I plan on thru-hiking the AT in 2006 and have recently purchased a pair of Leki Super Makalu trekking poles, they have shock absorbers. I have heard that the shock absorbers will begin making noise, like squeaking and such after several hundred miles. is this true?
Bermuda
Mine have about 500 miles on them, been dunked, dirtied, etc., sometimes I might hear a small squeek, but not really. You can use them either with the shock absorbers on or turned off, your call. Easy to disassemble and clean up too.
At TD’04, the Leki rep was there in the main camp area, and was fixing and doing maintenance work on poles for free, often replacing tips as needed, springs (rarely needed) and giving good advice on maintaining them.
If the TSA can’t destroy them through all the airports I’ve taken them through, well, they must be tough.
-xtn
airferret
the titanium tips make more noise against rocks. you’ll hear hikers for miles coming to and fro cause of that noise. the anti-shock system really hasn’t made any noise ever on mine…only had one cleaning at trail days 04, and i guess just a simple damp wipe down of internal parts is enough to silence any offending sound.
grit and mud can work its way up into the internal parts. a gun cleaning brush can be ram rodded up inside to brush extra dust out, that may give ya some problems. my guess is, you’ll just get tired of the tip noise and never have a anti-shock issue.
never oil the inside of yer poles to stop a squeek. you’ll shoot yer eye out kid!
good luck on yer hike! enjoy
burn
Use rubber tips. Super glue them onto the carbide or Ti spikes. The rubber tips will be silent and then the tips won’t put ugly scratch marks on the rocks. When they wear out, peel them off with a pair of pliers and replace with new rubbers. The shock absorbing springs are just another mechanical device which requires energy deploy and will eventually break.
Pacerpoles are the best I’ve found. The ergonomic grips are amazing.
http://www.ula-equipment.com/pacer_poles.htm
tippy tip tip