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?

You do have to take your skins out of your rucksack now and again you know !

The non stick strip is actually just a piece of ribbon on top of the skin. If you don’t have enough surface area just peel it off and you will have a normal skin like the Coll-tex. Also cut your skins some distance from the tail, conversion turns stress the tail of the skin so if you leave 10cm from the tail of the ski the skin will tend to stick better.

do u have clip=fix or sts on the rear?

i have sts on mine and towards the end of a cold day once they have been on and off several times the glue doesn’t stick aswell but thanks to the sts they go on fine.

i have also experienced, along with my mate, poor climbing traction of certain type of snow. particularly if the snow has been effected by both wind and sun.

i know of someone who has peeled off their centre strip as the glue is wearing out and they are too cheap to buy new glue treatment or skins

I’ve just peeled the strip off, it is like a powder ribbon. I never realised it was just stuck on - I thought that it was part of the fabric of the skins. So that seems to have increased the surface area that sticks. No I don’t have the tail clips, I had them on my old BD skins but found them more faff than they are worth.

I got the skins for a good price from the Vieux Campeur in Thonon so am not going to whinge too much - however Colltex have a new “glueless” skin and I’m hearing good reports from people who are on the third generation of the Austrian Geko glueless skin. So maybe next season?

I will agree with you on the Black Diamond Glue Concern.  I have a pair of BD and a pair of G3 and the I am ready to throw the BD’s out I am so dissapointed.  Probably will never buy a pair again.