i'll hazard a guess that i've swam in, tried on, sniffed, tasted more wetsuits than you. i'm very familiar with the entire ROKA line, and the specific issue with which you're concerned is something you'd have dealt with regardless of wetsuit.
here's the dirty little secret. everybody (have you seen the thread on deboer wetsuits?) talks about their unique rubber. how their rubber uniquely does this and that. however, in point of fact, almost everyone uses the same rubber. there are different models of, say, yamamoto rubber (#38, $39, #40, #45) and there are different things that you can do with that rubber (aerdome) and different jerseys you can adhere to it and surface treatments you (literally) paint over it (like SCS, or metal cell). you can stamp it with a die, to make ridges, indentations. you can silkscreen on it. but rubber's rubber. so...
you very likely would've had the same thing happen in any wetsuit you bought. the one thing i've found is that soft rubber (like yamamoto #39) untreated with a surface coating (like SCS) is more prone to fingernail tears. but that is not the case with your wetsuit.
what i would do, were i you, is not engage in this debate, in public, on the very first few days you begin posting here. rather, just ask very nicely for a replacement suit or for a refund. and then, from now on, do what i do: bring socks with you to your triathlon. wear your socks when you put the suit on over your legs. take your socks off, put them on your hands, and then push your hand through the arm. beyond all of that, then, you have a choice to make: cut your fingernails, choose another sport, or swim only in wetsuit-illegal races. and i'm not trying to be snarky here. you, me, we all have decisions to make when we take up an activity like triathlon, and in the case of fingernails it's not unlike the choice you make when taking up the guitar or the violin. you choose your fingernails or you choose your avocation.
i mow my hair down to just this side of bald. my wife, reluctantly, made the same choice (except now she wonders why she didn't do it years ago, and she's just as beautiful and elegant). these are the choices we make.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
here's the dirty little secret. everybody (have you seen the thread on deboer wetsuits?) talks about their unique rubber. how their rubber uniquely does this and that. however, in point of fact, almost everyone uses the same rubber. there are different models of, say, yamamoto rubber (#38, $39, #40, #45) and there are different things that you can do with that rubber (aerdome) and different jerseys you can adhere to it and surface treatments you (literally) paint over it (like SCS, or metal cell). you can stamp it with a die, to make ridges, indentations. you can silkscreen on it. but rubber's rubber. so...
you very likely would've had the same thing happen in any wetsuit you bought. the one thing i've found is that soft rubber (like yamamoto #39) untreated with a surface coating (like SCS) is more prone to fingernail tears. but that is not the case with your wetsuit.
what i would do, were i you, is not engage in this debate, in public, on the very first few days you begin posting here. rather, just ask very nicely for a replacement suit or for a refund. and then, from now on, do what i do: bring socks with you to your triathlon. wear your socks when you put the suit on over your legs. take your socks off, put them on your hands, and then push your hand through the arm. beyond all of that, then, you have a choice to make: cut your fingernails, choose another sport, or swim only in wetsuit-illegal races. and i'm not trying to be snarky here. you, me, we all have decisions to make when we take up an activity like triathlon, and in the case of fingernails it's not unlike the choice you make when taking up the guitar or the violin. you choose your fingernails or you choose your avocation.
i mow my hair down to just this side of bald. my wife, reluctantly, made the same choice (except now she wonders why she didn't do it years ago, and she's just as beautiful and elegant). these are the choices we make.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman