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Your opinions please

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Hi folks,

as this is my first post on the forum let me introduce myself.

My name is Martin and I live in Norfolk (No mountains rolling eyes ) but work in Aberdeenshire (some mountains Very Happy ) however most of my skiing takes place during an annual trip to Austria in the Kaprun / Zell-am-see ski area which I love. I've only been skiing for about 8 years but as somebody who suffers with arthritis it's something I never thought I'd be able to do. I'm so glad to have been proven wrong!

Anyway, I'm currently doing some study with the Open university and I need some opinions from experienced skiiers......

If, like me, you fly to your ski trips and don't let the airlines rob you to transport your skis and poles you most likely hire them from the local shops.

I'm particularly interested to know if you think that the ski poles such outlets rent could be improved in any way? what if anything, do you think is wrong with them?

I'll be grateful for any feedback to help a newby and whilst you are considering that there are several threads on here that have caught my eye so it's on with the kettle and settle down for some reading.

Thanks in anticipation..................
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Poles are poles for 90% of skiing.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Good point Feef,

Don't restrict your opinions, folks, to just the time spent skiing with them - what about on the chair lift - at the dismount etc. etc.
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they aren't available in rainbow colours to match my steez. More seriously if you could make them cheaper to rent by the day when some idiot leaves them in the bag in the hotel rather than the car that would help.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
I know people who have hired off-piste skis for guided days but then been given poles with small baskets designed for piste skiing. Poles fitted with powder baskets would have been more appropriate.
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@fatbob rolling eyes (Oh OK I've done it too Very Happy )
@Kelskii - that's just plain daft!

any thoughts about the, ehem, other end of the pole? wink
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
You could get the shops to drill holes through them so that they could be locked up atblunchtime
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
I also find them too long - could you get them to shorten them

Except when I am sitting back too much in which case I could do with them long again ...

Anything that could be done to discourage too fast skiers and boarders from getting too close, like multiple points or electric shocks ?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
our poles arent just poles, they are hip flasks
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Ski the Net with snowHeads
I Like my own Volkl ski poles very much!

The wrist strap is joined by velcro in the centre so that the strap hangs in a triangular form that is very easy to get a gloved hand into. I like the grip shape and the fact that I could easily retro fit a Leki powder basket to them.

What I don't like is that they don't fit into my kit bag. Two years ago we did a lot of research to find a pole that would telescope to a size small enough to fit in my Dakine kit bag yet robust enough to use for all sorts of skiing. We failed miserably and ended up just using the tired old rental poles Crying or Very sad


OK so here's what I've been trying to draw out but I guess it's one of those things that is so obvious we don't see it unless it causes enough rancour to disturb our enjoyment.

Rental ski poles tend to have tired / worn out wrist straps that are difficult to get a gloved hand into because they no longer hang as a loop. This tends to cause people to stop at the top of the lift whilst fiddling to get them on. Sometimes the resort will see this and slow the lift and sometimes not.

If you peruse the racks in your local quality ski it outlet you'll see that most straps on the higher quality poles have taken some measures to address this failing but of course that's not the case for the many thousands of poles sitting in rental centres. I'm doing an OU degree and currently studying a design module and I have an idea to address this issue but I can hardly call it an issue if it's only me that sees it as a problem rolling eyes

Yeah, I know, I should go ski / get out more Very Happy
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Leki Trigger and TriggerS do not have straps at all.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Shakey,
Quote:
What I don't like is that they don't fit into my kit bag


Buy a bigger bag or cut your poles into pieces so they fit into your bag wink
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Only if you do that same with your golf clubs Stewart wink
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Cynic wrote:
Leki Trigger and TriggerS do not have straps at all.

Indeed not - my wife has a pair Very Happy
I can't see the rental depots stretching to replace all their poles with those tho rolling eyes
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Shakey wrote:
Only if you do that same with your golf clubs Stewart wink


My golf clubs easily fit into my golf bag NehNeh
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Poles are a good example of smart marketing folk taking something simple and changing it in creative ways to sell shedloads to daft punters who don't really need whatever latest feature has been incorporated - stick em together for an avy probe, hip flask, whippet ice ax thing (good for proper ski mountaineers, bloody dangerous for the rest of us), trigger release , daresay there's some electro-gizmo built in too these days

I'll give the hip flask version a miss from the hire shop Shocked
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Aha! Maybe I should take my golf bag skiing then!
Seriously I've considered it! until recently, golf clubs went free on KLM flights Toofy Grin
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I don't use the straps. I have a pair of the Leki trigger ones but find them a fiddle, so I don't use those any more either.

The only time I use a strap is if I'm giving somebody (e.g. a four year old or a snowboarder) a tow. so they can grab the basket end without pulling the pole out of my hand.

For the past eight years, skiing a good part of each season, I have used a pair of tatty old red Scott poles which were bought for £25 in an auction together with a pair of "vintage" wooden skis with cable bindings ("Mustang" skis with a Lillywhites plate on) which now adorn the wall of my apartment.

You can probably tell I am not a connoisseur of poles. wink
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^ the one exception to my above rant is adjustable length poles - they're awesome, for packing and for skinning on the diagonal etc (1 short un 1 long un)
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
I often end up skiing with both poles in one hand and a DSLR in the other, so not a lot of help here Smile generally though all I want is a comfortable handle at one end / a pole the right length and something pointy at the other end - my feeling (and I run a design business and have run a product R&D business) is that the current products do a fine job with any issues being so minimal that there isn't really any value in changing the product... any attempts to improve it seem to add function where no additional function is needed... sorry to be boring Smile and any design change is only going to add cost - so you end up taking a cheap functional item and making it more functional than required and more expensive...

Alasdair
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I think there's too many Poles on the ski slopes, willing to work for less and do twice the .....er....sorry, wrong poles! rolling eyes
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
I try to avoid cheap n nasty poles, took a set of Salomon cheapy's I won away with me, lost a basket on the second day, spent the rest of the week giving the group up to the minute snow depth reports! rolling eyes couldn't get a replacement the right size & in hindsight should have just binned them.

I've got some nice dynastars now, proper pointy ends and handed straps that feel really solid & baskets that are not held on with a shake proof washer thingy.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
gixxerniknik,

There were a couple of beauties working in our hotel last week
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Some method to make skipoles go floppy if they are held at an angle of over 90 degrees, thus preventing the phenomenon of British Racing Tuck and all the idiots who insist on point at stuff with their poles.
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The rental shop issue is budget not design driven. It's an achievenment if most rental shop punters know the length they want never mind anything else, so it's not like the value in a premium product is recognised. Let's face it they're going to be used in Texas suitcases, bundle of logs carrying method, skied over, bent when trapped getting on and off chairs etc so the primary concern is being overbuilt and capable of being bent back to a semi functional state.

For me personally if i hadn't already discovered the nirvana of pole ownership I'd be perfectly happy with cheap overbuilt poles that took a decent powder basket.
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
OK folks,
thanks for all the above discussion. As Bob says the rental pole market isn't design driven and as Alasdair pointed out earlier there's not much scope for adding value by modifying them.

This exercise of mine is largely an academic one so I'm not necessarily looking to market my idea, just go through the innovation process.

My idea was born of "constructive discontent" - it's very difficult to get a gloved hand through the strap of a manky old rental pole when it's seen a lot of use. I have an idea for a gadget to open out the strap a little and make this easier. It might be argued (at least in one of my assignments) that this would prologue the useful life of the pole at a low cost; this would also reduce the energy required to recycle the pole's materials at its end of life. Finally, I would hope that it would reduce some of the clumps of waiting people one finds at the top of chair lifts struggling to get their poles ready before skiing off. This reduces the amount of speed variation required on the lift motors through their VSD controllers thus eliminating some surge current and saving yet more energy over the ski season.

Yep you guessed it - sustainability plays a key role in this course.

thanks again,

Martin.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Richard_Sideways wrote:
Some method to make skipoles go floppy if they are held at an angle of over 90 degrees,


Stellar or 8 pints of any strong lager does that to me.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
What about the handles? Big enough to get a decent battery in to charge the tips to cattle prod level? Its so tedious having slow skiers ignoring pole clicking when one wants to just keep the speed up on those tricky tracks, that a good jolt on approach could just move them involuntarily out of one's way...
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Shakey, you wouldn't need a gadget to do that, just some stiffer tape (/ with something running through it) that'll hold it's shape a bit, a la:



The fact is though, it's a bit of a 'non-problem.' It's really not all that 'difficult' to put your hand through (maybe it takes two seconds longer than a 'better' pole), plus you can always just not use the loops anyway. The fact is a pole is a pole, unless you want an adjustable one for touring or want a powder basket, there really isn't much to be gained from more expensive ones.
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