La Sportiva HiGlide Precut Skins

Will these skins fit my 178 hi5?

As others have noted, the tip attachment on these skins is pretty terrible. I used them in their stock configuration with a pair of RSTs for one season, and I don't think I had a single clean rip. It's true that you can jiggle it and it'll generally fall out with gravity, but (at least in my uncoordinated case) that also tends to leave you with snow in your glue. On one particularly-frustrated occasion, I evidently jiggled a bit too hard 'cause the entire tip assembly (rivets and all) ripped out of the skin. I have since cut the other tip off and replaced it with the dynafit rubber dongle and it is a major improvement. Although the skins are now shorter than I would have liked and don't line up with the edges exactly, it's an okay compromise.

I also found the glue to be poor compared to Black Diamond's gold label. In cold weather, they had a tendency to lose edge adhesion (not to the point of glue failure, but enough to get some snow under there). I stripped off the stock glue and reglued with BD glue and have had no regrets.

Setting aside the issues with the tip attachments and the less-than-perfect glue, the skins themselves are great. They have excellent glide and an impressive amount of traction. They're soft and light and fold up nicely in a jacket pocket.

I have some old Dynastar Altitrail Verticals (170cm by 103/75/92) that I'm mounting old Tourlite Techs to for a cheap skinny ski for big days. Right now they have Montana all-nylon skins, which have atrocious glide. They do have holes in the tips, but not the tails. The hole in the tip is probably 2cm in diameter.

So: do you think I could use the RST 2.0 167 skins with this ski, either by (a) drilling a second hole in the tail for the tail attachment, or (b) using a different tail attachment? The Montana skins have a similar looking tail strap; maybe I could swap the tail clips onto these tail straps?

Overall: Five Stars for a climbing skin with typical Euro momix glide and good glue. Plus the proprietary attachment system works very well with La Sportiva skis.

Background on product familiarity: I have just one outing so far on a 2014-15 pair, precut for the La Sportiva Nano. In addition to a prior life spent with a certain line of very “boardy” purple and then orange nylon skins, and in addition to 100% mohair race skins, I’ve used momix skins from Dynafit, Black Diamond, Movement/Colltex, and Trab.

First, the first impressions out of the box: Relatively “boardy” for a Euro momix skin, which has its pros and cons. Glue is pretty typical for Euro momix, so not overwhelmingly tacky.

The proprietary tip attachment is very low profile, and also very secure. The tail strap is a clever variation of the Black Diamond STS, yet wrapping around the tail’s topskin to then click into the special tail hole.

Second impressions, in use: The tip attachment clips in quickly, and ditto for the tail, which is also easily to adjust for length. Rips are clean. Overall, an excellent combination of both security and convenience.

Glide is the perfect compromise: a bit less than 100% mohair, but way better than nylon, and with no discernable loss of grip. Glue kept all of its tack even in temps down the low teens F.

Third impressions, for long-term durability: Not enough usage yet to pass judgment based on personal experience. But the attachment system seems reasonably strong. And all my prior experience with momix plush durability has been excellent. The “boardy” laminate also bodes well for durability.

From what I understand, Pomoca supplies these skins. Is it accurate to say that these are basically the same as the Pomoca Climb Pro Glides (the material, glue, etc.) other than the nose and tail clip system? In other words, if I have a pair of La Sportiva skis and am choosing between Pomoca and HiGlide skins, does my decision just come down to which clip system I prefer? Anyone else out there have an opinion on the HiGlide clip system? Sounds like A OK isn't a fan - is his complaint about the tip getting hung up a common one?

I have had really good luck with these skins but i am running them slightly different than originally designed. I cut off the metal tip connections and replaced with the Dyanfit bungee system for my Broad Peak skis. They have peformed great with good grip, glide, light weight, and supple.
So far i have used the tail connector more like the old Black Diamond method, simply clicking it on the back instead of up and over....works great.

Can't stand this type of tail clip attachment system, personally. And the tips, although they never gave me problems like coming out while skinning, are irritating at best. I drilled a hole into a non-La Sportiva ski tip to use these with that ski. Had to do a minor custom bend of the metal tip, but it just never seemed like a good attachment system to me. And, it's obviously not transferrable to other skis in the quiver - I like to match up multiple skis, boots, and skins at my whim - so that's a bit lame. Also, I never once had a clean 'rip' while taking these off my skis after skinning uphill - the tip always hung up in the ski hole. This sort of transition killer makes me feel like a newb out there; unnecessary.

As for glide, grip, reasonably light weight, and adhesion to ski, these redeeming properties bring these skins back up to three weak stars.

And they're not terribly stiff like BD nylon skins, another bonus when stuffing them into one's coat.

I may cut off the tip attachment system and replace it with a more standard one, and simply remove the tail attachment altogether, in which case I suspect these would easily merit a four star rating.