Zipline Ski Pole Hand Guard - U.S. Ski Team Official Ski Pole - Universal

We bought the Zipline graphite carbon composite poles and these guards at the same time thinking that they'd pair well – they don’t. I understand now that the Blurr's are designed for the guards, not the Lollipops. The instructions that came with the guards were thus not very helpful and were hard to read given the small font. There are no YouTube videos to help with installation. To make them work for my poles I took the following steps.Tools needed: Duct tape, Phillips head screwdriver, a large flat-edge tool like a chisel, a drill bit that matches the provided long wood screw, a socket wrench that matches the provided nuts.Steps:1. Warm the guards in hot water to make them more pliable. Not sure if this step is really needed but I saw other reviews suggest. Can’t hurt.2. After they’re warm, use a large flat-edge tool, like a chisel, to pry the bottom of the guards open just enough to slip them on the bottom of the pole, right above the basket at its thinnest part.3. The provided rubber/plastic square that comes with the installation kit is hard to use. The purpose of the square is to provide a filler between the pole and the guard. Without it, the guard wouldn’t be secure. The problem is that, for me, the square is darn near impossible to use unless you have a helper to hold the square while you slide the guard over it. Instead I used duct tape. Use the provided square as a measuring stick to cut a piece of duct tape approximately twice the size of the plastic square. Note: the length of the tape may be larger or smaller depending on the thickness of your poles. Two-times worked well for the 42” poles I was working with.4. Slide the guard up to below the pole grips to see where the three bolts would sit. Mark that area, slide the guard back down and wrap the duct tape around the pole.5. Slide the guard back up and over the duct tape. You may need to use the flat-edge tool again to wedge it over the duct tape.6. Use the socket and the Phillips head screw driver to secure the bolts – top and bottom in one direction and the middle in the opposite. Note: the nuts are difficult, but not impossible, to get onto the bolts. Tighten until the guard is secure on the pole.7. If your poles have a screw on top of the grip, remove per the provided instructions and secure the top of the guard. If it doesn’t (like my poles) you’ll need to drill a hole at the top of the grip and use the provided screw. Note: the provided screw is very long, you can probably use a shorter screw.Leki’s instructions and installation process are worse and were harder to install.

My daughters ski pole hand guards (Leki) were getting old and the plastic cracked and they needed replacement. Instead of buying the more expensive Leki replacements, I found these. They seem to be well made and the nice thing is that they offer different colors. This makes her poles stand out from the standard Leki pole guards that most of the other Alpine skiers have.The only downside is that they are not easy to install. I removed the bottom plastic part of the pole since it is smaller at the bottom and slid it from the bottom up. You need quite a bit of force to pry them open enough to slide over the pole shaft. I don't think the Leki would be any easier, but I don't have any experience with replacing the Leki ones.

These serve their purpose fine, but they are really tough to install. It required myself and my son working together to pry the clasp open and quickly jam the pole in. That's OK, you only do it once.Also odd, the screws are about 2x the length they need to be, so they stick out and could cause scraping of gloves or skin. I'll likely saw them off at the proper length.

First off, this product does work as expected. So, that's good. It was terrible to mount, and didn't fit well on specified diameter of poles as indicated. Took a lot of work to configure, and I would have rather spent the extra money on another option that would've been an easier setup.

These are our first pole guards, so we don't have anything to compare them to. My husband is pretty handy, but it took him a while to install the first one. The second one took him maybe 10 minutes. I don't believe any directions came with them, but I'm sure YouTubing directions would help speed up the installation. They seem sturdy and we've had no trouble with them at all!