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The cold world of skimo & alpine climbing

The cold world of skimo & alpine climbing

Thursday, December 16, 2010

The last of the "old" Nomics"


Hey if you are one of the last to jump on the older stle Nomic's in late summer or fall of 2010 you may have scored more than you first thought.

I bought a spare tool recently for a trip and wanted a mate for my original pair of old style Nomics.  Found a few on sale and ordered from a small retailer the last one they had in stock.  It showed up and to my surprize the head was the new version which is able to take the newest Petzl hammer and adze.  Pretty cool bonus from Petzl.

Not that big of deal because I use the C-T hammer.   Not everyone's choice so I think it is very cool that some of these older tools made it out with the factory hammer option available.  I really like the new, and bigger, carabiner clip in the head.  Makes it much easier to rack the tools on a biner.  Win, win on this one.

Check out the head differences on your tool if it is a recent purchase (Fall of  '10)  and a old style Nomic.

2 comments:

Kamil Tamiola said...

Super! It sounds really cool... Actually, the only reason why I wanted to get the new NOMICs (revision2) was the ability to mount the hammer :)

Bruno Schull said...

Hi Dane. I, too, got one of the new/old tools. I bought a set of Nomics. One was second hand, the true old-style, with the old head design. The second was new, from Europe. It is essentially an old-style tool, with the old-style pick, but the new head design. Cool.

I also recently got some new gloves. I bought OR Verts and MH Pistoleros. I have not used either, but here are my impressions. The OR verts look good, thin and light. The leather palm is all black/gray...looks like the new version. I hope they hold up as well as the old. If I had to guess, I would say that they will get shredded pretty fast, but they come well-recomended....The Pistoleros look great too, thin, light, water resistant, with a great grip. Unfortunately, the very first time I pulled one on...the stitching tore, and the cuff ripped away from the palm! That was certainly a disappointment! I generally believe in the quality of MH products, and I am sure they would warranty them, but I bought them in the US, am lving in Europe, and so on, and the hassles would probably not be worth it. I will probably just sew them up as best I can and climb!

Last, it's really unfortunate about the new Nomic pommel problem...I agree that this is going to be a big issue with Petzl, and that the only true solution would be to redesign the shaft and pommel (i.e. probably no bolt on fix). Which leads me to consider...I think you are the man to offer an aftermarket, upgraded Nomic pommel, with associated shaft modification.
The shafts would probably be straightforward to modify. Could you machine, forge, or cast a pommel from aluminum? Would that me to had relative to the shaft? What about some kind of plastic? Imagine the possibilities...it would be a good design challenge to make a pommel with an ergonomic shape for different hand and swing positions, an integrated full strength umbilical attachment, and some kind of a spike. Maybe you would need a set of pommels for different purposes...anyway, some ideas. All too expensive, probably, but fun to think about. Keep up the blog: obviously, people read it, and you are adding to the community.