Ski pole recommendations

Swix TC9 Carbon Plus. I grabbed a pair at a tent sale a few years back. Great poles.

Glenn said:

Swix TC9 Carbon Plus. I grabbed a pair at a tent sale a few years back. Great poles.

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Swix carbon poles kick ass! (And I'm not just saying that as a friend of Glenn!!) My wife is on the TC9's too and I have a pair of the Mach 1 eliptical shaped race poles! Love them!! Easy swing weight, tough, and great shock absorption !!

Savemeasammy said:

My poles (aluminum) have always ended up bending at the bottom, so I would love a pair of poles that would absorb more of the shock. Is there a reason that carbon absorbs the shock better than aluminum?


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The simple answer is:
Aluminum is an elemental material, as such has properties, such as, density and modulus, that are pretty consistent across the various products made with it. For ski poles, you're talk about an extruded process into a tubular form. The manufacturers can change the diameter, wall thickness, and taper to change the robustness ( strength, stiffness, flex, etc ) of the end product, but aluminum will transmit vibrations at a consistent wave length regardless.

Carbon fiber is a strand material, and thus no products are made of just those strands. The beauty of carbon fiber is it's stronger than steel, but much, much lighter. Manufacturers add other materials to form a composite material. There are low modulus ( flexy) and high modulus (stiffer ) carbon fibers. Manufacturers add polymers ( resins ..i.e. epoxy) as well as other layup materials, such as fiberglass or kevlar, to form the desired product and it's specifications. For ski poles, you can certainly get a stiff, light weight poles; think competition cross country ski poles, where you want light weight, but stiff, so the energy of pushing off the pole is transferred to forward movement. For recreational alpine skiing, you want light weight, but somewhat forgiving ( somewhat flexible ) and shock absorbent. It's the mix of the carbon fibers and the rest of the soup that make it shock absorbent, or compliant. So, we'd need to know what the soup is made of to further analyse it.

I normally use telescoping aluminum. They're fine. I have a pair of telescoping carbon and they're nice and light.

Aluminum does bend under stress whereas carbon snaps. Consider that. In 2008 I had a nice pair of K2 carbon poles. I was in a bad crash and one of the poles just shattered. The shards of carbon fiber were sharp...not good.




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The only issue with carbon fiber poles, is that you can shear them off or they can shatter...Ask me how I know. I just bought a Leki trigger pole that are aluminum and I love them.

Here they are... http://shop.leki.com/en/product.php?product_id=55954

Not all carbon poles are the same. My Goode Carbon poles have withstood a lot of abuse, including cutting them with sharp ski edges. No failures in 15 years. In fact, I don't think I can destroy them if I tried.

Scruffy said:

Not all carbon poles are the same. My Goode Carbon poles have withstood a lot of abuse, including cutting them with sharp ski edges. No failures in 15 years. In fact, I don't think I can destroy them if I tried.

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I destroyed both Leki and Swix CF poles. Swix makes a Kevlar one now that is used for racing. When the Son is done with Grad school, I will have lots of Money! 2.5 more years...I can do it!

What kind of bindings do yiu have?
I had some nice leki carbon poles. But with my rossi axial bindings they bent like crazy trying to take the skis off. I will never step on my bindings and mess up my bases, so I switched to aluminum poles.
I did like the carbons but have no complaints against the aluminum lekis I got instead.

Hawkshot99 said:

What kind of bindings do yiu have?
I had some nice leki carbon poles. But with my rossi axial bindings they bent like crazy trying to take the skis off. I will never step on my bindings and mess up my bases, so I switched to aluminum poles.
I did like the carbons but have no complaints against the aluminum lekis I got instead.

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This is a good point. Rossi bindings don't play well with flexible poles at higher DIN settings. As a result I try to avoid Rossi bindings going forward. I have K2 composite poles and really like them. They are much cheaper than carbon fiber and barely more expensive than aluminum.


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drjeff said:

Swix carbon poles kick ass! (And I'm not just saying that as a friend of Glenn!!) My wife is on the TC9's too and I have a pair of the Mach 1 eliptical shaped race poles! Love them!! Easy swing weight, tough, and great shock absorption !!

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I had swix carbon poles. I don't know if it was just bad luck, but I broke both baskets off the bottom. The plastic seemed unnecessarily soft.

I switched to aluminum ski poles. I had a pair of telescopic pole before that were a combination of aluminum (top two section and carbon graphite (lower section) the bottom section would flex but not break. However, they were soft overall and wanted a pole that dos not flex as easy. I would consider aluminum! Overall, I am not sure how much the pole effects my skiing so it is not where I put my $'s!

Bamboo is the rage this season!

https://www.soulpoles.com/the-soul-shop

http://www.pandapoles.com/

dlague said:

Overall, I am not sure how much the pole effects my skiing so it is not where I put my $'s!

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Your poles don't need to be expensive, but your poles are the most underrated piece of equipment. And, your pole plant is the most underrated, but one of the most important tools in your skiing arsenal.


http://www.youcanski.com/en/coaching/pole_plant.htm

https://books.google.com/books?id=n...AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=blocking pole plant&f=false

Cannonball said:

Bamboo is the rage this season!

https://www.soulpoles.com/the-soul-shop

http://www.pandapoles.com/

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I've got 2 friends who I often ski with who set their soul poles aside, and went back to their carbon fiber poles. Reasons were a combo of swing weight and overall rigidity for mandatory pole plants on the steeps