OP, did the leader top belay you after he reached the top or something?.. it could make more sence.

Or was the guy simply giving you info on how people do things in a situation you did not realy need to know about their and then?.

Thank you for all your replies, it sounds like this technique is quite normal in the UK (where I am from). However as I am new to leading and currently only lead climb indoors I might stick to the belay loop.

Rubbish, the rope loop has been used for decades with no problems whatsoever, to quote Jack Geldard who wrote the UKC article linked above (and who is an extremely copetent and experienced climber "This 'rope loop' is extremely strong and is perfectly adequate for belaying from."
The circumstances between what you are talking about and belaying are different as the load comes on the strand to the belay and the rope loop is never ring loaded.

That assumes you are tied into the belay with the rope on a multipitch route. That's not what I was referring to. I was referring to simply using the rope loop in place of the belay loop in a general scene. If you are tied into the belay with slings...

One concept everyone here seems to be missing or unaware of is that using the tie in loop to belay off of is very dangerous in the case of using a "Yosemite finish". Apparently the roll over threshold is vastly reduced and because of the orientation of the free end back through the knot, it will fail on the first roll. A climbing mag (Gripped or Climbing, I don't remember) did some tests and warned against the Yosemite Finish for this purpose.

Sticking to the belay loop isn't going to hurt. Plus, the reasons you were given for the rope loop are all bogus and are, if I recall, debunked in the article on the UKC site I linked above.

I think the rope loop belay is superior in two situations. (1) Belaying the second from above from the harness, and (2) catching a factor-2 leader fall. Both of these are multi-pitch situations (one of which most climbers never experience) so you don't have to think about the issue until you're more experienced.

On a more estoteric note, the potential for rolling a "cross loaded" figure-8, I forgot to mention that, since the loads are coming on a loop, the knot itself is only getting half the impact force.

Moyer's tests suggest that a well-tied figure-8 can roll at 750 lbf, which would mean the rope loop would need a rather hefty 1500 lbf for rolling to occur. At that level, there is no doubt that the belayer is going to be yanked hard against the anchor, in which case tension on the anchor strand will, I think, make rolling impossible. This is, of course, doubly hypothetical in the presence of a back-up knot on the figure-8.

So all in all, there's really nothing to worry about.

On a side note. Using the tie in loops to belay off of is a less than great ideal. It rotates the belay device 90* and would cause a gri gri, cinch or smart to behave weirdly. An "atc" style device is less effected, but why????? Your 25 Kn belay loop Isn't going to fail. And if your worried it might, it's probably cus your harness is tattered and old, buy a new one dirtbag .

The tie in loop (of rope) should be in a plane essentially parallel to the belay loop but to one side of it. It should not do anything different to your belay device than the belay loop does in regard to orientation.

He's talking about the tie in loops on the harness

Correct.

As Jim says, a rethreaded bowline on a bight is better than a figure-8 anyway, but convention being what it is, it seems unlikely that anything more than a fringe group of cognescenti will adopt that knot.

As Jim says, a rethreaded bowline on a bight is better than a figure-8 anyway, but convention being what it is, it seems unlikely that anything more than a fringe group of cognescenti will adopt that knot.

I guess that's why it said "side note", huh?

This brings up why it is important to clip your belay device into
both your belay loop and the loop of the rope on multi pitch climbs. The
lead rope should be your primary anchor - your primary link from your
harness to the anchor - because it is dynamic and flexible. Your belay
biner should connect directly to the rope tie in loop so that the forces
of the belay can link directly to the anchor. Otherwise, the forces from
a severe fall would run from your belay biner to the belay loop,
to the harness, to the rope loop to the anchor. This would tend to rip
the harness apart and the results are very unpredictable. It is much
better to have the forces transfer as directly as possible to the strong
point in the system - your fully equalized, three bomber pieces anchor.

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For what it's worth, here is a worst-case scenario argument for clipping into both the rope loop and the belay loop. It is an excerpt from a short piece written back in the 1990s by Tom Jones (a harness deisgner for Black Diamond at that time).


The entire post can be found here: http://groups.google.com/...ce&output=gplain