New innovations in Spyder’s Olympic GS suit with d3o™

Spyder’s has been completely redesigned their Speed Suit in time for the Vancouver Olympics this year to give athletes the cutting edge advantage they need. The suit contains 3 innovations that will improve the suit’s aerodynamics and result in significant time gains for the Athletes using the suits, including a new kind of d3o™. The suit will be available for purchase in 2011.

“The focus of Spyder’s research during the last few years has been about how we can make our speed suits more slippery against air,” says Spyder Product Director Phil Shettig, “Our goal is to make all of our suits competitively faster by manipulating airflow properties.”
Spyder refined the surface texture on the top face knit, reducing the co-efficient of friction against wind. The new slippery surface has less texture than past fabrics, and was tested in wind tunnels to shave off precious hundredths of seconds from racers’ times, a margin by which many ski races are won and lost.

At d3o™, our chemists worked in the lab to create a new formulation of d3o™ to enable the design of a much thinner pad that still performs to the high level needed by the athletes on impact. For those who don’t know, d3o™’s intelligent molecules flow under normal movement, but lock together on impact to spread the force. By reducing the pad volume by 40%, the suit system is more aerodynamic due to its lower profile and a lack of abrupt edges, which can “catch” wind.
Finally, Spyder moved the d3o™ pads from their slalom and GS suits to a separate under layer in order to reduce the amount of thread, seams and needle holes on the outside fabric, all of which can contribute to wind friction.
Phil McNichol, former U.S. Ski Team Men’s Alpine Coach says, “Spyder is at the forefront of developing these technologies through wind tunnel and on-snow testing. Ultimately we will have the best technical advantage at the Vancouver Games.”
Spyder’s Slippery Technology is the latest in a long line of innovations that have historically allowed Spyder race suits to stay far ahead of the competition, making them the perfect partner for d3o™ the two companies shareing the common goal of improving fundamental product performance by the inclusion of our technology. From the brand’s first padded slalom sweaters in 1970s to the SpeedWyre suits that were banned by the FIS in the 1990s for being “too fast,” Spyder will once again charge ahead in separating itself as the leader in speed suit engineering.

Notes to Editors:

About d3o™: With a dynamic growing team led by Richard Palmer – Arena o2 X Entrepreneur of the year 2007 and BBC Focus award for Innovation Winner (2009) – the company outlook for d3o™ lab is as bright as its distinctive orange logo! d3o™ is based in the UK out of Brighton where the d3o™ team combines engineering, chemistry and design to produce cutting edge intelligent shock absorption systems for all manner of applications. For more information on d3o™ see http://www.d3o.com. Contact Lisa Fucassi for interviews and images on +44 (0) 1273 716472 – lisa@d3olab.com or Ruth Gough on +44 (0) 1273 716465 – ruth@d3olab.com.

About Spyder Active Sports:    
Spyder revolutionized ski apparel in 1978 with a padded slalom sweater designed “for racing, by racers.” Spyder products continue to dominate the race circuit and are the choice of the US Alpine and Canadian Alpine World Cup Ski Teams. Renown for integration of high-tech fabrication, function and fashion, Spyder is the world’s leading skiwear and mountain-based apparel brand. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Spyder products are distributed in over 50 countries worldwide.    

In 2008 Spyder acquired Cloudveil Mountain Works, credited as starting the modern day soft shell revolution. Cloudveil draws inspiration from its home-base of Jackson, Wyoming, building innovative and functional apparel for the outdoor, snowsports, fly fishing and casual apparel markets. For more information, visit www.spyder.com and www.cloudveil.com

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