I don't think the carbon fiber poles will tolerate any holes without losing most of their strength.

An aluminum tubing cross bar will tolerate a lot of holes. I use a thin wall 5/8" od aluminum tube for the top cross bar if I need to drill holes. It slips right over the 1/2" barbed plumbing fittings.

Take a look at the ZPacks Exo pack for a method of attaching shoulder straps without drilling holes in the carbon fiber spars. Here's a link:


http://zpacks.com/backpacks.shtml






Edited by DJ2 (11/19/11 03:42 PM)