TLDR skip to second post for review viewtopic.php?f=63&t=31803&p=401791#p401791
Preamble
I started using poles in 2013 during my trip to Nepal. These were a pair of cheap twist lock aluminium suspension spring poles that weighed about 290g per pole without tips/baskets. I found that poles helped me for ascents and descents with a full pack.
Since 2015 I have moved to quick adjust flip lock poles, and various Carbon fiber trekking poles. I've had a few carbon fiber poles from various Chinese brands. I tried the lighter twist lock poles, but as I regularly adjust poles for terrain and I find the quick locks quicker and handier.
In 2015 I picked up a pair of Pioneer branded carbon fiber poles. A three part quick lock pole, the top handle part (with too much eva foam padding imho), and is made of aluminium alloy, while the lower two pole sections are made of carbon fiber. Not a bad pole, weighing 203g without tips/baskets.
When I started using hiking pole tents for my local and overseas trips, I relied on the poles for double duty.
On a trip to the Europe I had planned on borrowing a set of my friend's hiking poles over in Slovenia for my trip to the Azores to use with my Axeman hiking pole tent (viewtopic.php?f=63&t=28191). Both her poles however were twist lock, so I ended up getting a pair of these from Amazon Germany https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Trekking-Ant ... B07DHD5Z7J sent over within a week. Good poles, branded Suolide, similar to the Pioneer branded pole mentioned above, the top section is made from aluminium alloy, while the two lower sections are made of carbon fiber. With less handle padding than the Pioneer pole, and slightly smaller flip locking mechanism, the poles weighed 170.5g each, without tips/baskets.
Good pole again, however, I found that when I travelled between countries, to fit the poles safely in my checked luggage on planes, I dismantled all three sections and stowed together in my backpack.
This might have caused some issues as at the end of my 5 weeks hiking the Azores islands, I discovered that one of the hinge pins for the locking mechanism had become loose and fallen out. I spent a day walking around to building sites in my poor Portuguese and asking around until I found someone who happily gave me a nail that was the perfect diameter. I used my trusty multi-tool to bend the nail in place, snip the excess and file down the sharp edges.
A year later hiking in the Caucausus in Georgia, I found that the hinge pins on the other Suolide pole were also exhibiting the same problem, so again, I wandered around a village and found some guys working on a shop fitout and asked if they had some nails of the same size, and they gave me four. I knocked out the remaining hingepins on my poles and replaced them with the nails. The pole and my fix has held up again for the past year and half of use now, working out perfectly during trips through the rest of the Caucasus and in Patagonia. I had considered trying to find replacements https://cascademountaintech.com/collect ... arts-locks but after my DIY fix, the locks held fine when used to hold up my tents even in windy conditions.
I now also use my hiking poles as a DIY tripod, using the two poles, some cordage, a silicone rubber band and my octopus tripod. Link to my DIY hiking pole tripod setup viewtopic.php?f=23&t=31801