I love the idea of regluing skins, not just because it is all eco earth friendly and vegan approved, but because a pair of moderately worn nylon skins have such a nice feel to them – they glide, climb and fold-up like butter. With this in mind, I stripped the old glue off of a pair of skins last year and carefully documented my first outing with Black Diamond Glue Renew strips in eager anticipation of a KILLER BLOG POSTING. Yeah, well, it turned out like crap as I have the patience of a two year old and once again forgot to read the instructions until after I finished the job. Continue reading ‘Glue Renew Guru’
Tag Archive for 'skins'
Super sticky skin glue can be a mixed blessing – it is great for adhering to your bases, but can nearly impossible to pull apart. The little center strip of non-glued material definitely helps with this as do the nylon mesh skin savers, although I personally just throw the mesh in the trash right after I open the box and never use it.
Separating your skins has gotten even tougher as many of them are getting so wide nowadays. My usual technique for overly sticky skins was to press them onto our dog-hair infested carpet a few times, which took some of the initial tack off, but last spring I saw an even better technique from Heather Paul Featherman. Having nearly separated my sternum many times by using the brute force approach, I loved the brains vs. brawn simplicity of this. As Heather said “Why not use the strongest muscles in your body?” Continue reading ‘Power Assisted Skin Ripping’
There are many variations on the skin theme available nowadays – nylon, mohair, mixed, hybrids, domestic, European, tip catchers, tail rippers, no tails and everything in between. I’m partial and opinionated about what I like for the Wasatch, but am the first to admit that the best skin for the job is probably whatever the locals use in a given area. First off, the locals are bound to know their snowpack and what skins work best on it, and secondly, their skin tracks are going to reflect that. When Europeans bring narrow mohair skins to the Wasatch with no tip or tail loop, they inevitably get frustrated with the steep skin tracks and then the cold, dry air causes their glue to fail and their skins fall off. Conversely, bringing a pair of burly nylon skins to Europe would be like walking around with sandpaper on your skis as the snow pack and skin track favor the gliding properties of mohair. Continue reading ‘Choosing Climbing Skins’
Now that the edges have been trimmed back and the nose has been set, I like to tweak my tails a bit (the tails of the skins that is).
Although I designed the BD ClipFix and used that system for years, I’ve now gravitated towards the STS system (shown below). I liked the ClipFix, but as Martin Volken said about it, “It’s an expert system.” meaning if you spent the time to get it perfectly dialed, it worked great, but if not, they’d fall off. I didn’t mind getting mine dialed in, but that often meant widening the tail slot, which is/was kind of a pain. The STS system is not only totally bomber, but it fits most of the standard issue tail notches. If you don’t have a notch, most skis can stand one being filed/cut in and it makes a huge difference in keeping your skins on.
I use a pair of Channel Lock pliers to crimp the camming cleat down to a lower profile (less chance of it getting hung up on things) and then thread the tail back through the tip, as shown above. Tucking the tail up makes for cleaner, faster uphill kick-turns where you are less likely to step on your tail dingle. Plus I hate having those things flapping around.
As a final skin set-up step, I keep the skins attached to the appropriate ski with a Voile strap so I never grab the wrong skins, or worse yet, forget them, when heading out the door for a big powder day.
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Help support StraightChuter.com and pick up a pair of the light & compact Black Diamond GlideLite Nylon STS Skins from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…
I’m the first to admit that I’m anal-retentive when it comes to setting up my skins. Why? Because spending an hour or so in the beginning getting your skins just right means you never have to fool with them again and that they seldom fall off or fail in the field. I can’t remember the last time I had a skin failure. Once skins are properly trimmed and adjusted, they can take all sorts of abuse, such as walking across rocks, asphalt and logs.
One of the most important parts of trimming out a pair of skins is to hold them back about 3/16″ from the edges. Many people just trim them “neat” to the edges (as much out of laziness as anything), but that makes it much harder to get the skins on the ski and you lose your sharp edge when you need it on firm snow. The tiny bit of extra grip you’ll get by going wall-to-wall is irrelevant compared to the problems it causes.
- To trim the edge back, first trim it “neat” to the edges, then move the skin over so about 3/16″ of an inch is hanging over, trim it off, then do the other side.
- An expert skier/skinner with full-width skins being humbled into a self arrest on an icy slope as he couldn’t sink an edge in. I’m glad you were okay Steve. ;)
On the tip, if I think there is any chance I might adjust the length of the skin, I use a rounded end. This gives a bit more adhesive-to-adhesive contact, plus it allows the sides of the skin to grip a bit more, which helps to keep snow from packing in there (the beginning of the end). As most of my skis have dedicated skins, I cut the tip off short and sew it tight with some beefy thread. This ensures that the tip loop never comes off, gives a nice smooth contact profile to the skin and saves a bit of weight & bulk.
- On skins which are dedicated to a certain pair of skis, I cut the nose short, then stitch it on as shown on the left. On skins that may change skis, I trim the nose with a half circle (as shown on the right).
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Help support StraightChuter.com and pick up my current skin of choice, the Black Diamond Ascension Nylon STS Skin from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…
