Thanks again for responding. I thought I was crazy. I kept thinking “Now why would randonee racers want such a vice like grip? They want to go fast, no?”

All the BD mohairs I tested have been better than that. Like I think I said or at least alluded to before, they don’t have the glide that some of my thinner, longer haired mohair skins have had, but they worked and had better glide than my nylons. In my experience, most mohair skins require some break-in before they get the really silky glide, not sure why, but my theory is the break-in physically removes the shorter more grabby fibers. If necessary, I break mine in by skiing down the hardpack at a resort with the skins on. Best to do this on a moderate angle slope, as you don’t want to be trying to edge and thus wear out the edges of the skins.

Interestingly, if you compare skins side-to-side you can actually feel how glidy they are by running your fingers over the skin. Mohairs should feel pretty slick in comparison to some of the nylons out there, though there are nylon skins that are quite glidy out of the box. The G3 Alpinists we tested a while back were like that, though once they had a bunch of days on them they lost a lot of glide due to the fibers getting shorter.

But back to your bad experience, your skins sound like they’ve got some kind of defect, like perhaps you ended up with a nylon/mohair mix and the fibers are too short and stiff. Or something like that.

One suggestion to BD is that they make the mohair/nylon mix skins a different color, or at least make the nylon fibers a different color, so the consumer can be certain about what they have.

As for the 100% mohair skins, I’d encourage BD to simply make sure those suckers glide like crazy. That’s why people buy ‘em.

As for waxing skins for glide, doing so helps a bit but you do it more to prevent ice build. Same with the sprays available. If the skins don’t glide good without wax, waxing them isn’t going to help a whole lot, and in my experience it wears off pretty quick.

ONE OTHER THING: When using wall-to-wall skins on a wider ski than you’re used to, they can feel like they have quite a bit LESS glide than they should. I’ve had this experience a number of times. So be careful to compared apples to apples.

From the BD product thread:

Lou, could you please comment on this supposed “break in” period with regard to glide on these BD mohairs?

I got a pair (primarily because our local shop was out of mixed or nylon in the width I needed) and thought I’d just “treat” myself.

They did not glide. Period. I didn’t read in the instructions that they needed to be waxed or otherwise treated in order to actually move up a hill. As far as climbing, they had an alligator like grip. Let’s just say it was a rather exhausting day. They were not glopping in the least, though I should mention that I used them on a pair of skis 155cm 120-95-xx, which is wider than I normally ski and they were cut wall to wall.

I held my group up substantially and we missed 2k vert because of daylight issues. It was a rather miserable day. Any suggestions would be appreciated. (Is it possible they are defective? ) I’ve had every skin under the sun in my career, even the glue plagued G-3’s, and this was the worst performance of any skin I’ve ever used. My friends said from what I was experiencing, they were performing like the old “snake skins”. Just no glide whatsoever. I did end up waxing them, but ……. still no glide. Conditions yesterday were 11? new powder in the process of getting a freezing rain crust, I was last in line (obviously).
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It was an 8 mile hike w/ 4.5kk vert. cut short because of these skins and the daylight issues. Is the break in period about 28miles or what?