it doesnt if you're doing it correctly- read my original advice- it applies to all uses of the grigri, including jumping and taking in slack.

petzl didnt cut any corners when designing the grigri2- they designed it to be a better device if used properly, and unlike the original, it is a little less forgiving with user errors.

Yep, big advertisement for the extra manual on the website....... you're all just fanboys and free gear ball cuppers.

If there are failures that people should know about then they should put the whole manual with the device and probably put something about it in the video.
http://www.flickr.com/...evilgrape/5570033170

if you read my original reply, you'll note that i have replicated it, and my original response, only because i was fucking around and not keeping the rope and device under control.

i sport climb all the time, i help climbers boink up all the time, i use this technique all the time, and after having the device do this once and realizing what caused it, it doesnt happen anymore because i dont jerk the device around while doing it.

ive already said it three times- dont jerk the device around. keep it under control. i'm not being vague- i dont have a mystery method for doing this.

the only way the rope can get under the cam is if you yank it under there- and the only way to do that is if you're yanking the rope out of line with the device. the only way to do that is to not keep the device under control.

although i'll probably continue to get one star post ratings for this- the Grigri2 is NOT the Grigri and should NOT be treated like it is. It is a different device that requires better, more attentive belaying skills to work properly. As I said upthread- the biggest danger petzl faces with the new device is that people are likely to get hurt because they treat the new grigri like the old one.

if you read my original reply, you'll note that i have replicated it, and my original response, only because i was fucking around and not keeping the rope and device under control.

i sport climb all the time, i help climbers boink up all the time, i use this technique all the time, and after having the device do this once and realizing what caused it, it doesnt happen anymore because i dont jerk the device around while doing it.

yeah, ive seen this happen. its kind of spooky, but only happened when i was fucking around with the device in a way i shouldnt have been.

from your original reply

it was not clear to me that this was supposed to mean it'd happened to you while you were actually belaying. I've "seen it happen" as well, when I was "fucking around" with the device, but haven't had it happen while I was actually belaying.

I'm curious to hear your foolproof method for not having this happen while you're yarding up on the rope.

When I do that, I have my brake hand near the device on the brake strand, and then reach up as high as I can on the climber's strand, and then jump while pulling as hard as I can on the climber's strand and pulling as much rope through the device as I can with my brake hand. Unweighting the device by pulling on the climber's strand is why the rope runs funny, but you can't pull rope through/take up slack without releasing the cam somehow, and I'm a big fan of not touching the cam if avoidable.

Unweighting the device by pulling on the climber's strand is why the rope runs funny

i'm not saying dont jump to pull in slack, jake- i'm saying keep your belay device under control. i jump all the time with the grigri2 and this doesnt happen to me.

sounds like you're just yanking as hard as you can and not thinking about whats going on when you do this. dont try and yank as much as you can, rather, pull through as much as you can while maintaining control of the device.

the only way the rope can get under the cam is if you yank it under there-

Ummmm, have you ever had to bump someone who is free hanging (especially someone who weighs more than you)? When you jump, pulling in as much rope as you can while trying not to let the climber drop....well, you don't have much time to pull in that rope. I suposse in the split second you have you take in rope it could be construed as a "yanking" but you're not really offering an alternative that anyone can understand.

+1

And for what it is worth, I have now heard the personal-experience story of rope getting stuck in Gri-Gri2 while batmaning from 3 people who are not in any way connected to each other, don't know each other, and climb in different areas across country.

So it seems to be much more common than "freaky one-time occurrence when using the device".

I understand that it is a 'safe' mode of failure, and that the rope can be unstuck in a straightforward way, but I still don't like it, and I think this is something that should be corrected in the design.

I liked belaying with gri-gri2, and it definitely has positives compared to the old gri-gri, but I am not switching to V.2 until my V.1 wears out.

And I do wonder if there would be a gri-gri3 coming out soon?

it doesnt if you're doing it correctly- read my original advice- it applies to all uses of the grigri, including jumping and taking in slack.

petzl didnt cut any corners when designing the grigri2- they designed it to be a better device if used properly, and unlike the original, it is a little less forgiving with user errors.

Mal, I feel for you. You and other gear manufacturers are up against cultural trends within and outside of the climbing world that are way beyond your control.

In all honesty, I don't think it matters how many warnings you plaster on a piece of gear. Scan the threads on various sites to see how many times someone says "the manufacturer says you shouldn't do X," followed by the response, "That's just there for liability reasons---of course you can do X."

Climbers, most of who have neither engineering expertise nor understanding of the physics involved believe they know better. And many feel justified because in their years of experience they haven't had to deal with the kind of low-probability event that their faulty practices would turn into a catastrophe.

Climbing gear can't be designed to, say, civil engineering standards anyway. It would be far too heavy to carry and far too clumsy to use. Anything that is actually going to be usable for climbers will have subtleties and idiosyncrasies that are part of the compromise that must be made to create functional equipment for the real climbing world.

All this conflicts with the desirable but unattainable goal of making something "foolproof." It is not simply that fools will always find a way to defeat built-in protections. The reality is that real climbing gear will always have dangerous features that can only be mitigated by intelligent and attentive use.

This means that practice, experience, and vigilance are critical. New climbers, like new drivers, are already at increased risk, even if they remain vigilant, and there are now many environments in which the prevailing attitude does nothing to encourage even minimally appropriate attention.

Turning to the culture within the climbing world, sport and gym climbing have effected a major change in the notion of personal responsibility. People regularly climb using protection systems installed by someone else, systems that by and large cannot be evaluated by observation anyway. You can hardly be a climber today if you don't blindly trust gear that you yourself have had nothing to do with placing, gear with operating principles and failure modes that you barely understand and typically ignore.

It may be that the nightmares you mention come with the territory of the business you are in. One can hardly propose callousness as an alternative to the distress you feel. But, our litigious society notwithstanding, surely your responsibility ends at some reasonable point and the responsibility of the user takes over. The stupidity of the current thread title indicates the sad fact that there will be people who never understand this.

I don't know about "How to kill your partner," but I do think a lot of the instruction I've seen is flawed because it does not address the wrong ways to do things.

Did you ever get a set of driving (or hiking, or approach) directions that seemed easy enough until you got out there and found a host of options never mentioned, some of which looked a lot like what the directions advocated? (Think every route on one of Ortenburger's guide to the Tetons).

Showing someone the correct path through a maze without attending to the experiences they will have at confusing intersections isn't ideal instruction.

Personally, when I get some new piece of equipment, one of the things I try to do is figure out all the ways it can fail to perform, and what those configurations look like. In other words, I try to head down all the blind alleys I can find on the route ahead of time, hoping that when I really need to make the trip I'll recognize the mistakes before I make them.

Guides do something analogous when the "practice" climbs before taking clients on them.

Not to sound snotty, but I think this investigation of what can go wrong is part of the due diligence everyone should be doing, and you don't necessarily need an instructor, a video, or a manual to do this---just your brain, a little bit of time, and the willingness to experiment in situations with no pressure, fatigue, or danger. In other words, less than ideal instruction is no excuse for not figuring out the no-no's.

Which is not to say that ideal instruction isn't even better. And I do understand that if you cram your instruction with too many possibilities and alternatives, there is a risk of cognitive overload for the learner, so as in every endeavor intelligent design is called for.

So here are a few recommendations.

1. Don't put the warnings in a separate video. It is hard enough to get people to attend to one. They may never get to the other.

2. If you believe in your video, then put a warning with the device advising the user to be sure to watch the video before using the device.

3. Make sure to mention and demonstrate the most serious ways of screwing up. Stuff like, "here's what an incorrectly threaded device looks like and here is a simple visual clue that warns you that you have it wrong."

4. If possible, address issues that have shown up in the electronic and/or print media. For example, now that the DAV Panorama says there is an orientation in which the Cinch will slip, I would say something like,

"According to the DAV, the following orientation of the device might result in a failure to lock. This position violates our instructions, and in our extensive testing we have been unable to replicate their failure experience, but it is still important to make sure you do not use the device in this manner."

5. Beware of inadvertently reinforcing casual attitudes. Of course, you want to demonstrate how easily the device catches falls. Somehow, this has to be done in a way that still emphasizes the seriousness of falling and the potentially terrible consequences of a belay failure.

I do hope these off-the-top-of-my-head opinions do not sound too presumptuous. I'm sure there are many difficulties involved in providing an appropriate mix of instruction and warning.