RRC Archives

There was good tech tip drawing in a recent mag about how to lower the second with a reverso. I can't find it online--I was going to post the URL. Anyway, it involved girthhitching a long runner from your belay loop up through the power point and down to the biner break in your reverso setup. You then lean back on it with your weight and it releases the locked up biner. Kinda like a pulley system. I haven't tried it but a friend has and he said it worked OK but was kinda slow. Check your mag archives.

Nice description. But you need to run the runner up and down through a point higher than your power point. The times I've done it I ran the runner through one of the anchor points.

The instructions on how to release it did not come with it when I bought mine. I just figured out my method via trial and error while dangling in the gym.

You know, now that I think about it, I think I learned how to release it from looking at a AMGA website. My bad, in fact I'm sure I didn't get it from the manual. I need more coffee. There used to be a website with nice pictures on how to do it exactly.

I got mine before they were available in all those new fangled colors, too.

overhung wrote:There used to be a website with nice pictures on how to do it exactly.

yeah but the link is broken and the organization doesn't appear to be together anymore. thanks for clearing that up.. i was feeling pretty stupid for a while there

cowboy wrote:There was good tech tip drawing in a recent mag about how to lower the second with a reverso. I can't find it online--I was going to post the URL. Anyway, it involved girthhitching a long runner from your belay loop up through the power point and down to the biner break in your reverso setup. You then lean back on it with your weight and it releases the locked up biner. Kinda like a pulley system. I haven't tried it but a friend has and he said it worked OK but was kinda slow. Check your mag archives.

Climbing. Jan 2005. pg. 90.
It's not up on the website yet.

I, like others, bought mine before it came with any kind of description on how to release the device. Its good to see that Petzl has rectified that problem.

I knew when I got it that I could escape the belay and get out of it (but was not ready on Foxfire to do that and too ill prepared to pull it off) but thought that to escape the belay everytime your second fell would be too cumbersome to be reasonable.

Thank s for the info. I might have to dig the sucker back out and play around with it a bit.

There's an article in either Climbing or Rock and Ice in the tips section that explains how to do this in great detail. Unfortunately i do not have the magazine with me, so i cannnot tell u the exact issue, but it was in the last 3 or 4 months.

Paul,
When the reverso is in the auto-lock mode, you end up with two binners.
Take the binner that is NOT hooked up to anything...
Place a sling on it...
Ideally, that sling will be about 10 inches short of reaching your foot...
Place your foot inside the loop...
SLOWLY press the down with your foot...

Just make sure you try this when your climber is like 1/2 foot off the ground - so you can get a feel for it. Next time out, you'll either love the reverso, or you will kill someone.