RealSurf Surfers' Forum

Actually tried on a bong suit today. Nice and stretchy......but it was back zip with a flap like my old Quikkie.

It's coming back around boys.


http://beachgrit.com/2017/11/fauxreal-back-zip-wetsuit/

back zips = inferior.

sure they're harder to get in and out of. but paddling, surfing comfort & water-tightness in zipperless is insurmountable.

crabmeat thompson wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 06, 2017 10:05 am

sure they're harder to get in and out of.

Listen to that.......the people are speaking, they are roaring.

It reminds me of when I smashed my wifes car in July and could'nt open the drivers side door. You had to get in the passengers side door, kind of squeeze past the gear stick and the hand brake and wedge yourself in.....and then do the reverse to get out.

It was fcuked. So much easier just to open the door and get in and out.

Thats a backzip cuz. Just open the door to get in and out.

Life is hard enough for the working man these days. Just pull that backzip down and feel that big, bright breezy smile spread across your face.
You're free.

but mate, staying flexible is a surfers best friend. after about 4 or 5 goes in the zipperless, you should have it wired so it takes no longer than a back zip to slide into?

i might drive to lennox, we'll get Bylsey on the stop watch and you and I will have a suit off!

the zipperless Vs back zip challenge!

...

If you put them on right way 'round they go on much easier Steve.

I get what I get given.....and chestzips are what is given....



But the resurgence of the backzip is something that makes me very, very happy.

And anyone running the comfort angle.....I'll happily put a GPS on and we can compare paddling distances over a year.

challenge accepted, my very dear friend!

...

I think we will have to see how this pans out......but on the ground where I am, I am a seeing a ferocious backlash to the indignity of the chestzip.

Who knows, maybe in ten years time we will look back on the reign of the chestzip wetsuit and wonder out loud: what the fcuk was that shitt all about.

steve shearer wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 06, 2017 1:29 pm

I think we will have to see how this pans out......but on the ground where I am, I am a seeing a ferocious backlash to the indignity of the chestzip.

Who knows, maybe in ten years time we will look back on the reign of the chestzip wetsuit and wonder out loud: what the fcuk was that shitt all about.

You probably don't have any bitcoins or a contactless credit card either. Luddite.

Create a farken poll already.

offshore1 wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 06, 2017 1:37 pm

steve shearer wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 06, 2017 1:29 pm

I think we will have to see how this pans out......but on the ground where I am, I am a seeing a ferocious backlash to the indignity of the chestzip.

Who knows, maybe in ten years time we will look back on the reign of the chestzip wetsuit and wonder out loud: what the fcuk was that shitt all about.

You probably don't have any bitcoins or a contactless credit card either. Luddite.

"Credit Card?" says Steve.

Saw some sale wetsuits the other day, all chest zip. Why? I admit I have no idea how I'd get one on. Why change something so beautifully simple into an over engineered hyped up impractical POS? Marketing I guess

Fair call if you're surfing in seriously cold water and it helps with warmth, but otherwise, why?

...

Legion is not taking the resurgence of the backzip well at all.


I'll just copy paste Derek Riellys article in here.

If you would examine your current wetsuit, you’d find it to be a chest-zip or zipper-less suit. Am I right?

To get into these suits is a melodrama.

You must squeeze your heft into a little hole, push one arm into a smaller hole, shimmy it up around your chest, fix first arm, then second, throw the flap over your head and so on. Its removal requires yogi-like dexterity.

Some years ago, all wetsuits came with a long zip from ass to neck. Entry was via a hole as big as your waist, not your neck, and the transaction was completed in a minute or less. It’s post-session removal was almost instant.

But then, partly through marketing (pressure on designers from their sales departments to give something new to push), partly through the need to create so-called advancements in technology (testing showed back zips were slightly more permeable than a neck entry), the back zip faded into memory.

A few weeks ago, I saw that Need Essentials had thrown a few back-zip steamers into their range. And, yesterday, while surfing with a pal in Leucadia he loaned me a one-year-old O’Neill Psychofreak with a back zip or, as its called by O’Neill, a “Zen Zip”.

It’s been a decade or so since I’d experienced the thrill of easily throwing on a suit. It was elevating.

And after the session, all it took to loose my torso into the sun was a one-handed rip of the neck closure and a yank of the zip.

I find the back zip so superior to either zipperless or the chest-zip that this hardly qualifies as faux or real.

But maybe I’m wrong.

A chest zip is far superior to a back. If for no other reason than there is less zip area to let water in when the seams start to go.
If I was a high flying surf industry mogul like Crabmeat or Shearer I’d go a zipper less all day every day.