A warning on REI Carbon Poles

Thank goodness these poles break–so far I've bought 2 1/2 pairs of REI badged Komperdell CF poles in the Seattle REI's bargain basement (basically a perpetual 'garage sale' at the flagship store) for about $30 a pole (3 of the poles were airshock and these retail around $150 a pair so it's easy to see that $60 for the set I use is a screaming deal). The catch is buying a single pole at a time, but for me that's well worth it.

Apparently I tore up stuff when I was young. My older brother would tell me I had the capacity to tear up an anvil ; P

Likely it's either an off-axis pressure or hitting a "fulcrum" like a hidden rock or piece of ice that broke his carbon fiber pole. They're immensly strong on vertical compresion but not so on "off-axis" (lateral) pressure.

I've had carbon fiber poles for years. Only had one break in Canada at an XC "centre" when an "off axis skier" clumsily stepped on it with his ski as he was clomping about. No apologies. Instead he blame ME for not moving it fast enough! Grrrrr!

Eric

Bloody rude Canadians! :)

Nm

LOL… I knew that would draw you out! Umm, Old Crusty doesn't post here too, does here?

Merry Christmas!

Nm

"And not to pick bones over weight+breakage, but that isn't a truth-ism" Weren't meant to be a "truth-ism", Sarah. Just a possible contributing factor. Besides, after spending our lives getting sand kicked in our faces, us lil' guys gotta get their licks in somewhere. In the Christmas spirit, however, I will attempt to give you something a little closer to a truth-ism: Heavy is as heavy does; trekking poles aren't crutches or pogo sticks. They have to be used with a sense of their limits in mind, and if those limits are exceeded, intentionally or otherwise, the consequences should be borne by the user with a modicum of good humor. It isn't always the manufacturer's or vendor's fault, even if REI pretends otherwise. Merry Christmas, y'all!

I think what Sarah was really saying was that — in this case at least — the breakage wasn't caused by user weight as much as it was user age. Sarah described the user as 'an old codger' so I think she laid it out pretty clearly.

Eric, it wasn't that. We were standing on fresh light powder (in fact the powder was SO light and fluffy even in snow shoes we were postholing to crotch deep at points).

The pole had no real reason to snap besides HD slipping as he went down a side hill. The pole did NOT catch on anything under it. There was many feet of snow under it, and it was not icy.

You'd be surprised how those who are bigger in weight and height are often very nimble. Especially those who do stuff in the outdoors. There often are people who are intimidated by my husband's sheer size but neither does he walk like an ogre.

While HD is normal man height (6 ft?) he is a shrimp compared to my husband. HD's size had nothing to do with the pole failure.

Merry Christmas from Old Codger Shrimp!

Some time back, I contacted Petra Hilleberg at Hilleberg USA about using carbon fiber poles in my Akto tent. She told me they did not recommend using them as they'd tried them and had found them to break in cold weather.