There was a couple of wicklow men lookin at me strangely in the water
No pong yet, I think if its looked after properly it shouldnt smell so bad

i think the real test for this suit will be in 2 or 3 months when she´s well wore and to see how she´s faring out.

carty you are the patagonia guinea pig

Do you get a flock of sheep following you around everwhere?

Just the strange looks from the wicklow men

Have sent my old ripcurl stinger away to the manufacturer to get the zip and knees done. It is over two years old so I will see what they come back with. It cost €27 to send it back though.

would one of the shops not send it back for you no?

That was the cost of sending it through one of the shops, Tubes. It is out of warranty to be fair.

Just collected my rip curl suit from Tubes. They repaired the zip and also did a pretty good job on the knees. Best part is that there was no charge. The suit had got a fair bit of wear, but looking forward to getting back in to it. Was finding the new suit quite warm last weekend.

Will report back on the new knees when I had tried it out and had a chance to look at them a bit closer.

was in Tubes in stab city yesterday and they have a C-skins that looks very like the xcel buy seemed to have a better knee pad - its a full seperate glued and stitched panel. Any opinions on c-skins?

Don't know about the C-Skins......

But have to give the new f-bomb a big
Nothing has gone wrong and it's still toasty .....and it's got plenty of use and abuse

I know of two surfers where their x-wire winter suits have fallen apart at the seams in no time.

i can stand over the C-Skins Wired 5/3 (chest zip), i had nearly 3 winters in a 1st generation one and was a great suit... found it cold early this winter though so upgraded to 6/5/4 hooded Ripcurl F-bomb.

The F-bomb is also a great toasty warm suit - though as someone here noticed and posted already, the leg cuff seams have started splitting on me (approx 20-30 uses, they are quite tight though), and the stupid toggle to tighten the hood fell off & got lost... replaced it with one from a sleeping bag...

suit's going back as soon as water warms up a bit again

Largish X-CEL winter suits on sale at MSW, just to give a heads up..

Hate to say but the outer mesh on the knees of my new rip curl is failing after only a dozen or so uses.