FIT, FEEL & FAST: THE ROKA MAVERICK PRO

On August 16th I completed a 27kms (16.77 miles for you Yankees), 8 hour 41 minute, open water swim in the Lac du Bonnet area of Manitoba.  

One of the many supporters that made the swim possible was swimming company Roka, which provided me with a super-sweet Maverick Pro Fullsuit for the journey.  It helped make the swim bearable enough that my fellow swimmer, Patrick Peacock, and I were able to stomach a cool Budweiser at the finish.

After putting in more than 100kms of open water training in the Maverick Pro I can give an informed, and super-intelligent review of all my likes (lots) and dislikes (few) about the suit.

FIT

I am 155-160lbs (depending on how many bathroom trips I've taken throughout the day) and 5'8" tall (unfortunately I never get any taller), with thick legs and a stocky build.  The boys at Roka sized me up for a medium full suit which fit bang on

The suit didn't take on any water, none, zippo, zero, zilch! It has very tight fitting cuffs, which most suits don't have, that keep the suit from taking on water in the arms.  It also has a slightly beefy but not intrusive (at least it felt substantial to me) collar which kept water from getting into the body.

Quite noticeably the suit seems to have longer legs than my previous suits, or maybe that's just a function of me being built like a Russian gymnast. But it seems to also give the suit extra buoyancy in the legs for us leg-dinky swimmers.

Bottom line: a properly fitted Maverick Pro will fit snuggly all-around, with a slight bit of extra snugness around areas that water than seep in.

FEEL

This is where I'm so thankful I had the Roka boys on my team for the long swim.  This suit is a dream to train in!  If there's any test of the comfort of a wetsuit, it's how your shoulders feel after 4, 5, 9 hour long open water swims.  So you're hearing from an expert folks!

The thin shoulder panels kept my arms and shoulders fresh during every single distance I swam in the suit.  From day one the suit was flexible and took ZERO adjusting to as far as the flexibility was concerned.

The buoyancy of the suit was also a help as I've got a weak kick and sink legs from not being a super-swimmer as a kid.  My legs stayed up in the water and it took no effort to keep my chest down.

The one thing I would note is that body glide was a must with this suit around the back of the neck.  The substantial collar rubbed enough that my first swim out gave me a really good-looking neck hickey that my wife seemed to appreciate.

Bottom line on the feel: this suit is an amazingly flexible suit that also provides stability where stability is needed.  It's a great balance of structure to maintain a good body position, and supple to keep the suit from being a struggle to swim in.

FAST

This section will be quick (the paragraph on "Fast" will be "quick", get it? HAHAHAHA!).

There's nothing quick about a 27kms distance swim, nothing at all.  AT times we were going 1500m per hour, which a reported printed as being "Painfully Slow". Thanks for the vote of confidence there buddy…

However, I'm not just a pretty face and a slow open water swimmer.  No sir! I've also done two sprint distance triathlons to put this baby through some speed.  A sprint-distance triathlon swim can be described as a 750 meter all-out, max effort, time trial, while simultaneously engaging in a game of real life Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots.

Bottom line on the speed of this suit: it's bloody fast yo! Granted, my swimming has improved a lot since putting in 300,000 meters of training over the year, but my triathlon swim times went from 13:30 with my former unnamed suit, to 11:30 with the Roka Maverick Pro.  I went from the front of the second pack of swimmer, comprised of decent age group swimmers, to being able to hang on to the front of the lead pack of former elite speed swimmers.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

Likes: this suit! Long short short, it's awesome, go buy one now!

Dislikes: I've only have one serious dislike about this suit, which may not even be the wetsuits fault "It's not you wetsuit, it's me."  After putting in over 100kms of training in the wetsuit the armpits developed wear-holes from my arm turning over and rubbing in the armpit.  I had to patch up about four holes prior to the 27km swim, and I'll have to patch up another four now that the swim is done.  This is probably a function of wetsuits not being built to sustain 9 straight hours of swimming, combined with my stroke having a slight armpit rub, combined with the neoprene around the armpits/shoulders being slightly more delicate to promote arm turnover.

Here's the scoop on the Roka Maverick Pro wetsuit.  If you want a top of the line wetsuit, don't even think about any of the other $800 suits, get this one or you're just being silly!  There's a reason all the top pros are moving over to Roka, it's because the suit rocks!

SWEET GEORGIA BROWN, I can go outside!!!

After the worst winter in the history of the Canadian Prairies, it's finally warm enough to get away from the black line and begin swimming in the open water.

That said, now that I've actually done more than sit in front of the TV wearing the wetsuit I can give a review of the Roka Maverick Pro Fullsuit. But wait there's more, being trapped indoors over the winter allowed me to get very comfortable with the Roka Sim Shorts. Two reviews for the price of one, hot damn!

ROKA SIM SHORTS
These babies are to my buns as a tuxedo is to James Bond; never have I looked more dashing than I do strutting around the pool deck with my bottom half squeezed into this magical swim aid. Simply put, these shorts are a must have for any recreational swimmer looking for a little warmth on cold days, or a little lift on tired days.

During a freestyle stroke the shorts provide just enough added lift to help with body position, but not so much lift that my position became awkward. Compared to a pull buoy these shorts are light years better, your kick is not impinged at all and the lift isn't nearly as severe. They simply a nice addition to a swim on lazy days where you otherwise might not get into the pool.

Fit wise, I was in between the 30 and the 32 size with quite thick, sinky legs.  I purchased a pair of each size and decided tht the 30 was ideal, so my advice is to size down on these models.

I have only two qualms I have with the shorts. The first is to be expected given the purpose of the shorts: my legs get lifted too far out of the water during breaststroke. The second issue I have is with the drawstring, it's quite substantial and can rub a sore spot into my tummy after a long swim. Not big issues, and certainly nothing that would stop me from recommending these shorts.

ROKA MAVERICK PRO FULLSUIT

Up in the Great White North the glaciers finally came off the lake about a month ago, so I've only been able to get in three open water swims averaging 6kms each, and I've done one sprint triathlon in the suit.

So far so good! I'm 5'8", 158 pounds, and have stubby legs with a 30" inseam. The medium is a grat fit for me, it fits snugly so there's very little extra water in the suit for me to lug around. After the first swim I learned where the chaffing spots were, and with some body glide on the back of the neck and backs of my arm pits I don't have any hot-spots (I did have a badass looking hicky on the back of my neck after the first sans-body glide swim however).

The open water swims were quite comfortable, but the rubber met the road with the first gruelling test of the suit: the 750m balls out sprint distance swim in the first race of the year. I lined up at the start line, well outclassed, next to a friend who had tried to race pro 70.3 races, and four or five guys on the Canadian Age Group Triathlon Team. I knew it was going to be a blistering pace if I wanted to do well. After a punch or two in the face at the start of the race I was on the heels of the super swimmers, and settled into a pace that was just one step shy of coughing up a lung in the water. I exited the swim 7 seconds in behind a guy who has been dominating local races for 20 years, and only 20 seconds in behind a local super-swimmer know for decimating the fields in the water. My swim time ended up dropping more than a minute from my previous fastest 750m race time. I was more than happy!

Bottom line, the Roka Maverick Pro Fullsuit is a comfortable, fast suit that I would recommend to anyone looking to step up to the more advanced suits in the $700-800 price category. What's more. The Roka guys are super knowledgeable and easy to access with questions, great customer service.

GO ROKA!

Roka Maverick Pro Wetsuit First Dance

While on vacation in Kailua-Kona for our honeymoon and to watch the Ironman World Championship I met the men of Roka Sports.  Rob, Kurt and Michael were nice guys and we got to chatting about the 22km swim I'm planning for August 2014, being super generous (or maybe taking pity on me for looking like a slow swimmer) they donated a top-of-the-line Maverick Pro wetsuit.

I was hoping to take one last open-water dance before the snow fell, but I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba up in the Great White North, and by the time we got back home at the end of October the lake was only 4 degrees Celsius.  There's no wetsuit warm enough to get me swimming in that.

I finally put the wetsuit on today, here are my first thoughts (WARNING: I'm totally biased because the generosity of the Roka guys have created a loyal enthusiast).

Well styled. The legs and centre chest strip are thick to raise legs and make rotation easier.  Sides are a "middle thickness" and shoulders are very thin to allow for mobility.  The panels are seamed together and Roka has used the various thicknesses for function and the fashionable styling.

The arm and shoulder panels are quite thin so I was nervous to pull the arms on with much force.  Roka recommends pulling the suit up by grabbing the inside, or by grabbing the forearm panels (picture below) which also serve to help "feel" a proper catch.

Forearm panel

The fit is quite tight to make sure that the suit doesn't act as a parachute and "grab" extra water which weighs you down.  That said, I found that I had to pinch the bottom of the zipper to help get the zipper started.

Time for some arm circles to see just how flexible this suit actually is.  I was really impressed; the suit fit very snugly to the body but I had a lot of mobility in the shoulders.  The only point that I felt any shoulder tension was at the very back of an arm circle, but in the recovery phase of the stroke my arm really shouldn't be moving back that far anyway.  All in all, very stretchy and comfortable.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: By "comfortable" I mean: as comfortable as you can be while draped in rubber, having just got off an indoor bike trainer session and sweating profusely. 

The suit has some interesting features that should be noted:

This centre panel is the thickest of all and promotes proper body alignment.

Legs are slightly longer than a typical suit to promote extra buoyancy in the legs.

The line on the shoulder should be lined up with the boney part (super technical term) of the top of your shoulder.

I haven't counted but my guess is that "ROKA" is plastered on my body eleventy times!

This guy likes the fit of his Roka Maverick Pro Fullsuit!!!

Thanks guys!

How NOT Meeting Team Wurtele Paid Off

Last month the newly married Kim Babij-Gesell (my wife) and I went on our Honeymoon in Kailua-Kona to watch the Ironman World Championship.  Check out the blog post below or at the link here for the non-honeymoony video about our day watching the race.

After the race we toured around for a few days seeing the sights.  One morning I opened Twitter and saw a post from Canadian professional triathletes Trevor & Heather Wurtele saying the following

"Still hanging around Kona? We're giving away some @smithoptics gear Tuesday eve. But you gotta find Heather up Mauna Kea during sunset!!"

I'm a fan of the Wurteles. They did a super cool thing and sold all their worldly possessions to buy a camper van, quit their jobs, and tour the world as professional triathletes. These folks are gutsy!! I wanted to meet them and being a properly frugal Winnipeger free shades were the clincher. We rented a car and started the 13,000ft climb up the island.

Well, apparently 13,000ft is really high and pretty dangerous to get up to. So 9,200ft and -4 degrees Celsius later we got stopped by the park patrol.

Ever see that movie "The Road"? Well that's what Hawaii looks like at 9,200ft, SUPER CREEPY! Cold, tired and hungry we tucked our Canadian beaver tails between our legs and headed back down the island sans-Wurtele Meet and Greet.

We ended up tweeting back and forth with them about missing them up on Mauna Kea Mountain and they asked for our address, saying that they would mail out some Smith Optics Sunglasses to us at home. Well, three weeks later and CHA-CHING!!! Package in the mail with some sweet sunnies, booya! Check out all the shots of what they sent below.

Thanks so much for the package Team Wurtele! We're even bigger fans now and so proud to have you as Canadian representatives in the sport of Ironman.

Honeymoon in Kona Watching the Ironman World Championship

On September 7, 2013 my lovely lady Kim Babij and I got hitched.  She became Kim Babij-Gesell, and I locked in the best race sherpa around!  It was a great day, check out the picture below from Simply Rosie Photography.

The pictures were fantastic and despite putting up a stink about hiring a wedding photographer, I'm so glad we had Mark and Rosie there.  Originally, I thought hiring a wedding photographer was ridiculous and that Instagram would be fine enough.  Kim promptly corrected me and we made a trade; we would hire Simply Rosie and I would get to pick where we went on the honeymoon.  Hence: KONA IRONMAN!!!!

Enough mushy gushy stuff abut the wedding, on to the triathlon related part of the post. The video below is from the day of the race. Enjoy!

Mount Haleakala Bike Climb

 This climb was one of the toughest physical challenges I've ever done; my body and brain were simply exhausted by the end of the ride. This video shows how visually spectacular the experience was but to know how it feels to go through it you really have to do it yourself. Here's the good news: Maui is beautiful so it's a great place to vacation anyway, and the climb isn't all that daunting for the average cyclist.  Here's a quick summary of how I found the climb:

- 5 hours of riding, 6.5 total hours
- 7 energy bars, 3 gels, 4 bottles with Skratch, 3 electrolyte tabs, 3 aspirins, 1 extra chamois butter application
- it's a steady climb with nothing too challenging until you reach the top, at which point the grade picks up sharply for the last 250 meters
- bring some warm gear for the top, it's not freezing cold but you'll need some extra clothes
- get a ride down somehow, the switchbacks don't have guard rails and you don't want to fall off the edge and tumble 10,000 feet (very possible)
- get a half decent road bike for the climb, saw some mountain bikers attempting parts of the climb and they looked ROUGH
- take pictures!!!! This may be the most gorgeous place you'll ever see
- unless you're Ryder Hesjedal don't think this wont take long, it's a long and painful climb that could be the only thing you do that day
- post your photos, video and tweet about it, I rarely see info about the Mount Haleakala bike climb so let's put more up

Triathlon Vacation in Hawaii!!!

First ever blog post and I waited until I had something serious to post about, this trip is going to give me no shortage of material because I'm off to Hawaii for a week of relaxation. Relaxation, after I drop it like its hot at Tri Lana'i which is an off road sprint distance race on Saturday.

My lovely lady Kim Babij, who you'll be seeing a lot of in future posts as she's my "race Sherpa", bought us this trip back in February. I've been training to get faster since then in hopes of getting on the podium, lets hope I feel the need for speed on Saturday.

More to come soon, time to hop on the first plane of the day. Hawaii bound!