Pole armageddon continues here with a left field entry from Exped. These are aluminium, 7075 seamless in fact and that means there as hard as nails (mountain biking teaches you about aluminium).
They’re a bit quirky in that they’re split into four sections (Quad, you see…) and consequently they pack down to 21″ but still extend to plenty much.
The top two adjusters are the standard twisty/expanding widget affairs but the bottom section clicks into place with the spring loaded locating pin you can see in the photie. This is a good idea, it means less faff and less chance of not getting one joint in three tight enough. The pin is a nice secure positive fit as well.
I’ll be watching how that wears as it’s a feature of their improver and much lighter poles for ’09.
Talking of weight my scales are locked in the bathroom and won’t come out, but these are heavier than all the carbons, you’d expect that. But aluminium is where it’s at for most pole users, so it’s good to see something up to date.
The adjustment is very smooth and the sections glide up and down, but there’s no length markings. I never read what the numbers are but I probably use them to match the length of a pair when I’m out, I don’t know, it’s subconscious. Mind you, it’s prbably better to set a pole up to comfort or terrain rather than a notional optimum length. Interesting, I’ll see how this works out.
The holding on end is spot-on, with a nicely shaped handle and soft but wide wrist loop. The foam material from the hand grip extends down the top section for six inches to give you a proper grip on short steep sections without fannying about shortening the poles. I like the feature, the Mountain KIng Carbons have it too, but not too many poles out there have it.
They feel good in the hand and Exped don’t exactly screw it up too often so I’ll use them with confidence and I’ll report back.
I like the foam grip that extends down the handle. I have that on the BD poles and new Pacer Poles I got. It makes the poles easy to grip and more versatile – like what you say on short sections, it saves messing about. Good Exped are having more kit available in the UK – you getting your hands on any or their tents to try?
Still no Exped tents for the UK.
Email Lyon Equipment and demand the full Exped range! That would sound like every trade meeting we go to “Why are you not bringing this in?”. They must hate us :o)
looking at their web site I see some good kit. Shame they don’t get more stuff into UK shops. I use their dry bags and have got a sleeping pad made by them – all very good kit, the brand is solid no doubt.
Definitely Martin, they’re enthusiast driven. That shows in the product, function first.
Now take Berghaus…
I would love to chat Berghaus but I’m busy over at BPL talking: guns, bears, and why tarps don’t do it for me in the UK. They liked you photies hey.
I just caught a question there about one of the photies.
It’s going too well over there, I’ll get into an argument at some point, it’ll be tarp or stove related…
This (the new Mountain pole) looks pretty cool:
http://www.exped.com/exped/web/exped_homepage.nsf/0/590AE5F704C771A0C1256CB800638800?opendocument
Wonder when we might see them?
I saw a bunch of the new and upcoming trekking poles from Exped at a trade show earlier in the year, I was impressed.
I like Exped, thay’ve got a different way of approaching stuff. I use a load of their gear.
I like their arc tarp tent extender thingy.
And they do a lot of stuff that never gets to the UK. It’s a bummer.