well, its a matter of customs.... i know people in the US leaves biners, thats not new to me. but if one of you comes here and leaves a biner, you would be getting some weird looks from the locals who are used to leaving/picking quicklinks... so i dont understand why you say its a bad practice when everybody in my area does it and is happy with it, for the reasons previously mentioned.... its like the rappel/lower off thing i guess... we prefer to rappel, and encourage everyone to rappel. but if you in certain area like to lower off, then when we are there, we will be lowered.... not wrong, just different... we havent had any problems by leaving quicklinks, so why would we start leaving biners that cost like 10 times as much and serve the same purpose?? im sure i would have a really hard time trying to convince the locals... and leaving biners while picking quicklinks doesnt seems like a good idea either..

So you're saying that nobody in Mexico has old biners that they don't use for leading anymore yet they'll buy a quicklink for the express purpose of bailing? I have 3 or more bail biners but I've never bought one.

I understand that you won't be able to convince anyone otherwise since you'd have to have some kind of climber's meeting or hand out fliers. Like herding cats as the expression goes. I just don't think the arguments for quicklinks are very strong.

I completely agree with you that if none of you minds having to deal with removing quicklinks, then it should be perfectly acceptable to use them as bail gear, but I'm getting tired of reading the same fallacious argument about how much more it would cost to use bail biners instead. Although I have left bail biners in the past, I have never bought a bail biner, nor left a good biner of my own. I am in lifetime net positive bail biner balance. So, leaving bail biners has cost me nothing; in fact, I've made a small profit from having bootied more than I have left. The point is, if your group used biners to bail from, there would be no net long-run cost to the group. Bail biners in a closed population of climbers shouldn't be disappearing; they should just cycle within the group.

Again, this is not to say that there is anything wrong with your current practice; only that you should stop defending it by implying that every time one of you were to leave a biner it would cost you $10 or more.

Jay

i see your point... biners would be just rotating or changing from one route to the other... however, i believe that if i were to leave a biner, someone would retrieve it sooner or later, just to leave a quicklink next time he has to bail.... we will do the test with the 2 we picked, and see if they are always used as bail biners or they become part of someones "rack"....

Unless there is consensus within the community that these are bail biners, then I think it is predictable that they'll get bootied. You'd have to change the climbing culture.

Seriously, the solution to the bail problem is to get a real stick clip and start using it to attain the anchors. That way you can get top ropes on these climbs that are currently too hard for you, and start working the moves. How else do you expect to improve?

Jay

So you're saying that nobody in Mexico has old biners that they don't use for leading anymore yet they'll buy a quicklink for the express purpose of bailing? I have 3 or more bail biners but I've never bought one.

I understand that you won't be able to convince anyone otherwise since you'd have to have some kind of climber's meeting or hand out fliers. Like herding cats as the expression goes. I just don't think the arguments for quicklinks are very strong.

I completely agree with you that if none of you minds having to deal with removing quicklinks, then it should be perfectly acceptable to use them as bail gear, but I'm getting tired of reading the same fallacious argument about how much more it would cost to use bail biners instead. Although I have left bail biners in the past, I have never bought a bail biner, nor left a good biner of my own. I am in lifetime net positive bail biner balance. So, leaving bail biners has cost me nothing; in fact, I've made a small profit from having bootied more than I have left. The point is, if your group used biners to bail from, there would be no net long-run cost to the group. Bail biners in a closed population of climbers shouldn't be disappearing; they should just cycle within the group.

Again, this is not to say that there is anything wrong with your current practice; only that you should stop defending it by implying that every time one of you were to leave a biner it would cost you $10 or more.

Jay

i purchase all of my equipment online from stores in the US... but it gets shipped to Texas and then i have to make a 3 hour, one way trip to get it... so, when we purchase, we try to make the trip worth it... last time i purchased something was about 6 months ago, when i got a rope, 2 harnesses, 12 quickdraws, and some other stuff.... i have some cheap biners from which i payed $5 or less, but i cant use them to bail, since replacing them would cost a lot... its like a bottle of water in the desert, it costs next to nothing, but its worth a lot if you wont be able to find more....

I guess I just don't understand. why can't biners be shipped to you? do you not have an adress, or is there no mail/post to your town? conceptually this baffles me a little.

If quick links are your only option for bail gear I say the bigger the better. make sure the next guy can clip you link in place of the bolt.

and yes, we use big quicklinks, rated at 800 kilos at least....

everything can be shipped to me, but the cost for INTERNATIONAL shipping is way to high... thats why i wait until i have a lot of things to order, and then have them shipped to Texas....

i just checked how much would it be to buy a biner and have it shipped to me in Mexico... international shipping is $69.95 @ moosejaw.... so 5.75 turns into $75... a little to much for a bailing biner....

and yes, we use big quicklinks, rated at 800 kilos at least....

I don't think 'as goes Canada so goes Mexico' is a very strong argument. Your entire line of reasoning doesn't seem to take into consideration anything other than your own quite narrow perspective.

You have one way to look at this and its clear nothing will shake you of it.

DMT

Kilonewtons or kilograms?

Jay

kilograms

Pretty funny shu2kill... you could do a study on the migration habits of booty links. How they migrate to more difficult routes, and get left at or just below hard moves, and how long they stay on harnesses, on average, etc.


The life of a quick link.....

Kinda like Chongo hitch-hauling up the Zodiac.

DMT

I'm just arguing what I believe is the proper use of quicklinks. If the locals want to use quicklinks then that's what will happen. I'll leave crap biners if I bail from a climb there and they can have them. I thought this was an argument of best practices?

I just find it hard to believe that there is any need to buy bail gear at all. I haven't been climbing all that long but I have biners with sticky gates, that I've dropped, that I've found, that have been given to me, that are worn or nicked etc. any of which I wouldn't mind leaving behind. I don't see the need to buy anything for bailing off of and I think that quicklinks are a PITA to leave and to work around.

The real hole in my argument is the degree of bailing. If you bail from every climb you do and are leaving 3 or 4 pieces per week then I could see that adding up in a hurry. J has provided one strategy with the sport-aid technique to avoid such a thing and there are many others depending on the climb.

People leave quicklinks around here all the time. It's probably around 50/50 from what I've seen. I've bootied a few and keep them for refitting rap tat or stations. I just don't like them on the bolt at the crux of a route. Is that so wrong?

Ah yes, the booty link. An interesting species that tends to inhabit steep sport climbs and thin hand cracks.

All silliness aside I suggest simply leaving a biner. It’s easier to use, remove, and clip. So you leave behind $5 in gear, not that big of a deal.

But isn't, like, sacrilegious to measure force in kilograms?

Jay

Nope! Damn, I thought for sure this thread was only one page long. Darn these old eyes.

Oh well, I can’t read and you can’t quote without editing.

i made a mistake when i tried to highline the quote... but its fixed now...

EDIT: i quoted incorrectly again

Dang, 70 bucks to ship a biner, insane.
QL it is.
Hey, while we got on the line. Post up some more pics of the local climbing crag. I like seeing where different parts of the world climb.
A while ago, there were some pics from Iran, that would have passed for the red colored rocks of Utah.

Heheheh, still didn't learn did ya?

im a slow learner... maybe thats why i still use quicklinks and rappel threading the biner through the tie in points.... j/k !!

Quicklinks! Yer gonna' die!