We are extremely excited to announce our new brand, VORTEQ to the world. For the past two years we have been working hard behind the scenes to develop the tools necessary to design the fastest skinsuit on the planet and make it available to the consumer market.
A 3 year R&D programme began in October 2016, launched by founding company TotalSim, who pledged a quarter of a million pounds of funding to the project. Utilising the depth of knowledge and experience of Rob Lewis OBE (MD of TotalSim), every aspect of the design, development and test process has been re-imagined. This includes an in-house wind tunnel facility designed using unprecedented Computational Fluid Dynamics methods. With these cutting edge tools, extensive research and development of new fabrics, fit and construction has been ongoing.
VORTEQ is now situated in the state-of-the-art Sports Engineering Hub at Silverstone Park with access to both the fabric wind tunnel and performance sports wind tunnel to conduct full scale tests on athletes. With 11 years of experience designing skinsuits for Olympians, competing over a wide range of summer & winter sports, we are confident we will raise the bar. Our mission is to make the unachievable achievable, by continually pushing the boundaries of technology.
When we were given the chance to collaborate with performance sportswear brand, HUUB we couldn’t say no to the chance to be involved in this exciting venture and inspiring team. The UCI Track Team, Huub Wattbike, formerly known as KGF, made a last minute entry into the National Championships in January 2017 and won gold! Their mission is to continue to challenge convention and disrupt the track cycling world. Helping design and develop a skinsuit specifically for Huub Wattbike felt like an unmissable opportunity to showcase the potential for advancement in skinsuit technology. With an engineering background and meticulous approach to performance, we knew the team wouldn’t wear anything but the fastest suit they could get their hands on.
Team leader, Bigham set a target of 3mins 53sec which means “every rider has to find 23 watts” and thinks that they “might actually have achieved it from the new skinsuits alone.” Huub Wattbike are showing what they’re made of and have already hit a PB in Paris at 3:53.826. Watch them compete:
13-20 Dec | UCI Tissot World Cup Round 4, London (UK)
19-20 Dec | Track Cycling Challenge, Grenchen (Switzerland)
25-27 Jan | HSBC UK National Championships, Manchester (UK)
The Huub Wattbike suit is a teaser for what is to come, to follow our story find us on Instagram and Twitter.