Covacure Hiking Poles Collapsible Trekking Poles – Aluminum Alloy 7075 Walking Sticks for Hiking with Telescopic & Foldable Tri-fold Design Hiking Gear for Women Men, Hiking, Camping, Climbing

While researching for a new set of poles, I found many complaints about how the rubber feet would wear quickly and that the carbide tip would pierce through the rubber feet. I thought the solution was to find poles with threads at the tip that would help keep the carbide tips from slipping and piercing the rubber feet. That is the main reason why I chose these poles. To my surprise, the designers went one step further. There are metal washers at the inside bottom of the rubber feet. This will do a better job at keeping the carbide tips from piercing the rubber feet and cause premature wear.My biggest concern for a single point of failure with this pole design is the locking mechanism for height adjustment. It is made of plastic and will likely break at some point. These poles are described as being made with 7075 aircraft aluminum, which is supposed to be much stronger than the 6061 grade aircraft aluminum, but no matter how hard the pole is, they cannot be used if the locking snap is broken. I hope they learn from this design flaw and replace plastic locking snaps with metal ones.The best thing to do is to tighten the locking snaps just enough to keep the pole’s components from sliding into each other, but not any tighter so as to reduce the stress point that would cause the plastic to break apart.With minor and slight tightening of the locking tabs, I was able to place both hands onto the top of one pole and lift myself out of a chair. I weigh roughly 180 lbs, so each pole, with very slight tightness adjustment to the locking snaps, is able to hold a lot of that weight.The height adjustment for these poles ranges from 110cm to 130cm. At 5’10” (177cm), I found the height adjustment at the 114cm mark easily meets the 90 degree forearm position needed for me, with plenty of room to spare for adjusting further. Five notches down would be the minimum height. It seems these poles are designed for tall people in mind, or for those who prefer to hold poles at a high position instead of the 90 degree forearm position.In conclusion, I think these poles will suffice and hopefully will last for a while. In the meantime, I will be searching for ones with metal locking snaps, and inserting metal washers inside the rubber feet if they do not already exist.