rollerski pole length

Out for my first summer rollerski today.
I used my classic poles because I planned on just double poling for an hour
or so and as I went along I came to a large hill. Since the wind was in my
face at about 15mph and it was a big hill I decided to skate up it instead
of double poling.... well, my classic poles seemed great ! I thought they'd
seem way short, but no way - perfect in fact !!

I got to thinking... on snow your poles do sink in a little when skating,
sometimes a LOT.... so what should the real rollerskiing length for a
skating pole be? If you are using your regular "on snow" poles with carbide
tips I bet they are a little long and maybe the classic poles are better?

any thoughts anyone?
(big blister since the hands have softened up too)

Jeff K.

When I first made my rollerski poles I made them longer, thinking that
they don't sink, so... it was horrible.

After reading Enduro rollerski website, I grabbed my wife's snow
poles (they are 4" shorter then my snow poles) put tips on them and
never gave them back (except for the times when she goes skiing).

I don't know the theory behind it - just sinking into the snow is
not enough to justify a length difference.

What happened was, I think, that "sinking" lasts a split second and
in that time you are mowing forward still, so at the end of the push
you are farther ahead at 4" or so.

Nothing like that happens on asphalt, so shorter poles feel more natural.

Serge wrote:
When I first made my rollerski poles I made them longer, thinking that
they don't sink, so... it was horrible.

After reading Enduro rollerski website, I grabbed my wife's snow
poles (they are 4" shorter then my snow poles) put tips on them and
never gave them back (except for the times when she goes skiing).

I don't know the theory behind it - just sinking into the snow is
not enough to justify a length difference.

What happened was, I think, that "sinking" lasts a split second and
in that time you are mowing forward still, so at the end of the push
you are farther ahead at 4" or so.

Nothing like that happens on asphalt, so shorter poles feel more natural.

Serge:

Your logic evades me. If the pole sinks into the snow then you would
need longer poles when snow skiing and shorter for roller skiing. In
reality though, the extra height of the RSs above the pavement pretty
much makes up for the difference due to snow. Very particular skiiers
can probably tell the difference a couple mm's make but I can't.

My belief is that the poles should be the same length for either
activity IF the type of roller skiing you do is consistent with the type
of snow skiing you do. That's usually not the case though. Depending
on where you live you may not get as many hills and end up RSing on
gently rolling roads. If that's the case, you will probably be very
happy with slightly longer poles. However, as has been mentioned here
before and was just discovered by Jeff K., if you're doing lots of hills
shorter poles seem to work better. The gentle rollers and long flats of
many roads allows lots of V2 workouts with long glide phases & pole
plants that take advantage of long poles. Steep hills benefit from
shorter poles because of the quickness of the stride. Shorter poles are
lighter & easier to get in front for the next plant.

BTW, I discovered this a few years ago while using a local road for hill
climbing workouts. The road climbed 1800' in 4.5 miles. The first
time I used my skate poles. The second time I changed to my classic
poles for this and never went back. Still while RSing on normal roads
the skate poles were the poles of choice.

MOO,
Matt