Ale Cycling – Maui Tri Suit – First Swim, Bike & Runs in Training

Ale’s Maui Tri Suit is designed with longer triathlons in mind, here’s why I’m using it in my A Race later in the year – a Half Ironman.

What I look for in a long course tri suit

The most important single characteristic I look for is comfort and that comes in several forms

Overall fit – I almost always find that tri suits fit me snugly as they are made of stretchy material – lycra. I can fit into a smaller size but that tends to cause problems later on with chaffing and cutting.
Specific fit (shoulders) – I am most prone to chaffing on the neck/shoulders if the tri suit is slightly small. Although sometimes painful, that’s something I can live with.
Specific fit (crotch) – This area of the body is a mystery to me in oh so many ways. I have some expensive ASSOS bike shorts that are a perfect fit then I have the same size of ASSOS bib shorts and they rub like crazy. Similarly, with tri suits, some can gouge away a square centimetre of skin at the joint between the suit and pad. The exposed flesh can then be repeatedly rubbed, which does impair performance.
Sweat comfort – to wick away sweat and encourage it to evaporate
Heat comfort – the suit needs to be breathable as my longer races always seem to be in warm to hot conditions
Sun protection – for the shoulders over several hours

Other factors that could come into play are aero performance and utility.

There are few tri suits at this price point (150,00€) that claim to have aero-boosting advantages for cycling. I’ve always found this a little bit strange as clothing can offer aero advantages for cyclists over and above simply being tight-fitting – I’m thinking dimpled fabric or slipperier materials. Then, when I say I look for utility, that’s just a fancy way of saying that it needs some rear pockets to put stuff in!

Plenty of ventilation; will open MORE than this…modesty intervened 😉

Ale’s Maui Tri Suit delivers for me

Comfort in all the right places is great for me with the Maui. Also, the shoulder covering is good to help delay some of the worst effects of the late morning sun on a hot day. The cycling pad is narrow and comfortable, I’m guessing that it’s the narrowness of the pad that is helping me totally avoid chaffing so far even on rides over 3-hours.

The aesthetic design and colour scheme is nice. Perhaps, in hindsight, I would have got a white coloured suit for extra coolness…but I didn’t.

The two best design features are firstly the thinner back panel which gives some protection whilst also helping cooling and secondly the front zip panel. I was pleasantly surprised with the front panel which, when unzipped flaps like an undone shirt and exposes much of the chest and this is achieved because the horizontal base of the front panel is not attached to the shorts area. The downside here is that the zip is hard to re-fasten if fully undone and the flapping panel somewhat weakens the overall construction when getting dressed and undressed; with care, it will be fine.