I have a lot of skins trouble (beurk -Ed.). No climbing skins. Over the years I’ve used Pomoca, Colltex and Black Diamond. Colltex and Pomoca skins seem to be fine but it is these damn BD skins that give me problems.
First of all they are heavier and bulkier than the competition - like some bit of old carpet someone has stuck some glue onto. And secondly they don’t stick, especially if you are doing a lot of reskinning in the day and it is cold.
Now I am the first to admit that I don’t take great care of my skins. All the same I’m a follower of Jereon from http://skitour.fr/ philosophy that skins are a consumable and that you should be prepared to replace them on a regular basis if you want to avoid problems.
So with that in mind I bought a new pair of BD skins at Christmas. I had some of the Mauve ones before which had completely lost their stickion after around 100 days (J’s rule is you put a euro in your piggie bank after each trip and when you have enough money you buy new skins, which kind of equates to 100 days).
Now I’ve got Sweet Daddies and got the 110 mm skins which cut perfectly to shape… the guy in the shop thought I should get 120mm but that would have wasted a lot of material. The problem is BD have this marketing stuff about their glue being so powerful that they have to put a non-glue strip down the middle to stop them sticking too much. Well once you’ve cut the skins to shape this band forms a large part of the base.
Anyways the skins were ok except that in getting damp the edges seem to have crinkled and don’t stick so well. This seems to be due to the thickness of the material used. This is where the rot starts when you are climbing as snow slowly works its way in. I was touring with KenR last week, this is after 20+ days since I bought the skins and we decided to ski down and skin up another slope looking for good snow. Well the skins just would not stick on the upslope, this was a major PITA - at one point the snow - fine grains was like quicksand. I decided to boot pack and ended up buried to my neck and still not treading on anything solid below. These skins have been going down hill since around the 15th trip with stickion problems.
So what do people advise? I’m sure reglueing will help for a while but the original BD glue has gone off and really suffers in the cold. I wonder if BD has changed who makes their skins… China maybe, and quality has suffered?