Caving wetsuit sizing

[ttxela2]

My last three or four wetsuits (of various kinds) have come from Decathlon and I'm delighted with all of them.

Your challenge is to avoid the back zip variety. They're warmer when crawling through pools but a right pain when your bladder's at test pressure. In fact I'd go so far as to say that back zip wetsuits are potentially dangerous; If you have to sit out a flood and you're already hypothermic, is a full strip off for a pee a good thing?

I've got two of the more expensive across the chest zip suits from Decathlon, which are brilliant (though doing up the zaip takes some getting used to). I fitted one of them with a pee zip from Lomo. Only problem is this is vulnerable to wear, so (at the risk of people leaping on this opportunity to take the mickey) I wear a sort of neoprene mankini over the top of the wetsuit to protect the pee zip. It's 2 mm neoprene, made by chopping the legs off an old thin wetsuit long John. If it's a caving trip involving some diving I also pack a thin hood attached neoprene jacked to wear over the top for the underwater part of the trip.

There are front (vertical) zipped one piece wetsuits available but it takes a fair amount of time trawling the internet to find them and sizing is a leap of faith. Speaking of which. I generally buy one size bigger from Decathlon than indicated by the sizing chart.

Hope that helps.

I recently bought a wetsuit specifically for this years NAMHO conference and went for a Decathlon one. Not normally being particularly aquatic or particularly good at advanced preparation I didn't try it on until I was on the hillside by an entrance. I assumed the zip went to the front. By the time I realised my mistake I couldn't really be arsed to take it off and put it on again so did the trip with it facing backwards. The collar was a minor inconvenience and the top of my back was a little exposed. The extra padding on the back of the knees was also less than useful but overall I didn't feel it added significantly to my levels of discomfort.

 

[Stuart France]

I'm trying a new approach now having failed three times in a row to buy a new caving wetsuit recently.

I'm asking potential suppliers to tell me the circumferences (having explained what 'circumference' means set against the abysmal education in maths that children and wetsuit manufacturers seem to get these days) of the wetsuit's wrist and ankle openings, hips, waist and chest, sleeve and leg lengths using an actual tape measure.

I can then make an informed decision whether to buy one online with less risk of having to reject their offering the moment that I open the packet and have to return it the next day at my expense for a refund, or make the effort to visit their shop when in their general area.

The visit-the-shop method doesn't necessarily work out well. I diverted off the M6 to Inglesport to try their 40" chest Warmbac instead of 38" (I'm 38" chest), and to be fair they'd kept one aside for me to try on, but it never got to the stage of trying it on as the 40" Warmbac is as much boy-size and boy-shape as the 38" version is. So a waste of everyone's time and my travel. I was in and out of the shop in just a minute or two.

 

[Pitlamp]

Just as important as the circumference at wrists and ankles is the stretchiness of the neoprene.
For example swimmers' wetsuits are made from some of the most elastic neoprene so as to reduce fatigue whilst open water swimming. They're less good for diving as the softer neoprene collapses more easily under pressure.

There really ought to be some sort of measurement of this elasticity that can be quoted in wetsuit advertisements (in a similar way to "Tog" rating for sleeping bags etc). It would be a great help in choosing the right products for different activities.