Pro Reviewer:
Graham Frost is a British Mountain Guide living in Evolene, Switzerland, where he runs Frostguiding, offering year-round climbing and ski guiding.
Click to see more about Graham.
“I’ve been using these skins for a few weeks now in a variety of snow conditions. Although it’s still ‘early’ ski touring season, most of my work is day touring, and I carry skins in my pack every day.
First the basics; grip uphill is excellent on all sorts of snow. It’s been an unusual season with very varied conditions so I’ve tried them on hard piste, wet afternoon slush, icy track, breaking trail in deep powder, cold mornings and warm afternoons, and these skins grip well. No problems re-sticking on multi-ascent days either. No balling up, and no signs of wear yet, although it’s still early days.Now the interesting bit. The Whizz glue is non-sticky, ie. it sticks to the ski, but not to itself. This means you can fold the skins in half, glue to glue, without a mesh sheet, and still get them apart again without a 2 person tug-of-war! Handy on windy cols and snowy days, and very handy if you lose your mesh mid-tour.
They are supplied as a straight 120mm skin, which means you’ll need to trim to fit (unless you’re using a very wide ski) This is fairly easy but takes some time and care. Measure twice, cut once! The special cutting tool provided works well for the edges, and I used a pair of scissors to trim the tip and tail. Rivets for the tail clip can be pressed if you have the tool, or hammered if you don’t.
The CollTex tip bail is wide and seems to fit most skis, even Dynafit/Trab/K2 which have different tip fittings.
Overall I’m very impressed with these skins. I’ll try to update this report towards the end of the season after more use.”
Coll Tex 41 Bail Whizzz 120mm Features
- Acrylic-based adhesive layer
- 65% mohair + 35% polyamide
- Easy to fold adhesive surface on adhesive surface
- No protective netting
- Temperature-resistant
- Colour:
- Green
- Weight:
- 259g (1 skin, no fixation)
- Length:
- 185cm