Brasher ProVolution Poles - First Look

Brasher Provolution Poles - First Look

Price: £100 per pair

Weight: 195 grammes per pole / 390 grammes pair

Features: Three-section telescopic carbon fibre trekking poles with External Power Lock closing mechanism, full foam contour grip, Neoprene padded strap, flexible tungsten carbide tip. Length 68-140cm.

Brasher says the ProVolution is 'an ideal mountaineering, trekking and backpacking pole. Great for winter usage'. New for this winter, it's the top of their range of poles which are second only to Leki in the UK. As you can guess from the use of carbon fibre, lightness is a priority, so there are no anti-shock gubbins included.

Everyone knows about carbon fibre, it's light and strong and looks sexy too, it's not completely without flaws though. It has a reputation for failing catstrophically if overstressed in the wrong way and isn't cheap either. Brasher's next pole down, the ProActive weighs in at 250 grammes claimed per pole compared to a measured 195 grammes for the ProVolution, but at £56 per pair is considerably cheaper.

The other big technical feature is Brasher's new External Power Lock system which uses a clamping device rather than the screw-locking mechanism commonly used for poles. The idea is that the clamp is easier to use with gloved hands in cold conditons when other systems can be awkward.

The idea's not exactly new. Black Diamond has had its very similar Flick Lock system for years and it's one we've found very effective and very secure particularly in very cold conditions.

We like light poles, they weigh less when you carry them and you really do notice the difference when you swing the poles from the wrist since most of the weight saving is in the pole sections rather than the handle. Over a full day, that seems to translate into less fatigue in a similar way to lightweight footwear.

There's nothing remarkable about the foam grips and neoprene wrist loops, they work fine and are easy to adjust while the extended grip can allow different hand positions for traversing on snow for example.

Unfortunately we're so far less impressed by the Power Lock system. To cut a longish story short, we found that to stop the poles collapsing under full body weight, we had to crank the adjustment on the levers up to worrying levels of tightness, to the point in fact where we were worried about cracking the pole itself. It's also worth bearing in mind that you need a screwdriver to adjust the clamps.

Under most circumstances the poles probably won't slip, but unfortunately, if you're someone who uses poles to support a lot of weight, say descending big steps, there's a risk that the pole may slip unless you really crank the clamps up.

Initially we were a little perplexed as the Black Diamond system works really well, however comparing the two, the BD clamps are around twice as large, so there's a much greater surface area involved. The Brasher version is smaller and neater, but in our opinion doesn't seem to clamp as securely because of that. It won't helpe that carbon fibre is also quite slippery, for example, carbon seatposts have a reputation for slipping on bicycles.

A possible solution might be to use a special anti-slip carbon fibre compound available for cyclists, but really you shouldn't need to resort to that. Otherwise the poles feel nice and tight in use, with little obvious bending under load.

Quick Verdict

Very light and easy to use albeit at a price. Unfortunately we're not convinced by the clamping mechanism. We needed to use a lot of clamping force to make the pole as secure as we'd like and we're a bit concerned that carbon fibre tubing might not take kindly to forces in that direction.

To be fair, if you don't indulge in gibbon-like pole manouevres, this may not be an issue, but we reckon larger clamps with a greater clamping surface area and bigger levers a la Black Diamond would make more sense. In the mean time we'll carry on using the ProVolutions and see if anything breaks.

They're also quite expensive given that you could buy two and a half pair of the slightly heavier AlpKit Carbon Lite poles for the same money. So, nice poles at a price and with a question mark over the clamping mechanism.

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