My Helix is kind of dry rotting a bit as it is Gen 1 Helix. I still have a Stealth suit in use also. I was just curious as to the cost because it doesn't seem like a wetsuit should be worth $925. It better come with a hidden motor for that amount.

Worth is in the eye of the beholder, we could have the same conversation about high end bikes, or cars, or food, or anything, really.

I'm fairly certain that price doesn't have much to do with manufacturing (marginal) or even overall (average) cost, rather it's targeted at what the market will support for the highest-end wetsuits (and prior to widespread discounting).

Don't think it's "worth" it, don't buy one. Really not much more complicated than that. We talk so much about high-end products like this when you can buy a fantastic 2017 Elite II for $300 right now. Heck, the 2017 X was only $540 recently (sold out now).

I like the new color way... having used my current Roka X only 3 times.... I'm not going to upgrade.

Agreed! I have only 1 open water swim, and a warm up only at that on mine. At that price, I'd only even think about it if I could get a good price on my virtually new one. Hard to take too big a hit on something I haven't even seen....

Your question is a very good one and I can tell you the prices of wetsuits are ridiculous. Most brands are jacking up their prices in order to give the customer the magic word DISCOUNT. If customers were more informed and found out what neoprene the suit is made of and where the neoprene comes from, then you could compare the quality of neoprene. But since manufacturers don t want to tell you , the customer is left with big words that don t mean anything at all. 80 % of the value of the suit comes from the neoprene the suit is made of. Since the customer is not informed, they don t know if the neoprene is a top of the line or not and they just look at the bottom line, the price. Discount price means nothing if you double your price and give a discount. Nobody will complain since they are not informed about the product. Wetsuits are not created equal except they are black and made of some type of neoprene. The real problem comes from the people who are in charge of informing the customer and don't do their job because they don't want to critique the manufacturer who maybe will sponsor them in the future. Yes, I am Mr Aquaman USA and I always try to inform my customer about how our wetsuits are made. I hope this helps.

Thanks Emmanuel. That was pretty much my experience and opinion. I appreciate the input and it's pretty difficult nowadays to weed through the BS and get to the real facts. It seems the Team Sponsorship has gotten to be a huge marketing ploy for many of these companies.

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Gary Geiger
http://www.geigerphoto.com Professional photographer

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