The tail of two tips....Dynafit's carbon, Nanga Parbat, Cho Oyu and Denali

Whole lot of Dynafit love happening on the Haute Route!

I am a big fan of the Dyanfit's newest Nanga Parbat, Cho Oyu.  And I suspect the Denali will be just as good or better of a ski if you need the extra width.   But!   And it isn't a big BUTT... more like a irritating PIA.  One that should have been caught a long time ago by the designers and Dynafit testers.   There is this one small problem.

The tip on these skis suck.  Yes the new tip design takes Dynafit's excellent skins well.  And no. my bitch isn't a square tip thing.  Although one has to wonder why a square tip other than to cut weight or more than likely just to be different..

What is annoying is a little sharp edged bump where the ski's edge and the ski/skin  tip insert meet.

 

If you double click on the photo above and look at the left edge of the ski where the edge and tip meet you'll notice a little indent and the resulting bump where they meet just short of the ski's edge end.

Seems trivial when you look at it.  But for me it isn't trivial.  It is really annoying.

I have never been the best skier.  I barely get by truth be told.  But when a ski locks up with tips crossed and won't easily unlock it sucks to be me, at my skill level.  Which is exactly what happens often as not if you cross your tips (and I often do) with this series of new Dynafit skis.  I ski across my tips on every pair of skis I own (yes it is poor technique) but none of them "lock up" like a Cujo's drooling jaws, as the newest Dynafit's seemingly do so easily.

Easy enough to fix mind you.  But not something you'd likely notice in the store or fix in the back country.  This one you'll need to do at home with a file or grinder.  I used both BTW and a polishing wheel as well.

So I simply cut off the square "latch" at either side of the tip and then rounded and smoothed it off into something that more typically represents a ski tip and not a weird drawing on some CAD machine and then pieced together in the mold waiting on the epoxy to dry.

 

 

Before?  These things could just as easily be named "Captain HOOK!!"

Steel edges riding over and catching on the bump and snagged by the softer aluminum tips all too obvious on the right side of this ski.

 

 

Nasty square "hook" is cut off with a file and the ski tips edges rounded a bit.  No more playing "hooky" on these.  Although there is still no ignoring a sharp, steel edge will hook up on the softer aluminum tip material.  Rounding the tip out does help enough for me that I'll be cutting the rest of my new Dynafit's down and Tracy's Chos as well.  No long term durability tests yet on the newly cut tip profile.  Needed I think after cutting though the ski's first layer on the tip edges.  DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!   I don't get these skis for free but I am willing to take a chance on the end result of this mod.  Simply 'cuz I sure hated the little bastards at times prior to cutting on them.