Pomoca Climb Pro Mohair Skins

Pomoca Climb Pro Mohair Skins

Size Tested: 100 mm width, “Medium’ length

Materials: 100% Mohair

Stated Features:

100% Mohair plush

Interchangeable tip connectors, standard tail connector

Ever Dry 2.0

Safer Skin technologies

MSRP: $210-250

Ski Used: ON3P Steeple 98, 174 cm

Boots / Bindings: Dynafit TLT 6 / Dynafit Speed Radical

Test Locations: Northwest Montana backcountry; Whitefish Mountain Resort, Snowbowl Missoula, Downing Mountain Lodge, Montana

Days Tested: 15

Intro

While Pomoca is a relative newcomer to the North American skins market, they are certainly not new to making skins. they have been making skins since the 1930’s, and selling them primarily in Europe.

The Pomoca Climb Pro Mohair is aimed at balancing great glide and grip over multi-day tours that test the ability of the skin to work well in a range of conditions without the benefit of drying them out between tours.

My personal interest in the Pomoca Climb Pro Mohair came from three directions:

1) After using two types of G3 skins (the Mohair LT and Scala) and the whole stable of Black Diamond skins (especially the Mohair Pures), I was eager to see how a similar skin from Pomoca would stack up.

2. On one early season tour last year, fresh snow caused hellacious glopping on my BD Momix skins despite all the efforts I made with wax and scraping to keep them clean. Two buddies with Pomoca skins had no such issues. I was both jealous and impressed.

3. All my rando race friends use Pomoca skins. And if the guys in the spandex superhero suits are using them, then I’m intrigued.

Sizing / Installation:

The Climb Pro Mohair skins come with tip and tail connectors pre-attached, so sizing is important. Here’s the chart:

[Small] 156 – 165 cm
[Medium] 165 – 176 cm
[Large] 175 – 186 cm
[X-large] 185 – 196 cm

I went with the size Medium for my 174 cm ON3P Steeple 98 skis.

To get started, I experimented with sizing my skins a bit narrower in both the tip and tail of the ski — the pair of Climb Pro Mohairs I used was 100 mm wide, while the sidecut of the ON3P Steeple 98 in a 174 cm is 126-98-114. This meant that, at the tip, I had a gap of 13 mm between the skin and each side of the ski, and 7 mm of exposed ski base on both sides of the skin at the tail. So I expected an understandable loss of traction while sidehilling compared to the wider G3 Mohair LT I had been using. But I have yet to have any issues when sidehilling on hard snow or while skinning on groomers or refrozen snow. Some snow did incrementally invade under the tips when things were getting soft and loose, but it never caused a skin failure. I was very impressed here.

Features

The Climb Pro skins have a few standout features on their own, and a few others that I’ll note as comparisons to the G3 and Black Diamond skins I’ve used.

Glue

Skiers with G3 and Black Diamond experience will find that the Pomoca glue is thinner — and seems far less tacky — right off the bat. There is no rip strip included with the Climb Pro Mohair (or any of Pomoca’s skins to my knowledge) and in my experience, you don’t need one.

Compared to the thicker, tackier Black Diamond and G3 options, I worried that the Pomoca glue would be less durable (it hasn’t been). I worried that it would not stick as well to ski bases when wet (it was better). And I worried that it would pick up more foreign gunk from my pack and the snow (it is cleaner than anything else I’ve used).

I used the Climb Pro skins for five rando races through a variety of temperatures and snow conditions, and had zero skin failures, even when the glue was wet at the start of the race. Once again, I was very, very impressed.

Tip and Tail Clips

Pomoca’s tip bar does a great job with skis that have more traditional tips, and swappable bars mean that you should be able to find one that fits your skis. (G3’s swivelling hands will still work better on more square-shaped tips, e.g., Moment skis or jibby ON3P skis.)

In terms of the tail clip, Pomoca makes my favorite option out there: it’s solid, simple, light, doesn’t catch on skis during kick turns, and with the skin clip notch in my tail, has yet to come off. It folds over the extra part of the strap on top of your ski, so it’s not flopping around. And adding extra tension to the skin via tightening the tail clip is super simple.

The only downside is that, should you manage to slice the tail clip or tear it off, you’d be in a bind because they’re sewn on and not easily replaceable.

Two Other Features Specific to Pomoca — “Safer Skin” and “Ever Dry 2.0”

While Safer Skin sounds a bit like a condom brand, it’s actually a simple, brilliant idea: put a thin, waterproof layer between the plush and glue to keep water from the snow from soaking up and fouling the stick of your glue. Thus, the skin is less likely to fail in a bad spot, making it a “Safer Skin.” And I’m happy to report that it seems to work really well; I’ve had zero skin failures with the Climb Pro Mohair. Zero. Even when skinning in wet, gloppy snow.

Ever Dry 2.0 is a proprietary dry treatment that purportedly helps glide and keeps the plush from wetting through. Late in my test (13 days in) I finally had the plush get a bit soaked through underfoot on a big day of touring. Skin wax had never touched these skins, which is unthinkable relative to any other skin I’ve ever used. My whining about glopping and the lack of promised glide is legendary with other skins, so to find a skin that works this well was like discovering the Holy Grail.
NEXT: Glide and Grip, Packability, Etc.