RRC Archives

My son has a Trango Cinch that he picked up while climbing in Poland. He loves it. I will see if I can bring it down this weekend and next. I'll be at the local rep meeting tomorrow and at the Gathering next weekend.

Rick,

I believe the idea of having the 'practice' wall is fantastic. At the gym I climb at, we've set rings up low enough to the ground so that we could instruct and allow for hands on practice for cleaning anchors.

Thanks to all who are striving to make the Red a safer place to climb by assisting those less skilled.

Geoff

On the subject of questioning the functionality of belay devices...

Has anyone ever had any trouble with Reversos?

I have never used one, but I refuse to let anyone lead belay me with a reverso anymore.

I have been short-roped on every single clip, from every belayer that has ever used a reverso to belay me. It doesn't seem to be correlated to the competence of the belayer, but the device itself.

Caspian, I have a Reverso and have used it for lead belaying without any problems at all.. I have also been belayed on lead with it. Again, no problems. The device has two modes. Used in one way, it is just like a standard tuber. It also has autolocking capability. Perhaps your belayers were using it in this mode? That's not appropriate for lead belaying.

The only reason I don't use it all the time is that I can lock off better with my ATC/XP. The Reverso is superb for multi-pitch climbing, though, as you can use it directly on the anchors.

Maybe is was just the doofs that were belaying me. Like I said, I have never used one, so my statements are a bit ignorant.

I trust you Sandy, you can belay me any time with your belay device of choice

I use a reverso outside all the time. There's two different friction modes when used as a normal ATC, and it's simply fantastic for belaying the second up a multipitch route.

I've never short roped someone because of it (of course, I may have short roped people because I didn't realize they were clipping, but that's another issue).

I prefer a reverso on multi-pitch routes because you can belay directly off the anchor.

Oh yeah, I forgot... I did smash my head that time at J-tree when I fell off of a bouldering top-out. I was knocked unconscious for a few minutes, but as soon as I woke up I sent the damn thing on the next attempt (we even got it on video).

Except for maybe a foot or two extra during clips, and with that promptly pulled reeled back in, I always keep a bare minimum of slack in the rope. I almost always stick clip the first bolt and consider everything until the third clip to be a bit "spooky." As far as I can tell, a fall while attempting a clip on the second bolt represents a grounder on a buttload of sport climbs.

ZSpider