Ski straps, and the one length that does the most jobs

The three jobs a strap does

Worth laying out, because the third one is the reason experienced skiers carry them and the reason this page exists at all.

• 1. Carrying. Skis clipped base to base and strapped at tip and tail become one rigid object you can shoulder, instead of two that slide apart in a parking lot. The carrying guide covers the technique, which is free.
• 2. Securing. A load on a roof bar, a board in a trunk, a pair of poles to a pack. A strap that holds tension in the cold is doing something a bungee cord is not - the rack page is the proper answer for a roof, and a strap is the supplement.
• 3. Getting off the mountain. The one nobody buys for and everybody is glad of: a strap will hold a delaminating boot cuff together, splint a snapped pole, lash a failed binding closed enough to ski down slowly, or keep a loose boot sole on. None of that is a repair. All of it is the difference between skiing down and walking down.

Who each of these is for, and who should skip it

• One adult, one pair of skis: the 20 in. The length that covers the most jobs. Buy one, keep it in the jacket.
• A family, or more than one pair of skis: the 3-pack. Because the real problem is not cost, it is that the only strap you own is in the other car.
• Kids' skis and poles: the 15 in, as a second strap rather than a first.
• Skip all of them if you only ever drive with skis inside the car. A ski sleeve or a bag is the better spend - ski bags, and the empty weight nobody checks.
• Skip them as a rack substitute. Straps are not a mounting system and nothing published here suggests they are.

What this page ranks on, and the number nobody publishes

• 1. Published length. The only figure that decides what a strap can go around. 15 in and 20 in are the two standard lengths with the aluminum buckle.
• 2. Buckle material. Aluminum against plastic, and it is the real durability difference: a plastic buckle on a cold strap is the part that snaps. Voile publishes aluminum.
• 3. Body material. Stretch polyurethane with a UV-inhibiting additive, which is what keeps tension where a nylon strap goes slack and what stops a strap left on a roof rack perishing over a summer.
• 4. Not load rating, because none is published. We looked for a breaking strength or working load from Voile and could not find one on a page we could reach; the usable-circumference figures that retailers quote disagree with each other, so this page does not quote any of them. If you need a rated tie-down for a highway load, buy a rated tie-down.

The three, compared

There is not much between them, and that is the finding: these are the same strap in two lengths and two pack sizes. The decision is length first, count second, and the only wrong answer is buying one 15 in strap and expecting it to carry adult skis.

The picks

Voile Strap, 20 in Aluminum Buckle

The pick, and the single most useful length. Published as a 20 in stretch polyurethane strap with a heat-treated aluminum buckle. Twenty inches is enough to wrap a pair of adult skis with the brakes interlocked, enough to go around a snowboard and a roof bar together, and still short enough to tension properly on something smaller.

The aluminum buckle is the part worth paying attention to. Plastic buckles go brittle in genuine cold - a buckle you tension at 10F with gloves on is being asked to do something a cheap one fails at, usually at the least convenient moment. And the stretch polyurethane body is what keeps the strap tight: a nylon strap tensioned in a warm garage is slack by the time the car reaches the hill, where a rubber strap pulls back as the load settles.

Honest cons. No load rating or breaking strength published, so it cannot be compared numerically with anything - and it is not a rated tie-down. No MSRP, no warranty term, and no spec page from Voile we could reach. At 20 in it is too long for very small loads and too short for a fat board plus a thick rack bar. And it is not a substitute for a rack.

Voile Straps 3-Pack, Aluminum Buckle

The honest family answer, and the only reason to pick it over singles is the count rather than the saving. Published as three aluminum-buckle straps in UV-resistant polyurethane.

One strap is never the number you need. A two-adult household has two pairs of skis to carry, the strap that was in the jacket last trip is in the other jacket, and the one in the car is under the boot bags. Three means one per car and one spare, which is the configuration that actually gets used.

The UV-resistance point is published for a reason: the failure mode for a strap is not snapping under load, it is perishing in sunlight on a roof rack across a summer. If yours live outside, this is the detail that matters.

Honest cons. The per-strap price is only marginally below buying them individually, so this is a convenience purchase rather than a value one. The pack's length is not stated as clearly as the singles are, which on a page whose only real spec is length is a genuine gap. Same missing load rating and warranty. And three straps is more than a one-pair household will ever use.

Voile Strap, 15 in Aluminum Buckle, and why it carries the skip

The short one: same published aluminum buckle and polyurethane body, five inches shorter, and the cheapest item in this round. It is genuinely the right strap for a junior ski pair, where a 20 in strap has so much tail left over that it flaps, and for strapping poles to the side of a pack.

It carries the skip because as a first strap it is the wrong choice - it will not reach around adult skis and a rack bar, which is the job most people are buying for. Buy it second. If you are kitting out a child, the kids' ski roundup is where the rest of that list lives.

Honest cons, beyond the length: easy to lose, which is the real argument for the multi-pack over singles. No load rating, MSRP or warranty published. And no reachable spec page from Voile for any of these.

If the strap is going on a car

One thing to be clear about, because it is a safety matter rather than a gear preference: a strap is not a rack. Nothing Voile publishes claims it is, and a load held to a roof by rubber straps alone is a load that can leave the roof.

• Use a proper carrier for a roof load. Car ski racks, and the part nobody checks before buying one and roof boxes, and the published ski length nobody checks.
• Use straps as the supplement. Bundling a pair of skis into one unit before it goes into the carrier, or stopping a board sliding in a trunk.
• Inside the car beats on top of it for most families on most trips - warmer bindings, no wind noise, no fuel penalty, and no load to check at every stop.
• If you are flying, this is a different problem. Getting ski gear to the mountain without losing a day to it.

The repairs a strap actually gets you out of

Not a maintenance list - a list of things that have ended other people's ski days. A strap in a jacket pocket turns several of them into a slow run down.

• A boot buckle or power strap that tears off. Wrap the cuff, tension it, ski down carefully. This is the most common one.
• A delaminating boot sole. Hold it together well enough to walk and to clip into a binding, then see why sole condition matters to the binding.
• A snapped pole. Splint it against the lower section. Ugly and it works.
• A pack strap or a zipper pull that fails. Not elegant, but it gets the bag to the car.
• What a strap cannot fix: anything structural on a binding. If a binding has moved or a screw has lifted, that is a shop job and skiing on it is not worth the risk - bindings, explained without the shop jargon.

For the repairs that happen at home rather than on the hill, the gear repair kits page covers tears, seams and zippers, and the maintenance schedule says when to check what.