Most good wetsuits employ some of only a modest number of available high-quality neoprenes and coatings, so some of the supposed variation in durability across brands has always seemed overblown to me.

I have a 1.5 year old Roka I handle extremely carefully and that is in fantastic shape. The one caveat is that I've gotten a few small tears along the seams in the underarm area, which is a function of the Maverick Elite and Pro seam design not allowing stretch along a crucial axis. Roka has made clear they consider that a warranty issue and my understanding is will be redesigning to address it down the road, though I think it'll be a while before we see new designs available. Since their product support is excellent and not everyone may experience this issue, I still recommend them strongly.

I'm surprised you're getting sent new suits with fingernail tears already in them, and multiple times no less, that seems very odd. But I'm sure Roka will take care of you.

Thanks for the reply. Indeed, I'm finding very odd that I've gotten two suits with three cuts among them (the second suit was fine, and that's the one I swam in). My guess is this is the potential trade off with their awesome 30 day trial period. I'm also careful with my suits (I'm used to having to care for fastskins when I was a competitive swimmer), which is one reason why my reaction has held up so well.

I'm sure Roka will handle this fine (and not the reason for this post). I'm just trying to see if I can distinguish between the two most likely scenarios here: (1) previous testers of these suits are rougher with wetsuits or (2) these wetsuits are more fragile. I'm more inclined to believe (1), but I've been wrong on hypotheses many times.

Sounds like you got my Maverick X. I returned it because of how absurdly fragile it was. Cuts in the suit despite the greatest of care.

For a $900 wetsuit I personally said no thanks.

I often have trouble telling how sincere you are on this forum. Can you elaborate on your experience? What wetsuits do you have for comparison?

So what did you go to next and why?

I came from a TYR Cat 5, which I have owned and used for every wetsuit legal race -- and plenty of open water training -- since 2012. Towards the middle of this season, it developed a couple small slits in the seams, so I ordered the Maverick X, which promptly developed similar sized slits in just two very careful uses. After that, I returned the Maverick X and used neoprene glue to repair the Cat 5, which I'm still using now. I will likely just buy another Cat 5 next. It makes much more sense to me to buy a $450 wetsuit that lasts 4-5 years than it does to buy a $900 wetsuit that lasts two seasons and requires constant upkeep with neoprene glue repair.

Note: the above post isn't sarcasm. This was my actual experience.

Thanks for the response, I found it helpful. At the moment I'm leaning towards simply returning the suit. I may check out the maverick pro instead, since I can get that for ~$420 but I'm undecided right now.

Where did you see it for $420?

I've read in several places that the 2nd tier wetsuit is often faster than the top of the line anyway. Of course, all that matters is how it tests on you.

Came from a 2xu suit, have had roka sleveless suit for just 1 season but it held up perfectly. No cuts or issues like that. I developed a couple tiny cuts on the 2xu but I had that for 3 years.

in my short experience so far it's been great and durable.

I assume that's the price through his tri club. Roka appears to be one of the many tri companies that abides by the belief that retail is for suckers.

If sleeveless you've had either the elite or pro I'm assuming?

Good suits can totally last several seasons without a mark, like my sleeveless reaction. I just want sleeves for when water is below mid 60s F.

Got the same suit, its very fragile. Had to return a couple. 1st suit developed some abrasions from the Velcro on the pull cord (user error maybe?). 2nd suit had a cut next/under the pinstriping on the forearm. Both returned w/o question. It's a fast suit, comfortable suit I'll likely keep.

i've had my maverick pro for 1-2 seasons. have done 3 HIM swims and 2 IM swims and 2 open water swims. that's not a lot of swims. great care to it. the suit has tiny cracks on it. not fingernail cracks.

so far it hasn't affected performance. i assumed this was normal with high end suits... maybe i should contact roka...

john

How long have you had the final suit? How has it fared since?

I have been in Roka suits for 3 years now. I have the Pro first for almost 2 years when a seam blew in the leg. Roka and Trisports (where I got it) were great in getting me a quick new replacement. I never experienced any of the armpit crack/ tears others have reported.

I did get an X right at launch in May and its been super resilient. I swim about twice a week in the ocean with it and its gone through a HIM/ IM and Olympic, all without incident. There are some slight abrasions on the knees from stretching pre-race but no marks on the thin arm and shoulder region. I know my swim coach who was a product tester for the X had his fabric panel tear early on but again I have been issue free with a lot of use.

Great thing is Roka is like the Quarq of wetsuits...contact them and you get an answer pretty quickly and they seem to be super consumer-oriented.

Hi Albert,

Thanks for the post. I'm sorry about the hassle and have forwarded this to our head of customer experience to investigate the specific issue you noted. We'll get you taken care of asap.

We use an enterprise-level fulfillment house and have a very strict restocking policy with them, so I was surprised to hear of this issue. As a matter of policy, we don't repackage and send out suits that have been worn or have any sign of damage. Instead, we keep them for demo or other use, so I'm particularly troubled by the possibility that the suit might have a tear in the leg right out of the box. There is no way it would ever pass QC at the factory with a tear, so it had to have happened at the fulfillment house. Argh! We'll investigate, and meantime we'd be happy to replace immediately if you can please reach out to us at support@rokasports.com or 877-985-7652.

Re: durability, would just add for the general group's benefit that:

A) re: materials, all of our suits use premium Yamamoto neoprene from Japan. It is generally regarded as the best neoprene you can buy. We have tried Sheico and Jako and others, and they just don't cut the mustard for our use in tri suits. Many of our competitors use these other neoprene types, especially for their lower end suits. Certain variants of Yamamoto, like the #40 we use in parts of the Maverick X are indeed more fragile than some other variants out there, both from Yamamoto and others. All of our suits have a blend of materials, strategically positioned across the suit to optimize buoyancy and stretch in different planes. This technology of ours has not been patented in several parts of the world and has been heavily tested internally and externally. We believe it makes for the fastest wetsuits on the planet. Using a high performance neoprene was critical to that process. Yes, we trade off some durability, so if you are looking for a wetsuit to wear for 5-10 years, we may actually not be the best place to shop. Most of our customers own suits for 1-3 years before turning them over.

B) Re: construction and factory quality, I was at the factory in Asia last week and saw many Mav X's and other suits come off the line. Our factory has been making premium wetsuits and dive suits for decades for a number of leading brands, and they do an excellent job. For trims, we use premium suppliers like YKK zippers and Coats thread and do not skimp. But it is important to understand that wetsuits like these are 100% handmade. With manual cutting and sewing and many, many hours of glue curing just to make one suit, minor imperfections can arise from time to time over thousands of units of production. To date, we have been very fortunate not to have "a bad batch" of neoprene or any major issues. But the manufacturing process is still manual, and is very different from how we make our other technical apparel, goggles or sunglasses, for example. We do our best to catch all issues in QC, but sometimes issues don't pop up or aren't visible until you are actually in the water. Given that, we try to be very generous with our evaluation and return policy. Also, it is HARD to get your size right sometimes depending on where you land on the size curve, so we never want to stick someone with an ill-fitting suit!! :) Overall, our return rate is very very low, whether that is for size swaps or a warranty issue, but we can always get better. So will definitely dig into this one!

Please continue to share what is working and what's not. It's super helpful to me and the rest of the team from a product development and customer experience perspective.

Best,
Rob

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rob canales
ceo + co-founder at ROKA
http://www.roka.com

Thanks for the response Rob, I think everyone appreciates the effort you put into supporting your products at Roka.

I'll be able to get in touch later this morning, but want to ask one question for you. All the defects I've noticed have been in the 5mm portion of the leg. I'm under the impression this part of the suit should be shared across your line (maverick pro, elite, etc). If this is true, going with a different suit should not offer me any more luck than the Maverick X.

Regarding if the suits have been sent out before: my confidence that I'm not at fault here is over 95%. I noticed the two cuts in the first suit as I was putting that foot into the suit (hadn't even got the ankle through). It could also be that it was a defect or a naturally occurring weak spot as well, but that suit still had a tag attached to the lanyard. The third suit (one after I realized I needed to size down) did not have the tag attached to the lanyard like the first two did. I'm not sure if this helps any of your investigative efforts or not.

For the record I think you make some pretty sweet products at Roka. I've raced in your sleeved tri suit and it was amazing. Your R1 goggle is the first goggle I've used outside of my speedo speed sockets in 14 years (only for open water swimming - where they are wonderful, but they make me dizzy on flip turns). I'm excited to try things like your cycling and run apparel in the future, and maybe even those spiffy sunglasses.

Thanks again for your wonderful support

Had the suit for a month with a few swims. It still looks new. There's a trade off with these high end suits, I'm expecting to get a few years use out of it but knew this prior to purchasing it.

I got the cheapest ROKA model, the Comp I believe, and it is not very durable. I love the suit, it is very supple, but it really does tear at a lot. I have worn it like 10 or so times, and I have a good amount of fingernail tears in it. I just got a tube of repair and touch it up. I would never pay $900 for a wetsuit but $175 at the season closeout was good for me. I would buy again but I would think twice if I wore it every week.

Damn I need to join that tri club. I'd definitely grab one at $420.

I've had the maverick pro for 2 seasons. Have about 6 races in it. It's held up way way way better than my previous Xterras - vector & vector pro. A few slight nicks but no deep tears and seams are all solid. My previous suits wore out much faster - much of this is likely due to luck with wetsuit strippers.

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Thoughts on being an Urban Triathlete

I stay away from those strippers, let me be clear wetsuit strippers.

Sorry, but you gotta learn how to keep your fingernails away from the suit. I find a combination of pulling on the inside and pulling through a swim cap that's covering my fingers prevents *all* fingernail tears. Roka uses the same nicer neoprenes as other good suits, there's no logical reason why a Roka should be any more susceptible to fingernail tears than another suit that uses the same neoprene.