:shock:

USing Grigri's on trad tat is just stupid. It's a great device for belaying indoors or on sport routes, but over here in UK it's been shown that it can increase the shock load on a piece of pro by 2.5 times.

Finally, can anyone tell me how to rappel with a reverso on skinny, slick, dry treated ropes without browning out your briefs?

Unless you are belaying a lead climber off the anchors, there is no such thing as a static belay.

if you must use a gri gri only use it as an anchored back up to an atc. or ignore me and have a doze and wake up with your rope missing :shock:

the problem with the gri gri is it takes the load instantly with no slippage (Its likened to crumple zones on cars) now when you lower off with any belay device the rope partially melts then hardens again in effect glazing the rope AND the belay mechanisms conventional belays also allow you to feel the rope more as it is not being transferred through a lot of mechanisms, the belayer can feel this extra slippage from the glaze through his atc, bug etc. (but NOT a gri gri) therefore he will know to lock off with more force to give more braking force to counter the slippage but the gri's braking force is constant and in time after a few lower offs you will have a lovely slippy gri gri if you have noticed this which is unlikely then when your partner falls the gri gri WONT lock of with full force in a small fall this might manage but if your partner takes a whipper it will bring new meaning to the word as you watch the rope whip through the gri gri as your mate plunges on to the rocks below is that the price you want to pay to be a dumbass and fall asleep while belaying? if you must use a gri gri only use it as an anchored back up to an atc. or ignore me and have a doze and wake up with your rope missing :shock:

the problem with the gri gri is it takes the load instantly with no slippage (Its likened to crumple zones on cars) now when you lower off with any belay device the rope partially melts then hardens again in effect glazing the rope AND the belay mechanisms conventional belays also allow you to feel the rope more as it is not being transferred through a lot of mechanisms, the belayer can feel this extra slippage from the glaze through his atc, bug etc. (but NOT a gri gri) therefore he will know to lock off with more force to give more braking force to counter the slippage but the gri's braking force is constant and in time after a few lower offs you will have a lovely slippy gri gri if you have noticed this which is unlikely then when your partner falls the gri gri WONT lock of with full force in a small fall this might manage but if your partner takes a whipper it will bring new meaning to the word as you watch the rope whip through the gri gri as your mate plunges on to the rocks below is that the price you want to pay to be a dumbass and fall asleep while belaying? if you must use a gri gri only use it as an anchored back up to an atc. or ignore me and have a doze and wake up with your rope missing :shock:

That being said, the grigri is useless for rappelling two strands, weighs far more than a tube style belay device, and costs far more as well.

And does anyone know where any tests have been done to show the higher load on lead placements durring a fall while using a Gri Gri vs. using an ATC.

I get the feeling that this stigma is the result of a good bit of conjecture, rather than fact. I will bow to defeat if someone can show me some convincing experimental results, however.

I climb with a lot of different people, a lot of them Newbies, Noobs, Gumbies, whatever and the ONLY belay device I trust them with is the Gri Gri.

My wife can whip slack out like a cowgirl doing rope tricks and has never given me a bad belay.

There is no question, though, that grigris have greater braking power than ATCs. ATCs allow rope to slip when the force exceeds approximately 500 lbf. That is a design feature to limit the impact force on anchors. In contrast, the grigri is designed not to allow rope to slip through, though it will, slightly, at a sufficiently high force. The numbers I've seen quoted vary from 900 to 1400 lbf, probably depending on the specifics of the experiment, such as the rope that was used.

I don't know where any tests have been done, but I have seen specific numbers quoted in papers and books for the braking forces of ATCs and Grigris. I doubt that those numbers were just made up.

There is no question, though, that grigris have greater braking power than ATCs. ATCs allow rope to slip when the force exceeds approximately 500 lbf. That is a design feature to limit the impact force on anchors. In contrast, the grigri is designed not to allow rope to slip through, though it will, slightly, at a sufficiently high force. The numbers I've seen quoted vary from 900 to 1400 lbf, probably depending on the specifics of the experiment, such as the rope that was used.

-Jay

Suppose you are using a gri-gri to belay a trad leader. And suppose that for whatever reason the top piece fails in a fall and you have an epic. Let's even say that its not the gri-gri's fault. How are you going to explain that using a piece of equipment against the manufacturer's express recommendations didn't cause the accident?

Now I have nothing against the gri-gri. I use them regularly for top roping. But to be stuck in a bad situation where you did something unorthodox? Nah.

Suppose you are using a gri-gri to belay a trad leader. And suppose that for whatever reason the top piece fails in a fall and you have an epic. Let's even say that its not the gri-gri's fault. How are you going to explain that using a piece of equipment against the manufacturer's express recommendations didn't cause the accident? Now I have nothing against the gri-gri. I use them regularly for top roping. But to be stuck in a bad situation where you did something unorthodox? Nah.

i feel comfortable (and i guess my friends do) with me belaying with an atc... but im not really comfortable with them belaying unless its a grigri...

I looked down to see my belayer, a PhD consultant, taking her brake hand off the rope to haul in some extra slack.

I have ever personally witnessed happened with an ATC. An experienced climber (and a very strong fire fighter) was belaying a 200+ pound beefcake when he popped suddenly and unexpectedly while she was feeding slack for a clip. Her brake hand was very near the ATC and given the surprise etc., by the time she got her hand clamped, the rope whipped through, burning her hand almost to the bone.

The MH is one of the most static belays available. This can be very
dangerous when you must rely on the dynamic belay. In trad and ice
climbing the MH can be very dangerous because it will increase the loads
felt by the top anchor.

Different post
(snip)
Here is another example of some "uncontrolled" testing I have been
involved with.

Last winter Craig Luebben and I conducted some drop tests on ice. Craig published an article in Climbing Mag on some of these results and results of his static tests. I have also written an article on static tests I have conducted in the lab (email me if anyone wants a copy). Anyway, we set up our tests under the bridge in Ouray. This was in pretty bad ice actually and for the most part the gear did not hold. Our setup was with a static belay, a new 10.5 mm BD rope, fall factors in the 1.5 to 1.8 range, and 185 pounds of steel. With this setup the only thing that actually held was a 10 cm screw. Everything else ripped out OR carabiners broke! I attribute this to the bad ice and that the 10 cm screw that held was probably in the only good ice we found.

We decided to conduct a series of tests where we used the same section of rope over again. The first three tests the gear ripped out. On the fourth drop we about keeled over in disbelief. We had a Snarg as the test piece connected to the rope with a draw with BD QS2 biners. A few feet below this was two equalized screws (BD and a Grivel). They were equalized with a single 24" sling and a locked Big Easy was connected to the rope. The biner on the snarg broke, the hanger on the Grivel screw sheared along its long bend, then the big easy locked biner broke! This is three pieces of hardware that broke on one fall. Now, I am assuming that these were not defective products (a solid assumption based on my knowledge of all the gear and the systems to produce it, and a review of the fracture surfaces of the parts we actually recovered). This means that the forces generated were well in excess of 5000 pounds (multiple times!). Now the tricky part. Conducting a static test on a new rope with the same diameter with the same type of knots caused the rope to break in the 3500 pound
range. I don't know why the gear broke and why the rope did not. There was about one hour between drops so the rope had some reasonable time to recover.

Now the good news. When we placed an ATC in the system (i.e. some dynamic aspects) every test we conducted held except for a couple of tests with Spectres.

What does this mean? Dynamic belays are your friend! Climbers have known this for about a century now. Many climbers today do not understand this very well. This is why I am relating these types of info to this news group. I am purposely trying to get this group to discuss this stuff in detail and learn something from it.
(snip)

The main reason not to use a gri gri for multi pitch trad is that it is way too heavy and bulky. The static factor is real to, and the evidence is good enough for me. (I will find some later)

As far as purposely letting the rope slip through an atc type device, I have never met anyone that actually tried to do this.

I have seen people do this with a gri gri by holding the cam open.

It is easy to recover with a gri gri, it is not that easy with an atc type device.

There is something about the very concept of a “dynamic” belay (or the active attempt to give one) that makes me more than a little squeamish.

First, the jumping thing. Do you REALLY mean for people to leave their feet and possibly lose control of their own safety (and thus, yours)?

I can see this in sport areas with nice, level ground below the climbs, but in a place where the belay stance consists of a 1 foot square ledge, boulder, etc, I’d like my belayer to stay upright and conscious.

I have used a method where I drop my hips as soon as my partner pops and then allow his/her weight to raise me back up, but I never leave my feet.

Now, active belays at the belay device: Shudder! Like what happened to the belayer in my previous post, I worry that if you let the rope slip through the device a “little” you are increasing the possibility of losing control of the rope all together. Once the rope slips in a high energy situation, it MUST be harder to stop than if you concentrated on not letting it slip in the first place. This would be especially true given the forces created by high fall factors.

OK, call me paranoid, but all I want my belayer and belay device to do is stop my a$$ from hitting the ground. All the rest is gravy. I’ll manage the gear placements and make sure, to the best of my ability, that they won’t blow (screamers, extensions, doubling up, GOOD PLACEMENTS). I’ll take responsibility for my flight plan, also. The last thing I want is my belayer trying, from the ground, to estimate if I’m going to hit a ledge or something and then slipping the rope to try to prevent it. Part of my job as leader is to know what is under me when I fall.

As for what anyone did when climbing with Gumbies before Gri Gris; that’s a moot point. Gri Gris are here.

Not true. You've met me. Though the master of this technique is Tom Lindner.

As I recall you were not using an atc when we were sport climbing.
Are you saying that you advocate that technique as a replacement for jumping? If I had known you did not like to jump I probably wouldn't let you belay me on a route I could fall on. I certainly wouldn't think you would try to use that technique in combination with jumping.
It is true that I have never known anyone that I have climbed with in many years that advocated that practice.(slipping an atc) Is Tom using that technique since he blew his hip out? If I want to give a dynamic catch I use a gri gri or atc and jump, and so does everyone else I know.


That's a really bad idea. It would be almost impossible to control the amount of friction using the handle in the event of a fall.

Some of the best climbers I know do that all the time doing hero jumps off the anchors with forty plus foot falls. They do not use the handle, they just depress the cam and it provides the softest catch possible with the least amount of swing. You would have to be able to jump twenty plus feet to match what they were doing. Something that is not usually practical

It's very easy to stop the rope with an ATC. You simply move your hand into the full braking position. Keep in mind that you have control at all times. You don't let the rope run at full speed. The device is always providing some friction; you decide how much by the angle between the two strands of rope. If you start with the two strands about 60 degrees apart and smoothly bring your hand down to your hip, you will let a couple of feet of rope through the device, gradually stopping the fall.

-Jay

Bottom line: A gri-gri is only 176 grams heavier than an ATC.

As I recall you were not using an atc when we were sport climbing.
Are you saying that you advocate that technique as a replacement for jumping?

If I had known you did not like to jump I probably wouldn't let you belay me on a route I could fall on.

Is Tom using that technique since he blew his hip out? If I want to give a dynamic catch I use a gri gri or atc and jump, and so does everyone else I know.

I don't see a point in doing that. The most you could let slide is a foot or two of rope, whereas with a jump you can do four to ten feet of rope without a risk of loosing control of the rope.

Right. But as was already pointed out, this is only if the grigri is directly hooked to the anchor. If you are belaying with the grigri attached to your waist, you can't generate more force than body weight (ok, as somebody pointed out--if you are being accelerated, you can produce more force than your weight, but it won't be much). This means if you catch a fall with a grigri, you might get lifted off the ground but you won't be applying much more than a few hundred pounds (unless or until you come tight on your anchor or you get lifted all the way up to the first bolt).

Jay,
I wouldn't let someone belay me using that technique and if I saw someone keeping their hand in front of the device, I wouldn't fall.

Have you ever tried to do a squeeze chimney with a gri gri on your harness?

does anyone here use both hands on the slack part... or seen anyone doing so... i recently was at a gym and two guys were doing it... whats up with that... theyd pull straight up with the slack with both hands and go into brake position...???

Too heavy and bulky??????
gimme a break
i just went on REI's home page where they list a BD ATC (not XP) as weighing 49 grams and a gri-gri weighing 225 grams

Bottom line: A gri-gri is only 176 grams heavier than an ATC.

[Snip body weight analysis.] If an additional 0.25% of your body weight is too heavy for you to carry, get off the rock. Besides, YOU'RE BELAYING not leading. If the only reason you can't second a climb is because you have to schelp a gri-gri, then you have other problems.

Bulky? what and carrying a rull rack is like a second skin? remember you're belaying. when you climb (if you follow) you begin with NO gear and pick it up as you go. Most likely you'll end up with less than the full rack because the leader probably carried more than he/she needed to.

I'm not trying to sway anybody's opinion, I'm just trying to thow out the arguments that's it's too heavy and bulky.

Chris Harmston wrote

That's the standard way to belay a leader with an ATC, Dan. Only gumbies keep the rope locked off all the time, unless their partner is moving at a snail's pace. It's the rope-behind-the-butt-all-the-time belayers that you should worry about. They'll short rope you on every move.

This is how it should be done (cute tilting of head is optional):
http://www.rockclimbing.com/...mp.cgi?Detailed=3810

From this position, she can lock off or feed rope instantly. To dynamically belay, the hands should be kept further from the ATC, but the angle between the ropes is correct.

-Jay

Sticky-fingers
If your in a real squeeze chimney you want to hang "all" your gear on a long sling hanging from your belay loop.(lead or second)

....your much better off not knocking rocks down in the first place.

Rock fall usually kills the belayer not the leader, and if a leader thinks a belayer using a gri gri makes him safer I wouldn't want to belay him.

We had a Snarg as the test piece connected to the rope with a draw with BD QS2 biners. A few feet below this was two equalized screws (BD and a Grivel). They were equalized with a single 24" sling and a locked Big Easy was connected to the rope. The biner on the snarg broke, the hanger on the Grivel screw sheared along its long bend, then the big easy locked biner broke! This is three pieces of hardware that broke on one fall.

Tenn-dawg


This is a lead placement configuration. And the anchor didn't fail, the gear itself broke.

Agreed that this isn't an ideal test, but Harmstom is one of the best authorities on rock gear that I have heard of and he contends that a static belay device significanly increases the forces on lead placements.

As far as the posed picture of your hottie belayer,
She is belaying a toprope with tension from the looks of it. Her hands are in a bad position, unless she is shuffling a toprope belay. She it to far from the rock, she has a bunch of junk under her feet that she could trip on.
Not a very good example of lead belaying technique.

This test would be so easy to do: Simply aquire 3 or 4 ropes for test medium, Set a high anchor with a load measuring device, and lob off some weights. I would preferably use a Human belayer, holding the device in the full locked off position, standing straight up on his feet, and not jumping.

Alternate ropes so the dynamic properties have time to regenerate, and go through a sample set, measuring the loads using a constant weight, drop distance. Switch belay devices, and measure again.
Travis

This test would be so easy to do: Simply aquire 3 or 4 ropes for test medium, Set a high anchor with a load measuring device, and lob off some weights. I would preferably use a Human belayer, holding the device in the full locked off position, standing straight up on his feet, and not jumping.

Alternate ropes so the dynamic properties have time to regenerate, and go through a sample set, measuring the loads using a constant weight, drop distance. Switch belay devices, and measure again.

Travis

I'm pretty sure such tests have been done; otherwise, where would the specific numbers quoted for the braking forces of various devices have come from?

That's quite a difference, around double the force on the protection from a static Gri-gri belay (or Muntner?). Reinforces my own prejudice that for trad free climbs, at least, ATCs and the like are the best way to go.

The other striking thing in this thread is the note about carabiners breaking, but not the rope which was theoretically weaker. There has been much discussion on these forums about the strength of various knots in rope and webbing, but I can't offhand recall reports of accidents where ropes or slings broke (cut or came untied, yes). On the other hand I've broken two carabiners in falls myself, and heard of many others. It seems like the metal gear in the system often might be more fragile, in practice, than its rated strength would suggest.

One improvement I'd like to see on that test is to simulate the belayer. I didn't read the whole test (I'm at work) but I suspect the 'biner hooked into the belay device is attached to a post or some other completely static set up. Like I said in an earlier post, the acceleration of the belayer, friction in the harness, compression of the kidneys and nuts (assuming a male climber) :D may take at least some of the edge off the impact force.

First, as the other poster pointed out, you aren't going to get 839 pounds of force on the belayer, unless the belayer is anchored without slack, which most are not. Instead, you are going to pick the belayer up off the ground and get at most a few hundred.

Papounet,
What I think they are actually saying is that friction caused by the rope running through the runners actually decreased the load placed on the top runner. I whole heartedly agree with this.

also I should point out that alpineclimber1 (SP) is quite correct. very correct. do not question.

My take:
doing a jump with a Grigri, despite not letting go of the rope, allow a smoother fall arrest, with less force on top piece and on climber arrested.

Too heavy and bulky??????
gimme a break
i just went on REI's home page where they list a BD ATC (not XP) as weighing
49 grams
and a gri-gri weighing
225 grams

Bottom line: A gri-gri is only 176 grams heavier than an ATC.

I'm not trying to sway anybody's opinion, I'm just trying to thow out the arguments that's it's too heavy and bulky.

Another way of looking at this is the grigri weighs more than FOUR TIMES what an ATC weighs, and is not an effective rappel device. And the ATC is not the lightest belay device on the market.

I try to pare every gram, and maximize utility of what I carry.

60 carabiners @ 65 grams apiece vs 60 Neutrinos at 37 grams each.
Titanium cams and DMM cams vs. Camalots can make pounds of difference in a double set of cams.

8.1mm double ropes where full rope rappels are necessary.

a stove that weighs 64 grams.

Squeeze chimney? You're going to worry about a gri gri when your humping a rack of #5 Camelots, big bros and Valley Giants?
(There, I mentioned Valley Giants....do I get a discount?)

Now apply that to the context of this thread, trad climbing. A step further, to a hanging John Long style belay. How much jumping are you going to do? I think the best context to look at it is that the belayer will be somewhat static in position. Having a device that allows some rope slip will provide the next best thing to a jump with a static device.

Brutus, tell me you had to look up those weights, and that you don't have them all memorized.

-Jay