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Contour Skins

Death and Resurrection of Climbing Skins: 3 Start-ups Recycle Them

June 25, 2020 By Stano Faban Leave a Comment

From companies like Patagonia to individuals with ideas. From recycling to upcycling, to repairing, to reusing, to inventing new materials… The outdoor community is trying to reduce its waste and environmental impact in creative ways.

In ski touring, we all know that the most abused and replaced piece of gear are climbing skins, yet besides replacing old glue no one really thinks of skins second life once we retire them.

One of many SkinsBelts colourful dog collars.

Then there is the waste material when skins are manufactured. Just before a climbing skin is born it is part of a 2m wide carpet-like roll that already contains 2 layers of different materials – the hair (or the carpet) that are attached to the water-proof membrane that would eventually get a glue coating on its other side.

Such a roll is then cut into the individual skins, however, there is still plenty of waste despite the laser cutting machine doing its best.

What to do with an old pair of climbing skins?

You can ship them to Marta Lotti, the founder of SkinsBelts in Sestriere in Italy, who will recycle your old skins into artistic belts to keep your pants high. Smaller pieces are made into fancy dog collars.

Marta got creative with old climbing skins after finding a full box of them in her father’s house. Currently, the company consists of a small team, including her brother. While they usually recycle old skins they also use waste from production of new skins which is provided by Contour Skins (see below for more info).

How about some fluffy hut slippers?

Doghammer is a German company that works closely with Contour Skins in Austria. Contour supplies Doghammer with new skins carpet waste material from their manufacturing and they turn it into a variety of comfy slippers that you can use on hut trips or around your house.

The Doghammer slippers have cork soles which is a staple material for this company due its environmental sustainability and its great overall functional properties. Their cork is harvested from the cork oak tree in Portugal.

Back to belts… Do you prefer a more polished look?

Then there is SkinAlp based in France, another start-up that specializes in belts production but also tapping into messenger bags and valets.

Their supplier of new skins waste material is Pomoca, who’s climbing skins we all know very well. For the belt base material they use “black ECO” made from 100% recycled plastic bottles from Northern Italy.

SkinAlp’s belts have a more polished look than those from SkinsBelts which are more rustic looking. Both are stylish so it’s up to you for which occasion you fit your pants with which belt.

Filed Under: Gear, Tech & Food Tagged With: Contour Skins, Doghammer, Recycling, SkinAlp, Skins, SkinsBelts

No Need to Re-Glue? Visiting Contour Skins in Austria to Learn About Their Innovative Hybrid Glue Technology

July 2, 2019 By Stano Faban Leave a Comment

Climbing skins, rightfully, are one of the best inventions. While skis let us enjoy our flight down the mountains, skins enable us to explorer new areas and are an essential part of any winter adventure.

Climbing skins are our life line in the mountains. When they fail the ski day is easily ruined. They are made from soft materials yet we abuse them so much, similar to our feet. We expect them to just always work.

Today, there are many manufacturers of skis, ski boots, bindings and other ski touring gear but there are really only a few makers of climbing skins. While you have likely never heard of Contour skins they are right up there with the more known brands like Colltex, Black Diamond, Pomoca and G3.

Visiting Contour and Their History

Contour is a brand of Koch Alpin, an Austrian family-owned company with 40-years old tradition and experience in climbing skins manufacturing.

» Here are some important Contour links: Website, Facebook, Instagram

While the Contour brand has been established only a decade ago the company has been manufacturing skins for other brands before. Currently, Contour makes skins for more known names such as Atomic, SkiTrab, Black Crows or Hagan.

We visited Contour headquarters and manufacturing facilities a couple of weeks ago as part of our European ski touring gear manufacturers “tour”. They are based in a small town near Innsbruck in the western part of Austria.

Werner Koch currently leads Koch Alpin and gave us a nice tour through their manufacturing facilities.

Innsbruck area is well-known for skiing and easy access to high mountains in general so testing prototypes and consistent feedback is easy for Contour. Also, Innsbruck is only one of three cities in the world that have hosted the Winter Olympics twice – in 1964 and in 1976.

On the environmental side of things, Contour has partnered with a new company Doghammer that started to make slippers out of the waste material of brand new skins plush carpets, thus, keeping the material in the cycle and out of the landfill.

Contour’s Hybrid Glue Technology and Traditional Skin Glue

So what is special about Contour skins? Are they better or are they just different?

While these are simple questions to ask the answers are a little more complex as they require to explain a bigger context.

Rolls of mohair skin “carpets” waiting to be coated with glue and cut into various sizes.

None of the skin manufacturers (or the brands) the public knows really manufacture the plush (the hair) that holds us while we climb up a mountain. They all buy these “carpets” made by bigger manufacturers according to their specs such as the hair/fiber length, fiber density, and the mix ratio of synthetic and mohair.

Therefore, mainly, the difference between products of various skin manufacturers/brands comes from the glue mixes they use or invent, and from the skins-to-ski attachment systems.

With that, let’s focus on the glue and discussing why Contour’s glue hybrid technology could possibly become the best solution on the market.

To understand why creating a well performing glue (or skin adhesive system) is not that easy you need to consider the following requirements that the glue or adhesive system should deliver:

  1. The adhesive needs to attach the skin to the ski base surface temporarily.
  2. The adhesive needs to attach the glue to the skin carpet permanently.
  3. The adhesive should not leave a residue on the ski.
  4. It should be easy to separate the skins from each other as well as to take them off the skis even in cold temperatures.
  5. All of the above should be achieved reliably and consistently in various temperatures and snow conditions for long periods of time, ideally at least a couple of years.

All skins manufacturers have been trying to come up with the best adhesive or attachment system since the very first day. It has been an ever evolving process and a delicate balancing act.

Traditional “hot melt” glue

This type of glue is being used on the vast majority of climbing skins in the stores today.

The traditional glue as we know it is called “hot melt” in a more technical term. It means that during manufacturing the glue is being applied to the skin carpet (skin backing) at a warm temperature and it is partially absorbed into the skin backing.

Coating with the traditional “hot melt” glue.

Once in use, the temperatures are lower so the glue separates from the ski base but not from the skin carpet.

However, because the same glue needs to perform two different tasks – attach to the ski temporarily yet to the skin carpet permanently – the problem is that it’s tricky to design one type of glue mixture that performs these two tasks very well at very cold and very warm temperatures.

This means that glue mixtures need to be designed to some degree for either for warmer or colder temperatures.

Contour’s Hybrid twin layer adhesive technology

With their new technology, Contour believes they have invented the best solution so far.

One of the most remarkable things about hybrid skins is that after their stickiness have been compromised by dirt, dust or wax you can just clean them, instead of re-gluing, to restore their performance. You can clean with wipes Contour includes with each purchase or their hybrid cleaning spray:

Obviously, Contour is not the first one to claim such a thing, however, Contour Hybrid Mix skins were the top performer in the comprehensive climbing skins comparison test by OutdoorGearLab.com scoring 84 out of 100, and they summarized them as such:

  • Pros: Well balanced in all attributes, great glue.
  • Cons: Expensive, largest and heaviest messenger.
  • Bottom Line: Virtually every aspect of skin design and construction is balanced by another competing demand; the Contour Hybrid Mix walks that tightrope, creating a product that is fully balanced.

So what is Contour’s secret solution?

Instead of trying to design just one glue mixture, Contour came up with a twin-layer adhesive solution. Think of this as having a thin plastic layer (a sheet) that has two different types of glues on each side:

  • The upper layer sticks the skin firmly to the ski even at low temperatures and detaches easily without leaving residue on the ski base.
  • The lower layer binds the upper layer of adhesive to the skin backing permanently.

This might seem complex or unnecessary, however, it should reliable provide the following:

  • Less effort required to separate adhesive sides from each other
  • Easy removal from the ski
  • No need to re-glue, simply wash the adhesive layer and let it dry to restore stickiness
  • Improved ski base adhesion on multiple ascents
  • Great adhesion even at very low temperatures

Here you can find even more details explaining the hybrid technology.

Various Contour Hybrid Skins

If you are intrigued by the hybrid glue then Contour has four different products.

For best glide, check out their 100% mohair skins they call Hybrid Pure.

If you want a little more grip and added durability then their Hybrid Mix of 65% mohair and 35% synthetic would be a better choice.

Their Hybrid Free skins are an interesting product as each skin consists of 2 narrower strips that can be adjusted to whatever width you need. These skins are recommended for skis wider than 95mm. So if you have more pairs of skis then you will need only one pair of skins. They feature the 65/35 mix as the Hybrid Mix skins above.

The Hybrid Splitboard skins are of obviously for those ridding splitboards. These skins also feature the 65/35 mix as the Hybrid Mix skins.

Filed Under: Gear, Tech & Food Tagged With: Contour Skins

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Travelling through snowy mountains on skis is like flying… and experiencing life at its core.

Gear reviews, interviews, adventures, contests, skills, skimo training, race reports – we connect you to all things related to self-propelled skiing.

SkinTrack.com, created by Stano Faban, was born out of passion for ski mountaineering and ski touring. Over the years, it has become one of the most popular ski mountaineering blogs in North America.

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