part of it may well be the climber holding the device open too long ... thats one of the biggest issues with any assisted locker whether its the grigri or the smart as well ...

but then i usually use a smart or gri gri anyways

You should be able to hold a leader fall on a Cinch or grigri holding the device handle open. If you can't, you are always at risk of this kind of incident be there wear, stray debris in the device, or any other reason.

You mean "One" surely, there isn´t a chance in hell I´d ever belay with a Cinch.
With a Grigri fully open it functions as a fairly poor belay device but only fairly poor, I tested this once and it is something like half a powerful as an ATC and certainly enough for lowering but really marginal for abseiling. With a Cinch the rope runs virtually straight through with the obvious consequences.

You mean "One" surely.

You should be able to hold a leader fall on a Cinch or grigri holding the device handle open. If you can't, you are always at risk of this kind of incident be there wear, stray debris in the device, or any other reason.

I saw it happen beside me at a crag in 2011.

Has anyone ever had issues with the Cinch failing to catch on big lead falls? I know of someone who just dropped a climber while belaying with a Cinch. I have never had any problems and have not been able to recreate the incident in any configuration other than loading it backwards. FYI, the belayer is emphatic that they loaded it right.
Not looking to start an argument with this thread, just data gathering.

Nothing 'inexplicable' about it, these folks weren't belaying as they had abdicated that responsibility to the device which can and does bite you hard when you do this with any auto locking device.

It's pretty fundamental, assume the device may not lock up for some reason and belay accordingly.

The problem is that if the device does not lock up, there may be no reasonable way to belay "accordingly," that is, in a manner that would stop the fall. There are lots of climbers harboring the illusion, for instance, that if they were to thread a Grigri (I) backward that they could catch a fall. They're wrong. A top rope fall? Maybe. A lead fall of any significance? No. The device simply does not provide enough braking force (or force multiplication) in this configuration. I'm no expert on the Cinch, but I suspect that there are situations, perhaps rare, in which the device does not lock and does not provide sufficient braking force to enable the belayer to stop the fall.

Jay

There are lots of climbers harboring the illusion, for instance, that if they were to thread a Grigri (I) backward that they could catch a fall. They're wrong.

Yeah, that would probably have been the better word, but my point really isn't directed at the Cinch per se so much as at all autoblocking devices. 'One' should be able to catch a fall with the handle pulled open on any of them if you are really 'belaying'.

There isn't an autoblocking device made I couldn't hold a leader fall just fine with the device held open.

Pretty simple, just brake over the thigh - it ain't rocket science.

More than adequate.

What minimum braking force do you believe that a held-open braking-assist belay device (especially with a thin, slick rope) provides?

Jay

That´s easy, I´ve just pull-tested some. A quick and dirty test as I´m not going to set-up the standard pulling angle that is usually used so this one is straight through and the values are a bit higher than usual, probably ca.20%.
Used 10mm rope, I don´t own any thin single ropes.

Ratio of braking force to hand force (force multiplication).

Cinch 1.3:1
GriGri 4.2:1
For comparison:-
ATC XP Low friction mode 6:1
ATCXP High friction mode 7.1:1

I haven´t a Faders Sum available but on that the rope does go straight through without impediment so it would be even worse than the Cinch which puts a slight kink in.

For those of you who claim that you can hold a fall with an assisted locking device loaded backwards; have you actually tried this? I have, and find it extremely difficult to do so even in a top top setting. I imagine I couldn't even come close in a lead fall..,

They're not if they know how to belay. There isn't an autoblocking device made I couldn't hold a leader fall just fine with the device held open.

Let me be clear, no one is going to stop a fall on a free-running autoblocking device with just their hands - it isn't going to happen. In order to stop a fall you have to have the ingrained instinct of braking falls over your lower hip / upper thigh regardless of the belay device in use. The lack of that instinct isn't so much generational as device-driven. If you come up learning on autoblocking devices as your primary belay device you are just not likely to develop such an ingrained instinct.

Provided that I am the distributor of the Cinch in Italy.
Provided that my opinion are not necessarly the same as Trango's.
Provided that I have done two videos on how to use the Cinch, that have seen about 40K times.

I had a Cinch not properly lock on me several years ago. The Cinch was relatively new and not worn.

The incident was in a gym, the leader was on a near horizontal roof a few feet out from his last clip. I watched him get sketchy, knew he was coming off and I was ready for the catch. The rope pulled through maybe 20 feet before locking up, fortunately still off the deck. As this happened I grasped harder with my break hand and got some rope burns. Note that I am positive that my break hand was completely on the rope, not on the device or interfering with the proper function of the device, and it was positioned below the device. I’ve climbed for a long time (well before active belay devices were available) and instinctively bring my hand down to catch falls.

After playing with the Cinch I see how this is possible. The situation:

• The device is rotated 90 degrees clockwise from its fall catch position
• The belayer’s break hand is low
• The face plate is in the position rotated clockwise, not in the locked position

With this setup, the rope can run straight through the slot without going around the pin, and the plate does not pinch the rope. Unless there is an action, such as rope friction, it is possible for the devise and the face plate to stay in this configuration and not lock up! The belayer’s break hand can keep the face plate from rotating and pinching the rope. Note that for my incident, the fall was soft without a jerk that might have rotated the device and made it lock up.

To avoid this failure mode, the belayer would need to be sure that the device was always rotated counterclockwise, as it is when loaded and locking the rope. However, the realities of belaying are that the device will flop around in different positions as the belayer gives rope, takes in slack, and prepares for a fall. Alternatively, if the belayer were to bring their hand up (not down) in the event of a fall, the device would rotate counterclockwise and lock. However, this is counter intuitive, not standard practice, and relies completely on the action of the device rather than (at least the backup of) the belayer’s break hand below the device.

Diagrams/photos are probably needed for a full explanation – maybe later. It’s probably impossible to know if this action was the problem in my incident, or if something else happened. Regardless, my later experiments convinced me that this failure mode is possible. I do not trust the Cinch and will not use one again.

Seriously though. Braking around the thigh really doesn't add that much friction. Anybody who thinks they can hold the several hundred kg of a severe fall in their hands without a proper friction device is kidding themselves.

I've never had the experience a catching whipper fall from an elephant, but I know it isn't going to work out well.

Seriously though, not having experience in something (catching big falls without a functional friction device) ,does not mean somebody is "talking out of their ass".

I'm sure I've agreed with you on other topics, I'm sure you have alot of good experience to contribute to the discussion. But this time just because I disagree with you, doesn't mean im talking out of my ass.

Me too. Same year, in fact. What should have been at most a 20-foot fall, ended up being about 60 feet with rope slipping through the device, and the climber came to a stop not more than 3 feet off the deck.

I have never trusted the Cinch on account of these occasional inexplicable and unreproducible incidents.

Jay

repost from couple years back:

Love the Cinch for belaying. However, like all mechanical things, they wear. My friend Stan Miller, who probably uses his Cinch as much or more than anyone on this board, has shared his method of replacing the Dowel Pin that is the main wear point. Allowing the Dowel pin to get too low will allow faster wear on the body. As Stan is not just a better climber, but much smarter than me, his replacement went much better. So I'll share Stans routine on this.




I figured I'd just grab our little press at work and use the new dowel pin to replace the old without doing anything to the existing jig. This is called laziness. My son had jigged up some PDFE for a job, which I took about 3 seconds to blow out. Dohh. Furthermore, as it wasn't straight, I actually blew a few thousands of the edge of the Cinch where the rope will be

Tore the jig out and hammered the wood in half with a hammer and a screwdriver, then used the PDFE to support the Cinch.
Out with the old and in with the new.


Cheapo press.
5/16 x 3/4 Dowel pin
Wear reading glasses, not safety glasses so you can see what you are doing.

I have extra dowel pins if you want to try this yourself, ask me for one if you see me out and about. You can easily get a 5/16" x 3/4" long dowel pin at any hardware store as well.

Back on track. What I haven't been able to correlate is what kind of grip/strength reduction is achieved in the Cinch at what level of wear. Certainly there is some, in fact, mine would not grip well rappelling a single rope if it was a thinner one (and had a slick dry coating applied too). So I could see a worn dowel pin and a brand new thin dry coated rope being a bad combo to hold a whipper. You would most certainly get the rope running through the device and zipping through your hands, and if you were not wearing gloves, it would be very painful, I don't care what your skill level of belaying was.

Give us the full Paul Harvey and let us know: "the rest of the story, Good day".

Me too, and yet the same year again - 2011. I was linking two pitches at Smith rocks where what should have been a 15' fall turned into me flying past 8 bolts before I stopped. Needless to say I stopped climbing with my belayer that very moment. I left the draws up and walked back to the car.

However, the reason why I was dropped was because my belayer was holding the cam open as I fell instead of holding the rope as she should have been doing. Regardless of what device you use, if you are not actually holding the rope, dont expect much to happen.

My version of hip belay is done with the rope from the leader going through a single non-locking biner on the harness and then the rope travels back around my hips. The rope path rides below the top point of your hip bones by about an inch and a half. In the case of a fall, your brake hand basically plunges to your upper inner thigh (butt of palm first, palm turned out). With that setup, holding a lead fall is plenty solid due to the friction of both hips.

In the scenario we're discussing the bends through the autoblocking device substitutes for some, but not all, of one hip's worth of friction. But in this case you don't brake around your hip because it's not tight enough a radious. Instead, you brake across the top of your upper thigh just below your butt cheek. You pick up about 160-170 degrees of wrap over the tighter radius around your thigh.

In a fall, rather than plunging your hand below your crotch in front as you do with a hip belay, you do close to the same, only behind you, while at the same time rotating your body ninety degrees or so towards the side of your brake hand and leaning back and bracing hard against the foot now pointing at the leader.

All of those features of the belay have to happen at the same time - the braking behind the thigh, the turn to the brake hand side, and the lean back and bracing against the now front foot. Also, if, how, and where you flake the rope can make it harder or easier to execute it as well; I tend to flake the rope out well to my brake hand side and slightly behind me.

Me too, and yet the same year again - 2011. I was linking two pitches at Smith rocks where what should have been a 15' fall turned into me flying past 8 bolts before I stopped. Needless to say I stopped climbing with my belayer that very moment. I left the draws up and walked back to the car.

Just a note that a friend who is quite accomplished was just following two linked pitches on the full length of a skinny '70 and fell about fifteen feet above the anchor. The surprising amount of rope stretch, even with a 'good' belay', resulted in a somewhat unexpected fall length and a broken ankle. Sounds like if you have a full skinny 70 out and a low crux, then the belay needs to be tighter than what would be otherwise be considered normal.

Just a note that a friend who is quite accomplished was just following two linked pitches on the full length of a skinny '70 and fell about fifteen feet above the anchor. The surprising amount of rope stretch, even with a 'good' belay', resulted in a somewhat unexpected fall length and a broken ankle. Sounds like if you have a full skinny 70 out and a low crux, then the belay needs to be tighter than what would be otherwise be considered normal.

What has always bugged me about the Cinch is, unlike the Grigri, there is evidence of an unknown failure mode: reported cases of unsafe amounts of rope slippage that could not be explained by misuse, and that Trango could not replicate.

The comment you quoted should be attributed to USNavy, not me.

What reported cases? .... I cannot possibly fathom anyway the device could fail to lock if the there is sufficient resistance on the brake end of the rope and the cam is free to move.

What reported cases? Is it possible these reported cases of an unknown failure mode are actually just instances of the belayer failing to properly grip the brake strand and prevent inadvertent jaming of the cam open by means of a second hand or the rock pressing on the cam? If you look at the Cinch it is pretty easy to understand how the device functions, you dont need to be an engineer to understand it. The basic design is fairly simple and foolproof. I cannot possibly fathom anyway the device could fail to lock if the there is sufficient resistance on the brake end of the rope and the cam is free to move. The device functions the same way as the GriGri. Drag on the brake strand initiates the cam, which pinches the rope. Unless there is something restricting the movement of the cam, it is not physically possible for the cam to fail to close if there is drag on the brake strand. So I dont see how the device could fail to lock if used in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. I can, however, see how it could fail to lock if the user fails to provide drag on the brake strand.

Sorry about that, was on my iPhone at the time which is usually less than ideal for forum posting.