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Quarks vs cobras


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Keep in mind the Quark is a very versatile tool, and its swing varies by what modular components one chooses.

 

For steep ice: no hammers, pick weights (additional $$ from stock configuration), trigrests WITH the trigger and the grip installed AND 3m shaft tape make the best pure ice tool I have swung. Very nice and very accurate swing.

 

But try it without hammers and pick weights and not so much.

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Keep in mind the Quark is a very versatile tool, and its swing varies by what modular components one chooses.

 

For steep ice: no hammers, pick weights (additional $$ from stock configuration), trigrests WITH the trigger and the grip installed AND 3m shaft tape make the best pure ice tool I have swung. Very nice and very accurate swing.

 

But try it without hammers and pick weights and not so much.

^^^^^This Guy knows^^^^^

 

I also love the quarks for the price, $500 for a pair as opposed to $680 for cobras. But if you have cobras already

Edited by Eric K
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It is kind of a toss up, I like and dislike certain things about both tools.

 

The Cobras are the most naturally swinging tool I have ever used. Just beautiful - swings from the shoulder like a great framing hammer. The down side is the hammers/adzes are tiny and the laser cut picks are inferior to Petzl's forged designs. Add bigger hammers/adzes and the swing is not as well balanced.

 

The Quark requires the Charlet-Moser/Petzl wrist flick/elbow drop thing. For me, not as natural as the Cobra and is too light without head weights. The hammer and adze are smaller than I like but better than BD's. If they had made the hammer and adze bigger (heavier) the tool would be better balanced for pure ice climbing IMNSHO.

 

I recently bought Quarks because I found them on sale for $199 each. I'm still looking for the head weights from my old Pulsars. I'm sure I have them somewhere...

Edited by DPS
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Like asking a bunch of rednecks if Ford or Chevy trucks are better.

 

FWIW I like my Cobras but wouldn't have picked them if I had to pay full retail.

 

Off topic, but I got to play with the newest BD Fuel and Grivel Tech Machines at the store recently and both felt pretty sweet. The

Grivel particularly felt well balanced and snappy. Maybe someone who has put some pitches on one of these will chime in?

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my friend used his brand new tech machines a couple weeks back for the first time. Asked him what he thought after the first day and described them as like nomics but slightly different, so there's that. they're 55 g heavier per tool than the nomics.

 

I really want to try the fuels. seem like they could be a better alpine tool option than the nomics if they can climb ice!

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Is that what you have Dru? Those have always looked pretty sweet, but I don't see many using them.

 

I have a pair of BD Fusions, a pair of the Cassins (I think mine are the X Dry, but the same ones are now the X All Mountain) and a pair of Quarks.

 

The Fusions are ass. They are heavy and the grip is dumb. They bounce when I swing them.

The Cassins are the best tool I've ever used. Been ice climbing for 20+ years. They also DT better than the Fusions.

The one area the Cassins let me down is in alpine snow climbing. The geometry puts your hand more in the snow than with the Quark and they don't plunge shaft quite as well.

 

So I use my Quarks on spring/fall alpine routes and the Cassins on everything else and loan the Fusions to people that want to try out ice climbing.

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Drew, can you comment on how Cassin's compare to the Nomic? It's obvious that the Nomics are amazing and are the tool de jour, but I've heard a few people just RAVE about the Cassins. I don't know if anyone I've talked to has climbed with BOTH to make a comparison. I don't put much weight into a rave review without comparing it to the gold standard (Nomic). I'm talking about a tool for steep, sustained waterice, not alpine ice/snow or mixed.

 

Are the X-All mountain:Nomic the Totem:Camalot?

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X all mtns have shit grips. If they had a little more substantial grip they'd climb steep ice better. If you're not a weeny like me though you'll have no trouble sending WI6 with them, I just like having the big nomic grip to hang off of. On a related note, the X dreams seem to climb really well and I know a lot of people really like them. I've only used them drytooling so I can't comment on their steep ice ability, but I will venture a guess that they kick ass.

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I haven't climbed too much with Nomics but the Cassins weigh about the same and have pretty much identical clearance over bulges. I didn't really notice any difference in grip utility, but that was using thin gloves. Might be different with thicker gloves. The Cassin grip is definitely simpler and less adjustable than the Nomic. I think the only difference between the X Dry, X Dream and X All Mtn is the grip, and at least on the model I have, it's designed so you can take the whole one piece grip off the shaft and replace it with a different model grip if you want.

 

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Thanks Drew. I'll be getting the X-dreams afterall. I've climbed on nothing but Cobras for 14 years. Living in Utah didn't feed the ice stoke too much. Only so many times you can climb a route before you just don't care anymore. Doing BBB in ouray rekindled some stokage, and there are some nice looking climbs out East worth dusting off the kit for.

Edited by layton
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