Hey Zach,
Again, thanks for the interest.
As I said in the other thread, we’re swimmers and have tested the suit with a bunch of triathletes, both pros and age groupers. So we’ve considered the points you mentioned. I won’t get into the testing and race results we’ve done, you can see some of that on our site. But we’re very exciting about what’s in store for the 2013 season.
To run through some of your questions:
Well Made?
Yes we believe our suits are very well made. We’ve partnered with leading factories overseas and have pushed even their manufacturing capabilities with a few aspects of our suits. There is actually a fair amount of consolidation on the manufacturing side of wetsuits, so let’s just say that our factories are proven.
Simple or Complex?
Not sure what you mean by simple or complex, but the suit reflects what we believe is needed to optimize multiple variables. Buoyancy alone does not translate to the fastest swimming possible, and we think we’ve moved the ball on suit design in that regard. That is, we did not just stick a bunch of thick neoprene all over the place to try to optimize for buoyancy, as some do. We started with a speedo and added to that, rather than grabbing another brand’s suit and trying to figure out what to change. Our suit reflects that bottoms up approach, and the result is an array of different materials for different jobs.
Instead of just making “the most buoyant suit”, we focused on putting people in the fastest body position (requires what I’ll call “smart buoyancy”), helping them rotate properly (really important for fast swimming), adding stabilizers in certain parts of the suit to overcome common technique flaw, and finally, ensuring that the athlete has maximum range of motion where needed. Then we thought about comfort and some other details - like getting out of the suit quickly in T1. When you step back and look at all of that, it’s pretty complex. Our suit is actually more expensive to manufacturer than most suits on the market, for sure. When you put it on and swim though, the Maverick gets out of your way and lets you focus on kicking ass.
Flex?
Definitely. The Maverick pro has a Yamamoto SCS #40 1.5mm upper with a variety of liners. Some of the liners are very high stretch, but where stretch isn’t needed we optimized for water absorption (or a lack thereof), stability, and other attributes (not cost though 
). The number one complaint we had ourselves and have heard from others about wetsuits is that they make your shoulders fatigued prematurely and force you to adopt a different stroke. We don’t think you will find a suit that is more comfortable in the shoulders than our suit. And the sleeveless suit is just nuts.
Good cuffs? No leaks?
No leaks. We have purpose-built, barrel cuffs that won’t leak. They might feel tight in a changing room at a retailer, but at speed in T1 when the suit is wet, you should no have trouble getting out of the suit. None of our athletes have had trouble getting out of the suit (wrists or ankles).
Low cut neck?
Yep, the neck is low cut and uses Yamamoto #40 for stretch and comfort. Our first iteration had a single ply neck that some brands use, but despite our intuition, we found it to be restrictive on the throat when tightened. We’ve increased the length of the velcro and the surface area of the neoprene flap, so an athlete should have plenty of surface area to get the proper neck fit. If there is any neoprene flap surplus after getting the right fit, the athlete can trim it to make sure the flap isn’t creating any drag. On the back of the neck there is a small neoprene panel that extends above the zipper to protect the neck, but it is very low profile and does not flap around as several of our competitors’ suits do - that just creates drag. I’ll see if we can get some product detail shots up to show you what I’m talking about.
Internal seams?
We use standard construction techniques - glue and blindstitch with flatlock stitching. This combination offers the best balance of waterproofing, durability and stretch. The seam joints are taped with dots, as is common practice in high quality suits. We’ve reinforced high-stress areas and have taped the final several inches of the ankle seams to prevent tearing in T1 and to allow people to cut the suit to length. Our suits are actually fairly long, extending down closer to the ankle than most, because we want to eek out that last bit of buoyancy. If you don’t favor that approach, you can trim the leg and get a clean cut.
Compress or restrictive?
We haven’t had any complaints that it’s restrictive or that it hinders full breathing. One benefit of using Yamamoto #40 and of our proprietary side stripes on the legs (they are 1.5mm thick) is that the suit is forgiving and shouldn’t feel restrictive when sized correctly. The side stripes, which we call RS2, also make the suit much easier to get in and out of. That comfort was actually the first thing Jesse and Meredith mentioned (independently) when trying on our suits. Meredith has finished almost 50 Ironmans, so she’s worn a lot of suits!!
Chafing at the neck?
Have not had an issue with this but regardless we do recommend as a best practice to apply Body Glide or TriSlide to the neck and ankles to limit friction.
On the trend of design gimmicks
I don’t think there are any gimmicks to our suit. On the materials side, we purposefully don’t create a lot of b.s. acronyms or fake terms to describe the materials we’re using or the approach we’ve taken. The truth is that most of the textiles in this market are commodities and top brands do not make their own neoprene or textiles, despite the fact that many have been in market for decades. So we’re calling b.s. on that practice. We aren’t, for example, going to call the textile panel in our wetsuit forearms “ROKAFLEX” and pretend we actually make a proprietary fabric blend or something silly like that. In that example, the fabric we use is a teflon-coated woven textile from a premium Italian manufacturer called Mectex. They’ve been around for a long time, are very popular in the competitive swimming markets (used by Speedo and others), and other brands in triathlon have used their materials. It’s a very expensive fabric but has some great performance characteristics because a woven textile is naturally more compressive than a knit. There is cheaper stuff out there but we don’t think it works as well.
On the product design side, the Maverick design is rooted in principles honed by decades of elite swimming experience. We also applied basic physics to several aspects of the design (for example, adding buoyancy to the outside of the side of the legs, as some do, actually makes it harder to rotate). Overall, the Maverick design has been validated by real world testing and results. In addition to race outcomes, Jesse tested the suit with his coach and found it to be faster than what he had been used before by 1.5 seconds per 100 yards, and we’ve had similar or better results in our own testing of many suits.
What niche does it fill?
We design our suits for everyone. Of course, in a perfect world, everyone would have a custom suit that accounts for their own stroke flaws and idiosyncrasies, but right now that’s not practical at scale. We designed the Maverick Pro for elite swimmers initially (ourselves) and then based on feedback from non-elite swimmers built in some features that will really help most triathletes, without taking away performance. Access to the suit will be limited by its cost, so we’re working on more affordable models that don’t compromise performance. Most brands downgrade materials significantly on midrange and entry level suits, which why we’re getting a lot of emails right now about “discount” suits that don’t have much flexibility or comfort. So stay tuned on that front.
Of course, everyone is unique and has a preference on this or that. I hope my responses don’t come off as cocky or anything. It’s entirely possible our suit won’t be perfect for everyone, but we genuinely believe the Maverick can make most people faster, and we’ve created a 30 day money-back return policy that should give you time to test it for yourself.
Long response, Zach. Hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Best,
Rob
