a quick look at pacer poles

Mon, May 2, 2011

I’ve recently got hold of a pair of Pacerpoles as I wanted to try out tarping and I thought, might as well get poles that are also apparently good for you. The first question you have to ask yourself is carbon or aluminium. The carbons are more expensive but lighter although they do say this doesn’t really matter as much as the weight is all up at the top, in the ginormous handle. The main issue with the carbons is the repeated knocking they’ll take will eventually break them, something confirmed by Andy Howell on the TGO.

I’ve never used two poles before and I only bought my current pole after I damaged my knee in the Alps a long time ago. Actually it was trolley racing in Zurich airport that left me with a moveable patella. Good amusement at the campsite but I still managed to climb the Matterhorn. Anyway I digress and my head is starting to inflate somewhat, so on with the review!

You must bear in mind that I’ve never walked with two poles before so my initial jumping up and down must be seen in this light. For jumping up and down I was, on the path up to Bruach Na Frithe. However, the first thing to do is set the length of each pole, which you do by putting it under your elbow thusly:

and then play around with the height a bit until you’re comfy. I just stuck with this setting. The first thing I noticed were the poles were very noisy. Perhaps I was hitting the ground too hard in my enthusiasm but they were very clackity clack and I doubt you’ll see much wildlife making that racket. This was the road I was using them along at first:

The first thing I noticed was the difficulty in keeping in rhythm when you’re not used to using poles. I had to keep “resetting” my stride to keep the left pole going at the same time as my right leg. Most annoying. Plus once I’d got into the rhythm I’d have to skip over a rock or something and the rhythm would go to pot. Very most annoying! You’re also not meant to lift these poles like you would a normal pole. The natural arm movement is meant to raise them a centimetre or so off the ground which is apparently enough for them to clear any obstacles on the way to the front again. Not so on rough Cuillin paths I would say. I had to continually lift them like normal poles to get them over rocks. Then I couldn’t remember whether to ground the pole at the mid step or back from the foot. What a pallaver and the rhythm was always going to pot as I skipped over holes and ran up small rock steps. On the flatter smoother parts I manged a good rhythm though.

The handles are super comfy and as the path started to rise I really felt them working when pushing down on them. They really are surprisingly good going uphill. When I hit the very steep grass and scree on the hill they really came into their own. I’d read accounts of Pacerpoles not being very good on steep ground but I found the opposite. It was like the slope wasn’t there. Get the rhythm right and you fly up the slope. At the top where it was really steep I even eschewed the zig zagging path and just went straight up, pushing down on the handles and never lifting my arms above my head. Truly amazing.

They break into three sections which are easy for carrying which is great for scrambling but I just strapped them onto the back of the pack folded down. No problems there.

On the way back I was on narrow paths through heather and they’re not so good on this as I was constantly either being tripped up by them or standing on the baskets. Or holding them out like oars to get past the heather. There’s no room to use them in narrow paths with sides. Then again maybe that’s true of all poles. I’ve never used two before. They do work with tarps though.

So to summarise. Not being used to two poling, I was hopping mad after half an hour of dragging/banging them across rough rocky paths, enough to want to throw them in the river! I immensely enjoyed them on the open hill though and they were fantastic going up steep scree and grass. On the descent to Coir’ a’Bhasteir, which is a horrendous scree river they were superb. They kept me upright and took loads of shock off the old knees. They do make you take longer strides which I found a problem at the end of the day as I was getting tired and was sliding a lot on the gravel. So a definite thumbs up. I just need more practice but they’re worth it for the short work they make of climbing hills.