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Syd
Dec 11, 2012, 11:30 AM
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Will this become the best and most versatile belay device available ?
http://vimeo.com/53332541
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lena_chita
Moderator
Dec 11, 2012, 11:36 AM
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made clicky
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potreroed
Dec 11, 2012, 12:00 PM
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Looks OK, but I'll stick with my gri gri and atc guide.
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billcoe_
Dec 11, 2012, 12:07 PM
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acorneau
Dec 11, 2012, 1:35 PM
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Wouldn't want to be belayed by this guy...
(This post was edited by acorneau on Dec 11, 2012, 1:35 PM)
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Jul belayer.jpg
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JimTitt
Dec 11, 2012, 2:21 PM
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I doubt it for several reasons, the first being it won´t take a 9-10mm single rope.
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acorneau
Dec 11, 2012, 2:32 PM
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JimTitt wrote: I doubt it for several reasons, the first being it won´t take a 9-10mm single rope.
The Mega Jul is supposed to take 7.8 to 10.5mm ropes. (See video, about 20 seconds in.)
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Syd
Dec 11, 2012, 2:41 PM
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potreroed wrote: Looks OK, but I'll stick with my gri gri and atc guide.
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JimTitt
Dec 11, 2012, 10:28 PM
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acorneau wrote: JimTitt wrote: I doubt it for several reasons, the first being it won´t take a 9-10mm single rope. The Mega Jul is supposed to take 7.8 to 10.5mm ropes. (See video, about 20 seconds in.)
I know but the video is captioned MicroJul.
We shall see how good the MagaJul is in practice, paying out slack is something one would have to get used to and nowhere near as easy as a normal plate.
The ropes themselves look horrific in real life, I´ve boot laces thicker than that!
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meanandugly
Dec 12, 2012, 12:23 AM
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Re-invention of the wheel. nothing special here. The best belay device is a knowledgeable and responsive belayer.
But thanks for showing us...does look pretty cool.
(This post was edited by meanandugly on Dec 12, 2012, 12:24 AM)
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cracklover
Dec 12, 2012, 8:59 AM
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Looks cool. Thanks for sharing!
GO
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rgold
Dec 12, 2012, 9:45 AM
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For "ordinary" half and twin ropes, the Alpine Up is, in my opinion, by far the best device available:
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surfstar
Dec 12, 2012, 10:25 AM
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Syd wrote: It seems to make more sense to pull downwards when rapping, rather than pushing up as with the Smart Alpine.
Not when the "oh shit time to brake" muscle memory kicks in.
Down = brake.
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surfstar
Dec 12, 2012, 10:26 AM
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acorneau wrote: Wouldn't want to be belayed by this guy... [image]http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=6464;[/image]
Mickey Mouse or Michael Jackson?
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rgold
Dec 12, 2012, 10:55 AM
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My TRE's all wore out. I think the UP is as good, although it works on a different principle. The UP is bulkier although probably not heavier (weight is about the same as a Grigri). You can use it in a friction mode as well as an assisted locking mode, and can belay the second off the anchor with it too.
The main competition is the Mammut Alpine Smart, which is lighter and a lot cheaper (except that you'd have to buy two Smarts to cover the range of one UP). Many people seem to like it.
For half ropes, which require near-simultaneous paying out and taking in to be effective, I think the UP beats the Smart hands-down. For singles or twins, there is less of an advantage, but for all ropes I find that the UP feeds out for clips and leader motions better than any other device on the market, including all the tubes.
I haven't tried the Edelrid gadgets, but I can see how they work and aren't interested. It is highly unlikely they will compete with the UP in rope handling ease for half ropes.
I think that peak load concerns notwithstanding, assisted braking is probably the wave of the future. Unless you are careful to buy and use a range of tube-style devices, there is a decent chance you'll pair a tube with a thin rope or ropes for which the tube's friction is inadequate.
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bearbreeder
Dec 12, 2012, 3:39 PM
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IMO the market is moving to assisted lockers ... The main concerns have been weight, usability and price
But with more refined simple ones like the alpine smart and others that a fairly light, cheaper than gri gris, and rappelable ... More people i see are adopting them
Itll be interesting to see how this affects new climbers ... Already in certain areas where most of the gyms require gri gris, you see climbers who have never touched an atc before
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jktinst
Dec 17, 2012, 8:21 PM
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Over the past couple of climbing seasons, I have been integrating into my trad multipitch technique various approaches aiming to eliminate the possibility of the leader falling directly on a mid-route trad belay or to severely limit the impact of such a fall.
Lock-assist devices that are compatible with half ropes peak my interest because of their potential application with one of those "no-FF2" approaches, which simply consists of placing and clipping the first couple of progression pros of the next pitch at arm's length from the previous pros. Of course, this requires good pro options in relatively close proximity above the belay (and when that condition is not met, another "no-FF2" approach must be used). With this approach, the belayer must keep the leader secured on the previous pro at the same time as he pays out a bunch of slack for the next clip.
The only decent practical solution I’ve found for this is to use two ropes and have the belayer hold tight on the one clipped into the previous pro while paying out slack on the other for the clipping of the next pro. Since I'm between half-ropes these days, I use 5m of dynamic 8mm in order to have the double rope technique with my single rope for the beginning of the pitch.
This may be well-known to some but it took me a little while to work it out: the only way to consistently allow the clipping rope to be paid out easily is to ensure that the held rope does not pull the ATC tight against its biner. I've found that the ATC Guide and Reverso3&4 work well for this because you can keep the device separated from its biner by gently pushing up against the small cord ring just under the "V" notches with the thumb of the hand holding the locked-off rope as shown. The ATC-XP, Verso and other units of this type work not too badly either because the thumb can push against the underside of the V notches. However, with the regular ATC, it’s much trickier and there’s a high risk of getting fingers pinched between the device and its biner if the leader falls.
(LATE EDIT: PHOTO REMOVED TO AVOID CONFUSING. AS DISCUSSED LATER IN THE THREAD - SEE POST No 29, THE TECHNIQUE SHOWN DOES NOT WORK FOR CERTAIN LOW PROBABILITY/HIGH RISK SITUATIONS AND SHOULD NOT BE USED)
The Smart Alpine seems to work well for this too. I’ve only had the opportunity to try it in the store but the unlocking hook at the front end does seem to allow using a single hand to both hold one rope tight and keep the device loose, leaving the other hand free to pay out slack. In this case, it’s even more important to keep the device loose since allowing it to jam against the biner completely locks both ropes (and that's the whole point of the device). Of course, if the leader falls before completing the clip, the belayer must stop pushing up/out against the device to be able to arrest him but that’s an easy reflex to have since you simply revert to holding down the braking rope in the usual manner.
I like the lock-assist feature of the Smart Alpine for the extra safety in case of belayer distraction (or loss of consciousness) but, with the "no-FF2" approaches I use now, the need for lock-assist does not seem so urgent and I find the Smart Alpine a bit heavy (at 125 g) and quite bulky for trad multipitches. Rgold mentioned that the Alpine Up does better than anything else at (near) simultaneous taking in and paying out of half ropes (so, presumably, also at simultaneously holding securely and paying out). This sounds very interesting but this unit seems way too heavy (175g) and bulky for trad multipitches.
This new Edelrid device looks like it should work OK for the two-rope simultaneous hold and pay out manipulation. I’d love to try it out but have not seen it anywhere yet (plus I'm quite puzzled that neither the device nor that super-skinny rope it's supposed to go with show up on the Edelrid website).
(Edited for clarity)
(This post was edited by jktinst on Dec 20, 2012, 5:01 AM)
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JimTitt
Dec 17, 2012, 11:09 PM
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You have vastly overcomplicated the issue. You just pay out the clipping rope as required and at the same time be prepared to lock off as required, exactly as you would all the rest of the time when the leader is climbing.
The MicroJul is scheduled for delivery as a rope/device set in middle March and doesn´t appear in the Edelrid product list. Whether it is to be sold seperately is not clear as the only company who advertise the rope set for pre-order do not offer the plate without the ropes.
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bearbreeder
Dec 17, 2012, 11:20 PM
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^^^^^ whuddah he said ...
there are may little thing in the bag of tricks to avoid a total loss of control of the rope in a potential fall of the belay ...
locking assisted devices are just one of em ... the others are basic skills that every multi pitch climber should know ... just like munters and biner brakes ...
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jktinst
Dec 18, 2012, 5:02 AM
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Paying out slack on the clipping rope while sliding your brake hand up the holding rope amounts to doing exactly what we keep drilling into beginners never to do: never let go of your brake hand's hold on the rope and slide it up.
Keeping hold of the both ropes while pulling out slack through the device only on the clipping rope puts a bunch of slack on the braking side of the holding rope. In case of a fall, the belayer will snap that slack down tight again but probably not before some gets sucked through the device.
The approach most people use is probably more like finding a way to wrap your braking hand around both the holding and clipping ropes so that you can tighten your grip around either one in turn while letting the other one slide through and position that hand in some intermediate position that is both a) high/out enough to allow the clipping rope to slide through the braking hand and the device without snapping the latter tight against its biner, and b) low enough that you can quickly bring down the braking end of the holding rope to arrest a fall.
I've no doubt that this works well enough for most people, especially as you get to know your own ropes of identical make and diameter. For my part, I've played around with this latter option a fair bit with other partners' half ropes, with my own older half ropes (mismatched: same size but different makes and with very different suppleness and sliding characteristics) and, finally, in the context of alternately clipping/holding my 10.3 mm single rope and the short 8mm additional rope I occasionally use for two-rope leading/belaying of the beginning of a mid-route pitch. I've found this approach to be, at best, a compromise that does not hold the holding rope as securely as it might while still ending up with occasional situations when the device will snap tight on its own and you have to jostle it to be able to resume paying out slack.
In my experience, the approach I've settled on and described above is both consistently secure and less unpredictable with the paying out. I make no apology for the overcomplication. I did not describe it to try and convince people to switch to it but to explain where I come from in evaluating belay devices in hope of finding a locking-assist one that is both light, functional and not too cumbersome.
I certainly don't claim to know all the tricks in the bag but, for my first 10 years of climbing starting in the early 80s, I was belaying trad leaders and trad seconds on nothing but munter hitches and still use that option in preference to any device for bringing up seconds that may require a tight rope, need to downclimb or be lowered, etc.
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shimanilami
Dec 18, 2012, 7:56 AM
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jktinst wrote: ... I use 5m of dynamic 8mm in order to have the double rope technique with my single rope for the beginning of the pitch ...
So after the first 5m, the leader has a bunch of rope dangling from his harness for the rest of the climb?! And you do this in the name of safety!?
Why not just tell the leader to clip at his waist and avoid the hassle?
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cracklover
Dec 18, 2012, 8:18 AM
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jktinst wrote: Paying out slack on the clipping rope while sliding your brake hand up the holding rope amounts to doing exactly what we keep drilling into beginners never to do: never let go of your brake hand's hold on the rope and slide it up.
Not sure exactly what you mean here. What you should never do is take your brake hand off the rope (which is precisely what you are doing in your pic). As for sliding your brake hand - how you got the idea that you should never do that, I have no idea. Perhaps from one of these silly 5-part belay techniques that is supposed to be "safer" than the pinch and slide? Anyway, sliding your brake hand on the rope is completely fine.
In reply to: The approach most people use is probably more like finding a way to wrap your braking hand around both the holding and clipping ropes so that you can tighten your grip around either one in turn while letting the other one slide through and position that hand in some intermediate position that is both a) high/out enough to allow the clipping rope to slide through the braking hand and the device without snapping the latter tight against its biner, and b) low enough that you can quickly bring down the braking end of the holding rope to arrest a fall.
More or less, yes. Although what you're missing is that the ropes on the brake side are split in the hand. You use two fingers for the right rope, and two for the left, and one rope runs between a couple of fingers.
Despite your protestations to the contrary, I can assure you that this technique works perfectly even on mismatched doubles. For a few years I used one single and one half rope, (8.4 and 9.7 IIRC) and never had any difficulty feeding out one while holding the other.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you could stand to spend a few minutes getting showed how to belay with doubles. I only say this because describing this method is much harder than showing it.
By the way, I think you may have a much more serious problem on your hands than a slightly unorthodox method of feeding slack, and that is using one 8mm and one 10.3, where the high fall-factor fall right off the belay is always expected to hit the skinny rope. The difference in diameter is so large that I would be really suspicious that you could hold a hard high-fall-factor fall right off the belay on the 8mm rope, like you're planning on doing. No matter how hard you clamp down, the big rope is going to be holding the belay device away from the small rope. It will start 2.3mm away, and only after it compresses 2.3mm will it begin to put friction on the small rope - the one that's doing the catching. 2.3mm is a lot of compression. And since the big rope will not be taking any load in the way you do it, it will not be stretched like the small one will be. So the relative difference between rope sizes will be even more.
Are you sure (as in, have you tried it by dropping a bag of rocks or something) that your setup actually works? It's hard enough to hold a hard fall with an 8mm rope in the first place, but holding one where the device can't fully clamp down on the rope - well, I would absolutely refuse to accept a belay from you using that technique until you'd verified that you could really control that fall.
GO
(edited typo)
(This post was edited by cracklover on Dec 18, 2012, 8:37 AM)
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cracklover
Dec 18, 2012, 8:37 AM
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I just realized that you really are locking off one rope and completely letting go of the other for every clip. I take back what I said earlier - I was minimizing your technique by calling it slightly unorthodox. Your technique is absolutely unsafe. You should be prepared to catch a fall on either those ropes at any time.
What if the climber leaves your belay, and early in the pitch, falls while pulling slack to clip a piece, and the small intermediate last piece he placed rips? You have no hand on the brake rope that's supposed to catch him on his last piece. And what's worse, if the one hand you do have on happens to be on the small rope (50/50 chance) I have very serious doubts that you'll ever be able to control the belay again.
No good.
GO
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JimTitt
Dec 18, 2012, 10:25 AM
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Is there another method than pinch and slide? If so I don´t teach it.
As you say, shuffling the ropes seperated by a couple of fingers has been the method for all of my climbing career since double ropes came into fashion and is for all trad climbers I know.
And yes, a belayer that lets go of one of the ropes is death on a stick.
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jktinst
Dec 18, 2012, 10:39 AM
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shimanilami wrote: So after the first 5m, the leader has a bunch of rope dangling from his harness for the rest of the climb?! And you do this in the name of safety!? Why not just tell the leader to clip at his waist and avoid the hassle?
No. I have the 8mm rope clove-hitched to a locker on my harness’ loop. Before starting to climb up to and lead above the 2nd progression pro, I just unclip the locker and let the belayer recover the short rope.
Clipping a single rope at the waist, you’re still leading above your last pro and, therefore, in a potential high impact/high FF fall situation for the first couple of them, even if you place those early pros fairly close together.
In answer to Cracklover, I guess I deserve the flak for briefly outlining the general principle of this particular "no-FF2" method and moving straight to some particulars of its belaying implications without providing more context or details. Your reply also helps point out to those not familiar with half rope belaying that this is by no means a standard method.
This approach of holding one rope while paying out slack on the other is applied only for the first couple of progression pros where there is extremely minimal possibility of a high FF because you’re not supposed to climb above the previous pro. As soon as the second progression pro is clipped at arm’s length from the first, things change. If we're climbing on a single rope, I've already mentioned above what happens. If we're on half ropes, I resume (or expect my belayer to resume) belaying in a fashion similar to what you describe with the braking ends of both ropes being held by the belayer’s braking hand at all times, with the fancy finger wraps so both ropes can be held or slid semi-independently to allow the "(nearly) simultaneously taking up and paying out of slack".
I admit that, even with the low FFs involved in what would basically be an extremely short top-rope fall just one or two metres out of the belay, it’s not impossible that the last pro on which the leader is being held would rip out. If that occurs while the leader is placing the next pro, I should mention that at this point, he is being belayed on both ropes. Only when he pulls slack for the next clip does the belayer switch to holding only the holding rope. This early in the lead, the slack taken for the next clip will be greater than the distance to the next lower clip on the rope being held so the fall will still get caught better and sooner by holding that rope alone.
The thread that explored the various "no-FF2" options is at http://www.rockclimbing.com/...tring=Jesus;#2386970. Each option is fairly easy to describe with a single sentence (see my long "recap" post on p.3) but when you start exploring their practical implications in detail, things get complicated pretty quickly. A few of the practical implications are discussed in the latter part of the thread and others are discussed here but I’ve come across and worked through quite a few more over the past couple of years. I have not reported back with a complete synopsis because it would require a very long post that most people would find way too complicated. The additional details provided in this post are only what I thought would be the minimum needed to answer cracklover’s criticism but should NOT be construed as representing the sum total of what to do to implement this option safely!!
Most of the practical considerations concern the leader. I’m OK with them and with managing the decision-making tree for selecting which option to apply, depending on the belay configuration and several other criteria. In terms of getting others to adopt these approaches, I’m happy if I can just get a belayer to whom I have not already shown this approach to accept it and correctly apply it to my lead.
(edited for clarity)
(This post was edited by jktinst on Dec 18, 2012, 10:48 AM)
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cracklover
Dec 18, 2012, 11:05 AM
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I've briefly looked through your posts on that thread, and I do not see a description of what you're doing to belay the leader that sounds like what you're advocating here.
So if we've all got you pegged wrong - maybe it would be best if you started from scratch and explained what you actually do. I don't care how bizarre it sounds, or "overcomplicated" it is. It's either safe enough or it isn't. And while I may not understand it based on the bits and pieces you've thrown out so far to describe it, it certainly doesn't sound safe.
GO
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jktinst
Dec 18, 2012, 7:20 PM
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The thread in question did not go into all the practical implications and resulting sequences of the different "no-FF2" approaches. I explored those later. However, your questions have led me to work through different scenarios and I have to admit that there could be a worst case situation where this technique would be more dangerous than the standard one.
Say the leader is at a point in the sequence where he is being belayed only on the short rope clipped to the first progression pro but the belayer has not yet paid out slack on the climbing rope for clipping the second progression pro and he falls. Say further that the belayer catches him on the 1st pro but that pro pops (boy, that sure was a crappy placement for it to pop on such an easy, TR-type catch with next to no slack on the rope but there you are, shit happens). He now faces a longer fall with a much higher FF to be arrested by the next clip down (a locker clipped to the CP of the main belay anchor) on a skinny short rope attached to his harness through a clove hitch on a locker.
That’s not so good. If instead, both ropes had been held by the belayer, the higher FF would be arrested more easily on both ropes together. On the other hand, if the belayer had already paid out the slack on the climbing rope at the time of the fall, this rope would again be just as ineffective at arresting the fall as if it had not been held at all: the arrest could only be done by the short rope. Even if the belayer was unable to block it, the fall would still be arrested very soon after, when the knot at the end of that short rope jammed the ATC. Of course, if instead of the first progression pro popping, it holds as it really should, then there is absolutely no problem in arresting the TR fall with only one hand braking the short rope as we do with TR falls all the time.
Still, avoiding the occasional trouble with paying out slack is not worth the risk of that one worst case scenario, no matter how unlikely. So thanks for the heads up. I expect I will switch back to standard belaying throughout. I will keep the sequence I worked out for arm’s length clipping of the first 2 pros that ensures an extremely low likelihood of high FF over those first few moves and, no, I will not detail the 20 or so steps that make up this sequence. I will say that, even though it may sound ridiculously complicated and time-consuming, with a little bit of practice on the part of the leader and the belayer, it really goes fairly smoothly and quickly although, obviously not as smoothly and quickly as just clipping the highest pro of the belay anchor and leading out from there, which seems to be what a lot of leaders prefer.
And now, I probably should stop hijacking this thread
(edited for clarity)
(This post was edited by jktinst on Dec 18, 2012, 8:21 PM)
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JimTitt
Dec 18, 2012, 10:30 PM
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I´ll admit the idea behind all this completely escapes me (and I skimmed the other thread as well). If I´m right then all your worried about is the leader falling when they pull slack to clip the second piece of gear which as pointed out above is cured by clipping at waist level or extending the gear down so the clip is at waist level.
Alternatively (and the approach I use) don´t trad climb with leaders who make a habit of falling off.
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cracklover
Dec 19, 2012, 9:25 AM
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JimTitt wrote: I´ll admit the idea behind all this completely escapes me (and I skimmed the other thread as well). If I´m right then all your worried about is the leader falling when they pull slack to clip the second piece of gear which as pointed out above is cured by clipping at waist level or extending the gear down so the clip is at waist level. Alternatively (and the approach I use) don´t trad climb with leaders who make a habit of falling off.
Yeah, I'm as puzzled as you are. I neither understand exactly what jktinst's solution is, nor what problem exactly he thinks he's solving. Oh well, to each their own.
If, as you suggest, the problem he's trying to solve is that of having a leader fall on the first piece off the belay with an armful of slack (trying to clip the second piece), the solution is simple: use doubles technique, and learn to feed rope out properly. Then, if the pieces are close enough, the leader can still be on toprope on the first piece while clipping the second.
GO
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cracklover
Dec 19, 2012, 9:33 AM
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jktinst wrote: So thanks for the heads up. I expect I will switch back to standard belaying throughout.
Happy to oblige, although I still am not sure my thoughts were really appropriate to your situation, because I'm still not sure I have a clear understanding of what you're doing. Nevertheless, if anything I said was helpful, that's good.
In reply to: I will keep the sequence I worked out for arm’s length clipping of the first 2 pros that ensures an extremely low likelihood of high FF over those first few moves and, no, I will not detail the 20 or so steps that make up this sequence. I will say that, even though it may sound ridiculously complicated and time-consuming, with a little bit of practice on the part of the leader and the belayer, it really goes fairly smoothly and quickly although, obviously not as smoothly and quickly as just clipping the highest pro of the belay anchor and leading out from there, which seems to be what a lot of leaders prefer.
No idea what you're trying to get at, but of course it's up to you whether you want feedback on your method or not.
In reply to: And now, I probably should stop hijacking this thread
Eh, how much is there, really, to say about a new device that none of us have actually had a chance to play with? It's gets old saying "looks cool, we'll see!" So the diversion was fine IMO.
One last thing - you have not responded, but I hope you'll take to heart my point about belaying with two ropes that are nearly 2.5 mm different in diameter through the same tube style device. I think this may be a major safety issue, and worth reconsidering.
GO
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jktinst
Dec 19, 2012, 8:40 PM
Post #33 of 40
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As I discussed in the referenced thread and mentioned again in my first post on this thread, the idea is to have a variety of methods on hand that allow leading out from a mid-route trad belay while avoiding altogether the risk of a fall directly on the belay anchor or greatly minimizing the impact of this fall. Clipping the first couple of progression pros at arm’s length from each previous pro is one of the ways to achieve that, provided, as you say, that you use the double rope technique and the belayer secures the leader on the previous pro with one rope at the same time as he pays out a bunch of slack on the other for the arm’s length clip, so it seems that we're in complete agreement there.
Regarding your concern about using two ropes of very different diameters with the same device, my Reverso is rated for 8mm; I have taken test falls on the short rope on this rig and arrested them myself and there was no problem. Of course, they were the short TR-type falls to be expected with this method. No doubt things would get trickier in that highly unlikely catastrophic worst case scenario I discussed above but there'll be back-ups for that, as mentioned.
About the detailed sequence of leader's and belayer's steps that translates the general statement above into practice, there's really no need to make a big deal out of it. Anyone reasonably competent in trad leading can work it out and end up with a sequence that works for them for either half-ropes or for a single-rope-plus-additional-short-rope. The two sequences are slightly different. For half-ropes, it's fine to end up with each clipped alternately, which makes for a more straightforward sequence whereas for the single-rope-plus-etc. you want to end up with the single rope clipped in all the pros after you remove the additional short rope and that makes for a slightly more complicated sequence. Other people's sequences may end up being slightly different from mine but that's no big deal.
I've already mentioned several different aspects of my single-rope-plus-etc. sequence in the previous posts. One aspect I have not yet mentioned is that although I do not like clipping the highest pro of the belay anchor and leading out from there, for this arm's length clipping method, I do clip that highest pro as the initial "previous pro" from which to clip the first progression pro at arm's length so the whole "TRing your way up to the 2nd progression pro" starts right from the belay floor. I remove that high anchor pro clip as soon as the first progression pro has been clipped.
If you really want to know all the other details, I could pm them to you.
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patto
Dec 19, 2012, 11:41 PM
Post #34 of 40
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I am so confused by the direction this thread has turned. jktinst seems to be complicating things in an amazing way.
If you want to use halfropes/twins then do so but keep a hand on the brake side of BOTH ropes while belaying.
If you want to avoid a FF2 the doing so is simple. If there is no good pro above the belay then belay from BELOW the anchor and suddenly there is good pro above the belay.
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bearbreeder
Dec 19, 2012, 11:51 PM
Post #35 of 40
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patto wrote: I am so confused by the direction this thread has turned. jktinst seems to be complicating things in an amazing way. If you want to use halfropes/twins then do so but keep a hand on the brake side of BOTH ropes while belaying. If you want to avoid a FF2 the doing so is simple. If there is no good pro above the belay then belay from BELOW the anchor and suddenly there is good pro above the belay.
^^^^ whuddah he said ...
additionall if you are worried about "losing control " ... make a guess of how far away the first piece is ... tie a knot that far down the rope ... and youre basically guaranteed thats how far youll fall even if your belayer loses control ...
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jktinst
Dec 20, 2012, 4:36 AM
Post #36 of 40
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patto wrote: jktinst seems to be complicating things in an amazing way.
patto wrote: If you want to use halfropes/twins then do so but keep a hand on the brake side of BOTH ropes while belaying.
patto wrote: If you want to avoid a FF2 the doing so is simple. If there is no good pro above the belay then belay from BELOW the anchor and suddenly there is good pro above the belay.
bearbreeder wrote: additionall if you are worried about "losing control " ... make a guess of how far away the first piece is ... tie a knot that far down the rope ... and youre basically guaranteed thats how far youll fall even if your belayer loses control |
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cracklover
Dec 20, 2012, 8:02 AM
Post #37 of 40
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jktinst wrote: Regarding your concern about using two ropes of very different diameters with the same device, my Reverso is rated for 8mm; I have taken test falls on the short rope on this rig and arrested them myself and there was no problem. Of course, they were the short TR-type falls to be expected with this method. No doubt things would get trickier in that highly unlikely catastrophic worst case scenario I discussed above but there'll be back-ups for that, as mentioned.
My concern is not about holding the fall on the small rope (although it might well be impossible for you on your Reverso with a big high fall factor fall) but holding it on the small rope with a fat rope keeping the Reverso from clamping down on the small rope.
In reply to: If you really want to know all the other details, I could pm them to you.
No thanks. I'm quite happy with the way I do things. It's entirely up to you whether you want input on the way you do your thing.
GO
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jktinst
Dec 20, 2012, 10:04 AM
Post #38 of 40
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cracklover wrote: My concern is not about holding the fall on the small rope (although it might well be impossible for you on your Reverso with a big high fall factor fall) but holding it on the small rope with a fat rope keeping the Reverso from clamping down on the small rope.
However, with the technique I describe of using a short thinner rope to allow the use of the half-rope technique over the first couple of progression pros only, the belayer is clearly expected to hold and pay out both strands completely independently (even if he does not let go of either) and losing track of which is which would seems pretty far-fetched.
Or is this the same thing again as this other comment you were making earlier?
cracklover wrote: ...For a few years I used one single and one half rope, (8.4 and 9.7 IIRC) and never had any difficulty feeding out one while holding the other.... ...By the way, I think you may have a much more serious problem on your hands than a slightly unorthodox method of feeding slack, and that is using one 8mm and one 10.3, where the high fall-factor fall right off the belay is always expected to hit the skinny rope. The difference in diameter is so large that I would be really suspicious that you could hold a hard high-fall-factor fall right off the belay on the 8mm rope, like you're planning on doing. No matter how hard you clamp down, the big rope is going to be holding the belay device away from the small rope. It will start 2.3mm away, and only after it compresses 2.3mm will it begin to put friction on the small rope - the one that's doing the catching. 2.3mm is a lot of compression. And since the big rope will not be taking any load in the way you do it, it will not be stretched like the small one will be. So the relative difference between rope sizes will be even more.
I really could not make head or tails of it at the time, but since you were talking about arresting high factor falls, and this is exactly the opposite of what the technique I describe is doing, I didn’t pay too much attention to it. Between the two comments, you seem to be saying that having a fatter rope in the other slot of the Reverso3 would actually prevent it from working properly on the thinner one. I really fail to see how that could happen and have definitely not experienced anything like it. My Reverso3 hits its biner as soon as I start braking and certainly appears to do so just as fast if I have the 10.3 & 8 mm ropes in it or the old 2X8.5mm. I also feel no difference in braking the 8mm with or without the 10.3 beside it.
Once the Reverso has slammed against the biner, it is providing the maximum braking capacity that it can. The rest depends solely on where and how tight I hold the braking ends. Since you belayed on the 8.4 and 9.7 mm for years, did you notice that the 8.4 was not braking properly? The difference is not as marked as 8 vs 10.3 but it’s still pretty wide. Your reasoning should apply in that case as well.
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cracklover
Dec 20, 2012, 10:48 AM
Post #39 of 40
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After thinking more about it, with a standard tube-style device the particular concern I was trying to express is not a real one. Sorry for any confusion!
GO
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jktinst
Dec 20, 2012, 11:12 AM
Post #40 of 40
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Ah, but going back to the original subject of this thread, you’re absolutely right when it comes to brake-assist devices that work by pinching the ropes between the biner and the device. The two ropes must be of the same diameter for the brake-assist to work properly, which means that if I were to switch to one of those, I would definitely have to change the short rope.
When I tried the Smart Alpine in the store, I brought my own gear to avoid having to borrow rope, harness, biners, etc. and for the rope I just brought one of the old 8.5mm, so, of course, it worked fine.
(edited to add 2nd par.)
(This post was edited by jktinst on Dec 20, 2012, 11:25 AM)
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