Pole Decisions

I've sent an email to Kris and to my pole guy Bruce Caldwell at Essx asking them to make 4.45m (14' 7") poles for me. Whether they agree with that strategy remains to be seen and I will do whatever they suggest. I've been thinking about it lately anyway but last week Bruce accidentally made some 14' 7s for me thinking they were 14' 1s. Then today I talked to Brad Winter, who too uses 14' 7s and he just reinforced what I was already thinking. So what's the big deal?

My smallest 14' pole is roughly the same stiffness as my biggest 13' pole and I can make 13' on it but I can't make 13' on any of my 13' poles. The "sail piece" or reinforcement piece of the pole is longer on a longer pole so it tends to "pick you up" more at the take off instead of letting you travel so much forward before lifting you. If you have an active take off like I do where you jump a lot then this is something that makes sense. Or at least I think it does. I'll see what Kris and Bruce say.

My reasoning is that I feel I can easily clear 13' 6" (4.12m) on my biggest 14' pole I have but to be consistent over that and have a real shot at 14' then I need a longer sail piece which means moving to 14' 7" poles. We will find out what my experts think tomorrow. Bubba