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I would add that the correct length of poles for uphill and downhill is related to the steepness of the hill.Disclaimer: I'm spending a fair amount of my time hiking and I've seen far too many people with cheap hiking poles take a fall - resulting in injury and broken poles. So take this advice as you wish.
Buy some good quality poles in Australia and *learn how to use them* before boarding that flight to Spain. You'll have checked luggage anyway (I assume coming from that far away?) so that should be a non-issue.
Hiking poles are only useful if you use them correctly. Go to a dedicated outdoor shop and have the sales person help with pole height settings. You need to know the height for flat walking, uphill and downhill. Next you need to practice your hand / wrist position. Either have that explained in store or check Youtube and *practice*. Poles used incorrectly are a waste of money.
As for the quality. Most people get away with cheap Decathlon poles. However, in the event that you do take a fall (the path might be fairly wet in December) quality poles will hold your fall with a much higher likelihood than cheap ones. They snap much more easily, potentially leading to a more serious tumble and injury.
If you pick up poles in Sarria you wont have time to practice and you don't know of what quality they are / if they've already taken a beating and might already have structural issues.
I suggest buying them at home. Second hand is fine (try Gumtree or Gear Freak) or Decathalon.Hi I’ll be walking my first Camino from
Sarria next month and think I’ll want walking poles! Should i bring them with me (from Australia) or are there poles others have left behind.
I don’t own any but am considering Black Friday sales!! Thanks in nervous anticipation
Thanks for so much great advice. Sounds like good ones are worth the moneyDisclaimer: I'm spending a fair amount of my time hiking and I've seen far too many people with cheap hiking poles take a fall - resulting in injury and broken poles. So take this advice as you wish.
Buy some good quality poles in Australia and *learn how to use them* before boarding that flight to Spain. You'll have checked luggage anyway (I assume coming from that far away?) so that should be a non-issue.
Hiking poles are only useful if you use them correctly. Go to a dedicated outdoor shop and have the sales person help with pole height settings. You need to know the height for flat walking, uphill and downhill. Next you need to practice your hand / wrist position. Either have that explained in store or check Youtube and *practice*. Poles used incorrectly are a waste of money.
As for the quality. Most people get away with cheap Decathlon poles. However, in the event that you do take a fall (the path might be fairly wet in December) quality poles will hold your fall with a much higher likelihood than cheap ones. They snap much more easily, potentially leading to a more serious tumble and injury.
If you pick up poles in Sarria you wont have time to practice and you don't know of what quality they are / if they've already taken a beating and might already have structural issues.
Excellent. Tks so muchBuy. 'Pacer Poles', unique design which aids posture( this minimises chance of injury). . Oh . . . and they do all the stuff other poles do.
Made in UK, but they ship worldwide.
Google them
Have a great Camino
it is true but I think it is misleading. Any pole will help improve your posture when used correctly, both Pacer Poles and conventional poles. It is an advantage you can get from any and every pole that you are using correctly.Buy. 'Pacer Poles', unique design which aids posture( this minimises chance of injury). . Oh . . . and they do all the stuff other poles do.
Absolutely agree with the first point - hence my comment in my original post about ensuring you've got room to adjust your poles , I just failed to be specific. The video I included covers all of that.The correct length of poles for uphill and downhill is related to the steepness of the hill. But one thing to remember is you should be pushing yourself up hill with your poles - not pulling yourself up! And use your poles in front when going down hill to slow your descent and reduce knee strain.
And take the rubber tips off for traction on earth, shale or rock. Pop them back on when you want to reduce noise on roads.
Walking with a single pole is not advised, because it would lead to a bad posture.Another option is to just buy a single hiking stick (pole) in Sarria. Plenty of options to buy or find one along the way, and a lot easier to adjust to than two walking poles. Buen Camino!
Definitely! I bought a fairly expensive pair of Leki poles 5 years ago. They are as good as new and trust me, they've taken their fair share of slips and falls over the last years. 110€ well spend.Thanks for so much great advice. Sounds like good ones are worth the money
LOVE my Pacer poles. Wouldn't use anything else. A whole different way of walking. I am 73 and have done a few Caminos. My body never feels as good as when I am walking with these poles. With these poles, you are walking upright at all times and the whole mantra is shoulders down and gently back, and when I have my pack properly placed with the weight on my hips, my body feels great. No more expensive than any other poles and you will not be sorry.Excellent. Tks so much
I am with Frankybaby66. The PacerPoles will carry you to Santiago, up and down the Alto de Perdon, into O Cebreiro, over Monte de Gozo and down again, you will walk on wings and you knees will be protected. Once, someone on this forum asked whether any Pacer Poles owner was ready to part with them? There were zero replies. They are more expensive but you will cherish them every kilometer on the Camino.Buy. 'Pacer Poles', unique design which aids posture( this minimises chance of injury). . Oh . . . and they do all the stuff other poles do.
Made in UK, but they ship worldwide.
Google them
Have a great Camino
For my last two Caminos, I've purchased basic poles. I've found these in variety and souvenir stores for less than €10 per pair. At the end of the Camino, I leave them propped against the Cervantes Fountain. They're gone in a few hours.Hi I’ll be walking my first Camino from
Sarria next month and think I’ll want walking poles! Should i bring them with me (from Australia) or are there poles others have left behind.
I don’t own any but am considering Black Friday sales!! Thanks in nervous anticipation
If you bring them with you, you get the exact poles you want. However, you need to plan to place them in checked luggage.Hi I’ll be walking my first Camino from
Sarria next month and think I’ll want walking poles! Should i bring them with me (from Australia) or are there poles others have left behind.
I don’t own any but am considering Black Friday sales!! Thanks in nervous anticipation
Totally depends on your point of origin. As evidenced by the massive number of posts here on the forum. Some say yea, some say nay.You can't bring poles in carry-on baggage, though you can check them
DittoMy reason for not checking anything is that I dislike waiting for my bag/s to come through on the carousels with the hordes of other people.
Exactly! Potentially lost backpack or luggage is another reason I keep mine with me. I've read of a few nightmare experiences on the forum over the years.Ditto
But I have a second reason - the Airlines have temporarily misplaced/ mishandled my luggage twice. Which considering that it happens extremely rarely (less than 1% of bags are mishandled according to the official statistics) is a tad annoying. Although to be fair that's over quite a number of flights.
Heading out on camino I just don't want to take the chance of having to wait or worse still never having it turn up (extremely rare!). So I make sure it fits the relevant Airlines 'Carry on' policies, and if that meant leaving poles behind and buying new at my destination then that's what I would do.
@Madeleine Jacobs, I think we've also become used to Pacer Pole users engaging in a high level of hyperbole, but this takes the cake on that score:With these poles, you are walking upright at all times and the whole mantra is shoulders down and gently back, and when I have my pack properly placed with the weight on my hips, my body feels great.
Absolutely none of this is completely true. Even allowing for a level of enthusiasm, this is completely over the top. More worthy of some advertising campaign for Pacer Poles than a more objective level of discussion one might expect on this forum.The PacerPoles will carry you to Santiago, up and down the Alto de Perdon, into O Cebreiro, over Monte de Gozo and down again, you will walk on wings and you [sic] knees will be protected.
All I can say is that when I started the Camino Frances without poles in 2016, I completely shot my knees. Knee braces and ibuprofen were not sufficient. I needed poles (and knee braces and ibuprofen) to complete my Camino. This year, I walked the Camino San Salvador and the Primitivo with poles from the beginning. These seemed to me to be at least as challenging to the knees as the Frances if not more so. I had no knee problems at all. So I have anecdotal experience that poles protected my knees.I will go so far as to suggest that even the statement 'you [sic] knees will be protected' is misleading. Certainly correct pole use will take some weight off the lower joints, and might delay the onset of joint problems like osteoarthritis. But that is delay, not complete protection.
Are you suggesting that your current pole use will provide some form of complete protection of your knees into the future? That would be an ambitious claim, but it appears to be the suggestion in one of the earlier posts that I quoted. As I said, there is ample evidence that using poles correctly will reduce the weight on your lower joints. That is not in dispute. I am suggesting that this is not a benefit unique to Pacer Poles, much as those who advocate for them might suggest or infer that it is.So I have anecdotal experience that poles protected my knees.
My own experience with cheap poles has not been great, but I have also had more expensive poles fail as well. My simple take-away is that if you do want to buy less expensive poles, avoid getting any with anti-shock springs. With sufficient use, these springs will eventually fail as they reach the end of their fatigue life. Of course, if you never do more than fairy tap your pole, and don't exert any real pressure, you might never reach that point. For others it might take some time, but every set of poles I have used with these springs has eventually had one or both collapse.Take it for what it's worth:
About 12 years ago I purchased a cheap set of poles on Amazon. IIRC I paid about $15.00 for it. 3-section extending poles made of cheap aluminum (aka aluminium) with cheap cork handle grips. Somewhat on the heavier side.
Took me through various portions of AT, many local trails big and small, 4-day trek on Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, full Frances (SJPdP to SdC), Finisterre, many more local trail and I have no doubt about it that it will take me through TMB come summer of '24.
Just sayin'....
I think that saying something will be protected doesn't necessarily guarantee complete protection but rather suggests that some level of protection will be provided.Are you suggesting that your current pole use will provide some form of complete protection of your knees into the future? That would be an ambitious claim, but it appears to be the suggestion in one of the earlier posts that I quoted. As I said, there is ample evidence that using poles correctly will reduce the weight on your lower joints. That is not in dispute. I am suggesting that this is not a benefit unique to Pacer Poles, much as those who advocate for them might suggest or infer that it is.
As for what is 'using them correctly', there are so many pole skills videos available today that it is difficult to comment upon whether any individual one provides an unarguably best practice guide. My touchstones are around the use of the strap on conventional poles, pushing down with sufficient force to get some benefit, and on adjusting pole length to suit your preference for greater weight reduction or increased walking speed. That leaves a broad range of things that I have come to think of as matters of individual preference.
That's an interesting perspective. If the person who posted the remark that I commented on had wanted to qualify their statement that way, they were at liberty to do so. They didn't.I think that saying something will be protected doesn't necessarily guarantee complete protection but rather suggests that some level of protection will be provided.
I didn't check my pack on my flight from the US so I waited until I got to France to get mine. I'm glad I waited because they were much less expensive (Decathlon 20€ each for perfectly fine poles) By the way, one pair of their red rubber tips lasted me the entire CF while the black ones friends picked up along the way wore through.Hi I’ll be walking my first Camino from
Sarria next month and think I’ll want walking poles! Should i bring them with me (from Australia) or are there poles others have left behind.
I don’t own any but am considering Black Friday sales!! Thanks in nervous anticipation
And may I ask what did you do with them once it was time to go home?I didn't check my pack on my flight from the US so I waited until I got to France to get mine. I'm glad I waited because they were much less expensive (Decathlon 20€ each for perfectly fine poles) By the way, one pair of their red rubber tips lasted me the entire CF while the black ones friends picked up along the way wore through.
I've just finished walking a very hilly Camino on Gran Canaria. My flights from/to the UK were ridiculously cheap because I brought only one small carry on bag. I bought a pair of Decathlon's cheapest poles on arrival and used the red pole tips which I had saved after use on two previous short caminos. The poles served me well and I am sorry to have to abandon them so soon. I hope someone else gets good use from them. The red tips are in pack for next time!) By the way, one pair of their red rubber tips lasted me the entire CF while the black ones friends picked up along the way wore through.
I checked my pack on the way home, but my poles didn't collapse enough to fit completely inside. I was able to leave them with my son who currently lives in France. If I didn't have this option, I think I would have put them inside my pack as much as possible and them had my pack wrapped at the airport.And may I ask what did you do with them once it was time to go home?
BTW, in preparation of aforementioned TMB hike, I just purchased a perfectly fine poles for my wife on Amazon for $18.00. Practically same as mine, but lighter and with extended grips. So far they passed the test of hiking on Bruce Trail in Ontario Canada....
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