Gri Gri Test

[robert birchell]

This is NOT in anyway a suggestion to belay with no hand on the brake end
of the rope.
I decided to test the Gri Gri with NO Brake hand on the rope.
My partner gave me 6-7 feet of slack, took both hands off the rope
and I took the fall. We did have a back up safety knot.
The Gri held. We did the test twice to try to see how much the rope
would slip thru the device before auto locking.
It was very difficult to measure but was not much.
We are not engineers, we are not experts on ropes, belay devices
or scientific testing. We are not experts on anything!!
I do not think you should try the same test. Something could go wrong.
You could die.
This is NOT in anyway a suggestion to belay with no hand on the brake end
of the rope.
IF you want to use a Gri follow Petzl's instructions.

[pumpout2004]

What is your point?

[woodchuck008]

I don't think the recent grigri incidents are totally related to NO hands on the belay rope. It's nice to know it held for your tests. I think it is more the combination of one hand holding the device loosely when the falls happen and those thinner ropes. Your instinct is to grab and hold on. Thus you sqeeze and that holds it open, not allowing the cam to self engage. Your brake hand is faithfully on duty, but now smokin' hot as the rope is buzzing through. Then you just grab on harder to the device, holding it open all the more. It's a handy device, but all our climbing instincts from other devices used call for us to grab and hold on to stop the fall. Tough to beat survival instincts.

[blakeleathers]

the best way to belay...non auto lockers.

[pawilkes]

of course it caught. do you really think people would rope solo on them if they didn't?

[toad857]

nice to see pseudo-scientific device tests.

now you just need to increase your sample size to 10,000 repeated falls... on a variety of diameter ropes.... with various fall scenarios...

....and we'll have something to talk about

[pigsteak]

and bolt hanging off the durn thing all the time..no handed...

[Shamis]

I just completed about my 15th climbing outing with my wife. I always tell her to let go when I fall. it feels about 1000x safer than the alternative.

[TradWanker]

What is your point?

To prove that no attention whatsoever should be paid to the climber while belaying. Have you ever belayed? That shit is boring as hell........

[Artsay]

Instead of testing the GriGri while taking your break hand off the rope, how about testing belaying with it *without* taking your break hand off the rope?

I recently changed my way of belaying with a GriGri so that I always feed rope through it without ever having to hold the camming device open to feed rope out to my partner on lead. I can now toss arm lengths of rope out fast and the device never auto locks. I have no idea why I haven't belayed like this sooner or why most others don't belay this way. I saw one climber belaying this way (thanks Elodie!) and it totally inspired me to try it too. I feel so much safer now and hope others will take the time to figure out how to belay with a GriGri this way too. It's all in the break hand side, making sure to feed the rope in from the top as you pull out rope through the device. Seems simple but it does take a little bit of figuring out to get it to work right. Totally worth the effort though.