gripster wrote:this has went from a gay argument to a super gay argument. anyone who uses a bowline is just trying to be "different". i am afraid of tying anything other than a figure 8 myself because it is easy, hard to screw up, and i know it works.
AFRAID....that is your clue that you have no business out there.
plus, you must climb trad, and never fall on your knot. fall a few times, you'll change your mind.
no unfortunately i fall quite a bit. however it is usually the complete pump that makes it so damn hard to untie the knot. if you keep your figure eight nice and neat then it usually isn't too bad to untie.
and the last thing i want to worry about is whether or not i tied some stupid not correctly (because i am not used to tying it) when i am about to eat it at the anchors. so maybe not afraid so much as one less thing to worry about.
rustyvasectomy wrote:
Bow line is more dangerous. Fact. Done.
I have to disagree. A PROPERLY tied bowline is every bit as safe as a figure eight. A good keeper knot is part of the equation, here. Does anyone on here personally know someone that has had their bowline come undone? I know 15 people that exclusively tie the bowline and not one has had it come undone. Thats a pretty good sample space, I'd say.
And for anyone who has had one come undone, I bet it all began from a bad keeper knot.
P.S. everytime i tie in, i give the knot a little test-tug to make sure its legit. if the bowline gets tied wrong, it either looks FUBARed or it will instantly fall apart.
Savage wrote:
I have to disagree. A PROPERLY tied bowline is every bit as safe as a figure eight. A good keeper knot is part of the equation, here. And for anyone who has had one come undone, I bet it all began from a bad keeper knot.
A partially tied figure eight with no keeper knot will hold.... thus, figure eight is safer. done.
During each step of the knot tying process, there is a probability something will go wrong. It may be very low, but there is still a probability. By adding more and more complexity to your knot, the probabilty of doing something wrong gets bigger and bigger. simple math...
"It’s a not so secret secret that people who call themselvs trad climbers dont actually climb. They just post shit on rocklimbing.com all night while masturbating to Parrollelojams."
As with using my gri gri, I have now been informed that for 10 years I have endangered myself by tying a bowline instead of an 8. To all who have climbed with me for the past 10 years, I am sorry you almost saw me die!
I am so glad there are gumbies on here to teach me the Facts.
As for it being my DUTY to look after gumbies, Wrong. This is why gumbies are to be avoided if at all possible.
I was climbing at Squamish (subtle spray but I got my ass handed to me trying to crack climb) and a gumbie party below us top roping a finger crack had the nerve to ask us to stop climbing until they got their party through - they were afraid of rock fall. That took gumbieness to a whole new level.
Oh and as far as putting my shoes on - I swing both ways.
More than 10'000 pitches and hundreds of whips never used anything but a double bowline. Have never heard of anybody falling because of a properly tied bowline coming undone. Constantly here of people getting dropped by bad belayers but no knots coming undone.
