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acacongua
Apr 30, 2007, 5:43 PM
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What is the absolutely correct way to get set up for belay? some people use only their belay loop, but I was actually taught to use the loops that the belay loop runs through rather than the belay loop (as a novice it made sense to me not to rely on a tiny loop to hold). I eventually switched it up so that I'm using the belay loop and the top loop, which is very comfortable for me. However, I was strongly advised not to use that method, but the person couldn't remember the explanation. I've caught many, many falls and have not yet had a problem.
If this is incorrect, could some point me to supporting technical information? My attempts to find the info failed.
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vegasguy
Apr 30, 2007, 5:46 PM
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Do you often take the advice from people who can not remember why they are even telling you? It’s called a belay loop for a reason. You also could have done a search about this topic which has been covered in length. Oh, you want evidence sure ok. Look at the new Petzl harnesses, they have the proper way to use the belay loop screen printed on it, suppose it’s for people like you.
Cheers,
A
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caughtinside
Apr 30, 2007, 5:48 PM
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uh oh!
you have stumbled into one of the great unsolved debates.
like yourself, I used the two tie in points for a long time to belay. Still do sometimes.
I switched to the belay loop a couple years ago, took a little bit of getting used to.
I have never tried to use the belay loop plus the top tie in... seems like it would twist your belay loop?
You'll get lots of responses that say 'it's called the belay loop for a reason!!!' but the fact is, is that belay loops are a relatively recent innovation. They are terribly convenient however.
i think most arguments against clipping through the tie ins involve crossloading the belay biner, but I have found from personal experience the belay biner can get crossloaded just as often when through the belay loop.
Hmm, that is a lot of typing just to say that 'I don't think it matters.' Maybe someone else can come up with the technical info...
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dynosore
Apr 30, 2007, 6:10 PM
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BELAY loop
clipping the top loop + belay loop is asking for triaxial loading
do either the belay loop, or the top and bottom loops, but no other combinations of the above
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acacongua
Apr 30, 2007, 6:15 PM
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vegasguy wrote: Do you often take the advice from people who can not remember why they are even telling you? It’s called a belay loop for a reason. You also could have done a search about this topic which has been covered in length. Oh, you want evidence sure ok. Look at the new Petzl harnesses, they have the proper way to use the belay loop screen printed on it, suppose it’s for people like you. Cheers, A
A. Did I say I took the advice? I'm looking into what is correct.
B. I did a lot of searching using every keyword I can drum up. when a website has been in use for years by thousands, it gets difficult to sift through hundreds of posts when you don't have the right keyword.
C. Did something crawl up your ass this today? Or are you just a jackass by nature?
(This post was edited by acacongua on Apr 30, 2007, 6:16 PM)
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shockabuku
Apr 30, 2007, 6:19 PM
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Let me give you a response in the proper rc.com format.
1. Vehement castigation for asking such a naive, stupid, foolish, or otherwise ridiculous question or for not using the search function. Assume that's done.
2. Assert my absolute moral and technical superiority. We'll dispense with that for now; it's obvious in most cases anyway.
3. Cursory answer with no meaningful explanation. I'll skip that for now.
4. Reaffirm 1. & 2. -Got it?
5. (Optional) Signature.
6. (Optional) Edit when blood pressure comes down enough to realize that the responder spelled a difficult word (example: rope) incorrectly. No need in this case since I won't be reviewing this post.
If constructed properly the response will make you angry and/or feel like an idiot and offer no or little usable information.
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kovacs69
Apr 30, 2007, 6:21 PM
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acacongua wrote: vegasguy wrote: Do you often take the advice from people who can not remember why they are even telling you? It’s called a belay loop for a reason. You also could have done a search about this topic which has been covered in length. Oh, you want evidence sure ok. Look at the new Petzl harnesses, they have the proper way to use the belay loop screen printed on it, suppose it’s for people like you. Cheers, A A. Did I say I took the advice? I'm looking into what is correct. B. I did a lot of searching using every keyword I can drum up. when a website has been in use for years by thousands, it gets difficult to sift through hundreds of posts when you don't have the right keyword. C. Did something crawl up your ass this today? Or are you just a jackass by nature?
LOL...You tell him!
JB
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acacongua
Apr 30, 2007, 6:23 PM
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caughtinside wrote: I have never tried to use the belay loop plus the top tie in... seems like it would twist your belay loop?
Actually, it doesn't twist it at all. It's more comfortable for the position of my hands when feeding slack and for when someone is on a take or when someone falls.
I asked another friend and he said he thought that Petzl warns about how my preferred method flattens the rope, but I cannot find the info.
Thanks for a nice, serious reply.
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shockabuku
Apr 30, 2007, 6:29 PM
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dynosore wrote: clipping the top loop + belay loop is asking for triaxial loading
I don't see how. The belay loop is constrained very much by the top tie in loop and so is the belay biner. Clipping both of those points is essentially like clipping only the top loop (except the biner gets twisted) and the belay loop serves to transfer some of the force to the lower tie in loop. The belay loop and top tie in loop pull at the same point on the biner - they can't separate enough to cause true triaxial loading unless maybe you rip out a significant length of the stitching on the waist belt. This method was recommended to me once to keep the belay biner in closer to the body. I used it for a while but I don't like it and don't use it anymore. It really doesn't seem to offer any appreciable advantages in most situations. Maybe it does in a cramped belay.
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dynosore
Apr 30, 2007, 6:54 PM
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think about the forces on the biner during a hard fall...the belay loop will have twist in it, which the biner will naturally try to straighten out under load, resulting in loads NOT along the spine of the biner. If you think this is a good thing, I don't know what else to say.
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caughtinside
Apr 30, 2007, 7:00 PM
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acacongua wrote: caughtinside wrote: I have never tried to use the belay loop plus the top tie in... seems like it would twist your belay loop? Actually, it doesn't twist it at all. It's more comfortable for the position of my hands when feeding slack and for when someone is on a take or when someone falls. I asked another friend and he said he thought that Petzl warns about how my preferred method flattens the rope, but I cannot find the info. Thanks for a nice, serious reply.
Interesting... I am not sure how a clip in orientation would flatten a rope. I have seen ropes that get kind of flattened, but so far as I know, this is not a problem, and I am not sure how it would be caused by belay biner orientation? I might even go so far here as to say your friend either made that up, or the information has played so many games of telephone that it is now completely different.
wierd!
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acacongua
Apr 30, 2007, 7:35 PM
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Valarc: Good info! The way I load it now (as opposed to how I was taught) is that I'm using the the belay loop as the primary "catch" for lack of better terminology. The top loop that secures the belay loop is secondary and it allows me to angle the grigri so it's closer to my body and more comfortable. So I'm not actually loading the biner in three ways (it's two with one point reinforced).
Maybe this method isn't that common? I guess two concerns is that maybe it puts too much force on the waist of the harness and the belay loop needs equal force from legs/waist. I'm also going to make a point to see if it stops my belay loop from rotating, but I find that unlikely (although I'm wrong often).
(This post was edited by acacongua on Apr 30, 2007, 7:36 PM)
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Valarc
Apr 30, 2007, 7:46 PM
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I've gotta echo what dynosore said above as well - if you're loading the biner up in such a way that the harness twists the gri gri around, then a fall is gonna torque the biner, loading it in a direction that manufacturers don't even rate. Who knows what this load would actually be, without testing it, but I personally wouldn't risk it. With a solid device like a gri gri, I'd be even more concerned about these kind of forces than with something that has some flexibility in attachment, like an ATC. I just switched to an SBG II, another solid-stem device, and I'm VERY careful about the orientation of the belay biner. I even bought a DMM belay master to minimize the chances of funky crossloadings.
If you are worried about redundancy, I would tie a hunk of webbing parallel to the belay loop, but slightly bigger, and hook through both. The idea is to never actually load the webbing, but have it there as a backup in the highly unlikely event that the belay loop were to fail. Please note that this is just an idea gotten from an understanding of basic physics, and not based on any uber climbing experience.
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billcoe_
Apr 30, 2007, 7:58 PM
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Sigh, if you bump into someone not using the belay loop, I'd just go with it. I know some real experineced people who do it that way.
-but-
Use the belay loop. Safer.
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acacongua
Apr 30, 2007, 8:43 PM
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The belay loop doesn't twist with this manner. Oh well, it's been working for 3-4 years now of 3-5 days/week of climbing consistently.
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acacongua
Apr 30, 2007, 8:44 PM
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billcoe_ wrote: Sigh, if you bump into someone not using the belay loop, I'd just go with it. I know some real experineced people who do it that way. -but- Use the belay loop. Safer.
Sigh, as stated in my posts, the loop is being used. 
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shockabuku
Apr 30, 2007, 8:53 PM
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dynosore wrote: think about the forces on the biner during a hard fall...the belay loop will have twist in it, which the biner will naturally try to straighten out under load, resulting in loads NOT along the spine of the biner. If you think this is a good thing, I don't know what else to say.
Maybe I don't have the same mental picture of how this works as you do. In the set up that I am picturing the load is held by the belay loop and top tie in loop where they cross over each other. The belay loop is constrained, by the stitching of the top tie in loop, to sit in the biner at the same place the top tie in loop sits. Therefore, they both pull at the same point on the biner. The only other application of force on the biner is by the bight of rope inserted through the belay device (or the belay device if using a gri-gri or other like type device). This gives two points of load, which, unless the biner is crossloaded (a risk at any time), will be parallel to the spine.
I'm not advocating this type of belay hook up, but trying to point out that it shouldn't triaxially load the biner since you effectively only have two points of load.
If you're talking about torque in the spine of the biner caused by the rope being in a plane not consistent with the preferred orientation of the biner - okay, you probably get some small amount of torque but I can't imagine it's very significant. Probably enough to legally qualify you as using it against the manufacturer's design however.
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Valarc
Apr 30, 2007, 9:50 PM
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acacongua wrote: The belay loop doesn't twist with this manner. Oh well, it's been working for 3-4 years now of 3-5 days/week of climbing consistently.
First, if your attitude is gonna be "it's worked all along, so why change it?", then why bother asking the question in the first place?
Second, I'm not talking about twisting the belay loop. By your own description, you say the gri gri is oriented differently using this configuration than it would be if it were clipped to only the belay loop. When the rope is weighted, it's going to tend to pull the gri gri into a different position - all of these devices are designed with certain orientations in mind. If you're belaying through the belay loop, with everything oriented as normal, the force will be on the primary axis of the carabiner and everything will be peachy keen. If, however, you're doing something funky that changes the orientation of things, it's possible that you will be arranging them in such a way that, when the rope is weighted, if could apply a force along the belay biner that's not along the major axis and therefore weakens your system. Tri-axial loading is just one of a host of potentially problematic types of loading. Perhaps there is no notable force, perhaps it will work forever without causing problems - all I am doing is pointing out potential problems with this setup.
As a final aside, be very careful about using intuition to try to figure out physics. I've been studying physics in great depth for ten years, including teaching a number of undergraduate classes to very bright students, and I have found that intuition is often dead wrong. When it comes to climbing, that statement could be quite literal.
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Valarc
Apr 30, 2007, 9:53 PM
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billcoe_ wrote: Sigh, if you bump into someone not using the belay loop, I'd just go with it. I know some real experineced people who do it that way.
I agree - and wouldn't bring it up if someone didn't ask first, as the original poster in this discussion did.
That being said, if I saw my belayer clipping to anything other than the belay loop, I would certainly ask why, and if the reason was "this is how I was taught", I would ask him whether he ever read his harness' instructions. If the answer was no, I would at least consider finding another belayer.
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vegastradguy
Apr 30, 2007, 10:12 PM
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a couple of thoughts.
in case no one has told you- the belay loop is the strongest point on your harness. its stronger than the harness, actually. if you could generate enough force for it to fail, your harness would have to kill you first and then fail before the loop would break.
backing up the belay loop with the swami is like clipping two links in a chain, while it may look okay just glancing at it, it seems that there is a much greater possibility for torquing to occur here.
one thing you should know is that carabiners are really only good for one type of directional force- in almost every other direction, they are a liability, which is why it is so important to maintain that correct orientation- especially on your belay carabiner.
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ja1484
Apr 30, 2007, 11:05 PM
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God, I fail to understand (not really - I get it - some people are complete bloody f*cking idiots) how this is still a debated topic.
EVERY major harness manufacturer states in their HARNESS DOCUMENTATION that you belay with the carabiner attached to the BELAY LOOP. This is why it is called the BELAY LOOP.
So, belay through the BELAY LOOP.
It's stronger than the goddam tie-in points anyway, by far.
Jesus.
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coastal_climber
Apr 30, 2007, 11:06 PM
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Go here: http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/pdf/s06/MM5871_A%20Tech%20Harness.pdf
>Cam
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caughtinside
Apr 30, 2007, 11:08 PM
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ja1484 wrote: God, I fail to understand (not really - I get it - some people are complete bloody f*cking idiots) how this is still a debated topic. EVERY major harness manufacturer states in their HARNESS DOCUMENTATION that you belay with the carabiner attached to the BELAY LOOP. This is why it is called the BELAY LOOP. So, belay through the BELAY LOOP. It's stronger than the goddam tie-in points anyway, by far. Jesus.
you seem impassioned on this subject, friend!
Yet, you offer no real theory or understanding, and you didn't point to anyone who was killed because of a belay biner failing...
why so riled up?
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