By the early 2000s, baggy kit was de rigueur in downhill racing as riders sought to distance themselves from the staid cross-country scene, following the lead set by the likes of US snowboard star turned bike racer Shaun ‘Napalm’ Palmer.
So, when the UK-based Mojo Orange team turned up at the 2008 Fort William World Cup in Scotland wearing PVC-coated Lycra skinsuits, it caused an uproar.
The move was the brainchild of bike journalist turned Mojo Suspension owner Chris Porter – never a man to shy away from a controversial idea.
He’d carried out some testing with skinsuits and been blown away by the results, feeling the aerodynamic advantages were too significant to ignore.
“We found ourselves a fireroad at Abercarn [in South Wales], fully enclosed with trees, so not subject to wind, and had the Freelap testing kit," Porter, who now runs Mojo Rising and GeoMetron Bikes, tells the MBUK Podcast.
"We had a point where we let go of the brakes, then rolled down the hill and it logged the times as we went through.
“Tim [Williams, of Mojo] and I did everything from sat up on the saddle, in baggies, with peak, to in-the-tuck, in skinsuit, no peak. On a 1min 30secs course, [the suit] was 30 seconds faster, it was insane.”
The next move was to test the skinsuit in DH race conditions.
“I did a few masters world champs, and each time I’d try something different. One time I did lead weights, one time I did high pivots with idlers. Me and my mate Mark, we [said]: ‘We’re gonna do it, we’re gonna wear the skinsuits’. I’m like, ‘I’m asking the riders to do it, I have to do it’. I was a bit trimmer than now. I popped the skinsuit on, got in the queue, suffered the slings and arrows, set off down the track…
“At the start, there was a really long, fast section. Not super-steep, but into a sort of manmade hump on what was a piste – it was Pra Loup [a French ski resort].
"You were coming into it really fast, going, ‘If that was just a little bit quicker, I could take off here and land down there’, but you were really loading [the bike] and pulling and not quite making it. First time in the skinsuit, I thought I wasn’t going to land!
"You were taking off and trying to push [the bike] down, never mind pull up. It was that much difference!”
More slings and arrows were to follow when team riders Ben Cathro, Chris Hutchens and Dan Stanbridge debuted the skinsuit at Fort William, the shiny black material invoking unfortunate comparisons to bondage suits.
However, Cathro and Hutchens both racked up the best World Cup results of their careers to date. “Even though Ben’s [published] time wasn’t what was on the screen when he finished, they still gave him an eighth, which is amazing,” says Porter. Hutchens came 17th and Cathro 34th.
“I read so much shit online after – you know, ‘It’s only worth two seconds’. Obviously, you’re not going to get [as big an advantage from a skinsuit as at Abercarn] when you’re setting the speed through bravery and brakes and stuff like that [in a race].
"It might [only be worth two seconds] for you, but if you put [super-fast French racer] Amaury Pierron in a skinsuit, it’d be frightening!”
Shortly after the race, the UCI, cycling’s international governing body, brought in a new regulation banning ‘Lycra-based tight-fitting clothing’ in downhill racing and also enforcing the use of helmet peaks. Unsurprisingly, Porter isn’t a fan of the rule.
“It makes the sport a sham, really, because it’s not as fast as you can possibly go down a hill," he says.
"It’d be like downhill ski racing in jeans, you know? It needs to be as fast as possible [but] the bikes aren’t aerodynamic, the riders aren’t aerodynamic.
"Anybody that’s done any kind of work in human-powered vehicles knows that once you get over 20-something kilometres an hour, all the improvement comes from aerodynamics [so] it’s really important in DH racing, where you’re averaging 40 to 60kmh.”
In recent years, it’s been interesting to see teams probe the limits of the UCI rules and move towards snugger-fitting race pants and tighter-cut jerseys. In 2023, the regulations were updated to reflect this, but they continue to state that “one-piece suits comprising the jersey and the pants/shorts are not permitted.”
Fox has got round this with its skinsuit-like SpeedSuit RS, which combines a compression top with pre-installed protection and form-fitted, high dungarees. Porter describes it as “hilarious”.
He goes on to say: “I think it’s ace, think it’s brilliant. Just wear it.”
Of course, it is possible to take aerodynamics too far. “What was [Mojo rider turned cycling broadcasting supremo] Chris Ball’s best result? It was the one where he rode in his underpants,” says Porter.
“He had quite an aerodynamic shape, didn’t he?! We’d flown him all the way out to Canada [for the 2004 Calgary World Cup] and he rang me and said, ‘It’s pants [the track]'. I said, ‘Well, just do it in your pants then’. And he did.
"He wrote [‘pants’ on his chest], and was disqualified for bringing the sport into disrepute, so I paid my euros and had him reinstated.
"I said, ‘No, you ran a downhill race on a ski jump hill, basically a manmade mound – you brought it into disrepute'.”
