I saw this Google ad about these skin suites, I would imagine them to be super aero if they are not too hot. They are made of the exact same material as my pi tt shoe covers. The suit is made out of pu coated Lycra. What do you guys think, without the head this thing seems damn fast. 30 seconds over a standard suit at least.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Black-metallic-Sexy-Lycra-Zentai-spandex-Unisex-catsuit-S-XXL-/370968174911?pt=US_Costumes&hash=item565f6d213f
oh dear…
I tested skin suits that were similar to these back in the late '90’s and yes, they were very hot to wear. We also added various foam wing shapes to the arms and legs and did get them going pretty fast. In the end however, careful placing of seams and better material selections allowed standard Lycra suits to be faster at bike racing speeds while giving a better level of cooling and comfort. For the downhill MTB racers that go over 100mph, the coated suits are faster.
completely off (or is it on?) topic… but what do you think “is” the fastest? Something like the older Nike skinsuit? Or just the new Bioracers?
The old Niki suits continue to be what you would want to test against to make any improvements but “tight” is the key to better performance. Any wrinkles cause big problems and smooth is important. Another simple test is to just blow through the fabric, if you can blow through it easy, it’s not fast, if you have to really huff to get air through it will probably be a fast material.
I saw this Google ad about these skin suites, I would imagine them to be super aero if they are not too hot. They are made of the exact same material as my pi tt shoe covers. The suit is made out of pu coated Lycra. What do you guys think, without the head this thing seems damn fast. 30 seconds over a standard suit at least.
http://www.ebay.com/…;hash=item565f6d213f
Ignoring that the original link appears to be for some kind of fetish wear, in the ‘80s Pearl Izumi used to make a rubberized skin suit. I had one and we used to call it the condom suit. It was a mixture of regular lycra and coated lycra. I used it to good effect for our state TT championship a couple of times, but a 9am start time at 5,000’ of elevation meant it was usually fairly chilly. For any kind of longer TT on a warm day it was a bad choice. Lots of guys used to use them for 4km pursuits and kilo’s on the track though more or less no matter the temperature.
These skin suits are long out of fashion and I’d guess that is largely because the new materials are better and more practical.
Super smooth isn’t the best way to go, btw. As John mentioned, the newer suits, with careful seam placement and just-rough-enough texturing, are quite fast and comfortable.
Super smooth isn’t the best way to go, btw. As John mentioned, the newer suits, with careful seam placement and just-rough-enough texturing, are quite fast and comfortable.’
Though, he also said that anything you can blow threw isn’t fast… the top portion of the Castelli suits are almost fish net!
Blow “threw”? I’m pretty sure he didn’t say that.
Blow “threw”? I’m pretty sure he didn’t say that.
My grammar is amazing!
Super smooth isn’t the best way to go, btw. As John mentioned, the newer suits, with careful seam placement and just-rough-enough texturing, are quite fast and comfortable.’
Though, he also said that anything you can blow threw isn’t fast… the top portion of the Castelli suits are almost fish net!
I’m sure there’s more to the test than that. Whether the panel is pressed flat against (impermeable) skin, or drawn taught with a bit of a gap below it… will matter in the assessment of a fabric, I’m sure.
I was amazed. 