What do you do when the crampons you already own, don’t fit the boots you just bought? And by don’t fit, I mean the boot can slide around on the crampon until it ends up being so far forward that the front welt of the boot covers half the front points. This is not a comforting feeling.
This what the Cyborgs looked like before:
Stock image from Black Diamond stock photo via Google images
Note the three holes… I’m going to bet that BD doesn’t use separate stamping tooling to manufacture these and the only difference between the the strapped (CLIP) version and the wired (PRO) version is the removal of the vertical tabs. This is the assumption that I made anyway.
The front of my boot are too narrow to be stopped in the right place by those two vertical tabs that are riveted to the plastic strap. Removing the two tabs was the easy part.
And after removing that front strap.
The trick was getting the wire into the holes (really hoping that the 2nd hole would fit my boots, turns out it did).
The details of what’s been done.
Now the crampons fit my boots well (Mammut Mamook Thermos) and I’m really happy with the way things turned out. And now these will also work with my telemark ski boots too. I’m sure this is not covered by Black Diamond’s warranty, and I would also doubt they’d approve of this modification. For me, it was worth it to not buy new crampons and get what I already own to work for the price of two toe bails.
Details to note:
1) Don’t use a grinder that might cause excessive heating and de-temper the steel
2) Don’t excessively bend/flex the wire which might weaken it
3) Do this at your own risk
4) A vice is helpful (more so if its jaws are wooden and the spikes can dig in lightly)
At the gear swap this past weekend, picked up two Titan picks for $5. They were both blunted flat at the tip, and after resharpening them I only lost about 2mm off the length. Spending the time to resharpen was completely worth it and given what they cost new (each).
