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Ok, everyone has clearly got their fav picks for poles, but what do you think about the whole ucs/spirit vs pacer thing.....what about carbon fibers....are they really that much better? just curious about your thoughts....personally, i'm a spirit guy

A couple of years ago I was doing two circuits, one on the east coast and the other on the west coast. It was easier to use two different sets of poles, so I left my set of spirts in California and use a set of carbons back home. I ended up jumping 5.35 on my spirits in California and 5.40 on the pacers back home. Since then, I havn't been too partial. I've actually jumped 5.20 on an Essex pole from my short run recently, so I'm not too sure it matters. Then again, all of my pole I cut to raise the sale piece to how I like them. Lon

I love spirits. But my first three years vaulting I used pacers and skypoles. Then our school bought us like 5 new spirits all on my request cause ive heard such great things about them and my vaulting has just taken off. They are so much lighter and I love how there not as thick as any of the other poles. There the best and they have a great company running their production. Did you guys know that the current owner of pacer was the inventor of UCS. he sold the company caus ehe never thought it would take off. I learned all this from Chris Chappel, grandson of the owner of UCS.

You got that a little backwards. Steve Chappel worked for Pacer with Herb Jenks. Left and began making spirit poles. He does not own Pacer or spirit but he is one of the big wigs at spirit.

Lighter.........every study i have seen shows the spirit pole is equal in total weight and far heavier in carriage weight and that is compared to Pacer poles, not the carbons that are even lighter than both of them. Is that your opinion or could you post the study you are quoting cause for one would be interested in seeing it.

vault high vault safe
later B

Mabye the pole might feel lighter because its skinnier. Like ranbowgirl said, from give me a 16' 170 spirit and a 16' 170 pacer and im gonna jump higher on the spirit. I cant explain it. Thats just how it works.

How old are the Pacer poles??? If they are Pacer III then I can belive it. Those were pretty heavy. Although more world records were set on those poles than any other pole ever made. The new Pacer FX is the one I am talking about. Both Pacer and Spirit are made on the same mandrels as of 4 years ago so they are all the same diam/thickness. The true difference is in the responsiveness of the pole. The way it is put together (the way it returns energy). The Pacer FX and Spirit return the same (these are in lab conditions) and the Carbon FX returns more energy (aggressively) than any pole on the market. Is that good or bad.............it depends on the vaulter. Normally the more aggressive the pole the better (technically) the vaulter needs to be. But all of this is relative to the stiffness of the pole as compared to the vaulters weight. a stiffer pole will throw you higher than a softer one (dugh) but can you get into the pit with it. This could go in circles for ever.........so i will stop there.

by the way......anyone care to guess where Coach Lehman came up with KISS THE SKY??

later, B

PVjunkie,
I gather you work for gill and I have a burning question,
I use pacers that were made in the mid 90's both carbons and reg glass, love them both but of course are partial to the carbons. Any way, In the 14'6" line of glass poles, I believe it is between the 185 to the 190 & 195 there is a big diff in the diameter of the pole, it's a stretch to get my hand around them. When we look at the 15' line the 190 and 195 are smaller than the 14'6" 90 & 95 And when I look at the line of poles I use 180-195 there seems to be a smaller diff in diameters from the 180 to 195 in the 15' line compared to the 14'
6"line. I know it is purely mental, but I get stuffed on the 14'6 190 and obviously 195. Where I can jump on the 15' 190 and 195 holding the same hand grip between the 14'6" and 15'. My question is why do those two 14'6" poles have a larger dia that isn't seen in the 15' line?

Was it really that obvious or did you go to my profile??

Yes, I work for Gill but I do my best not to turn forums like this into marketing tools but try to share knowledge about poles that most vaulters out there know nothing about. Flex #'s is the one that I get the most questions on but that is a topic for another post.

The mandrel size (the base that all the glass gets wrapped around to be put into the oven) will give a pole the ability to be light or small. There is a trade off, the smaller the pole the more glass that has to be used to make it strong. Like a pipe, a thin pipe with the same amount of material as a thick one will be weaker because it is thinner. Check the engravings on your pole, the production date will be etched into the glass. If there is a large gap in the years they were made then this could explain the difference in sizes within your lengths. By the way those are some BIG short sticks, I am assuming you are a masters vaulter like me. I vault on all 4.60m (15') poles myself. There are certian points in weight increases where it is neccessary to increase one mandrel size to keep the pole weight managable (the trick here is the lower the # the bigger the mandrel). The mandrel size is on the bottom of the pole in black marker, and the mandrel size is also the tip size the pole needs (ie a 5 mandrel needs a v-5 tip, please call them tips - not butt plugs). You can also see this in the catalog, the tip size/mandrel is listed next to the pole. You will see how the bigger (stiffer) the pole the larger the mandrel. The largest mandrel is a 00 and Jeff Hartwigs poles are all on 1 or 2 mandrels. They feel like a small tree to you and me. But now to answer your ques. There is no easy answer, back before Spirit everyone wanted light poles (the evolution of carbon) then the trend shifted to smaller dia. We at Pacer lagged behind a little in reducing mandrel sizes to try and do it gradually instead of all at once. As of about 1998-1999 we matched, almost across the board, the mandrel sizes of the Spirit poles. Most of this had to do with women starting to vault, they generally have smaller hands. My guess is you have poles from several different years that were in the mandrel downsizing era of the 90's.

Man.........before i turn this into a novel............you can always call me at gill for more info, ask for Bryan (not P.V. Junkie although they will know who you are talking about).

Hope that helped

Later, B

PVJunkie wrote:Yes, I work for Gill but I do my best not to turn forums like this into marketing tools but try to share knowledge about poles that most vaulters out there know nothing about. Flex #'s is the one that I get the most questions on but that is a topic for another post.

You are more than welcome to share anytime

Thanks for the reply and I appreciated the novel. It was always bugging me because intuitively going through the pole progressions I have available it didn't "feel" like those two sticks should be that round. I know those poles were bought over a series of years in the mid 90's so it absolutely makes sense that they were from diff periods of down sizing. They defiantly feel like I'm carrying a telephone pole trying to get my hand around them.

I'm am no vaulting expert, as much as I would like to be, but that comes with time... anyways... I love spirit poles. The first pole I had to jump on was a pacer 121-140, I think it was a training pole or something, but it was stiff, I eventually bent that one a little bit. UCS spirit poles are just more comfortable to me, maybe since that's what I have gotten use to. They are a bit more flexible. I have not yet jumped on a carbon pacer but Dason (Phelps) doesn't like them, apparently they aren't any better/different.

i personally like the spirit poles better. i have no better way to say it, but it's like a grew up on them. (which i can't realy say, because im only a junior in highschool) but ewww pacers are evil! :)