Cinch for rope solo?

I have been using the cinch for roped soloes for a while now, but apparently that is incorrect according to the manufacturer.

I had talked to malcomb daly of Trango regarding use of the Cinch as a rope solo device - and beleive me, they way it works I thought for sure it was designed with that use in mind, but neither Malcomb nor anyone in his company pursues rope solo, and so it was never tested in that mode. I was pretty much the test rat.

Can anyone else recommend this practice? I mean, it did seem to work, and I find it much more reliable than a flesh and bone partner.

Thx

It's Malcolm...

ive actually used the cinch on many dozens of pitches in northern and central minnesota for solo top-roping. in addition to performing multiple checks and being vigilant of all protection issues, i try really hard not to fall on the device. that said, i have fallen on it, maybe three to five times, and with stretch, have fallen five to teen feet (at the most). it's always held fast, and i always have a backup knot in down the line. ive heard that the angle in which the cinch is oriented is integral in whether it holds a fall or not, but after a lot of messing around on the ground, and then a lot of use as a solo-belay, i have no evidence that this is true.
i dont for sure about any of this, but i think trango doesn't recommend using it as a self belay device because it was designed for the bigger market of assisted belay. ive been told, and believe, that few companies, wren and petzl being the only two i know of, are willing to produce and market devices that are explicitly for self belay. ive heard that this is because of the enormous litigation risk that these companies run by advertising their products as such. self belay may be considered by most (including lawyers and statisticians?) to be more dangerous, in general, than assisted belay.
i guess its a little late to be doing research about this, having already committed myself to the possibility of countless two hundred foot falls, but i would love to hear more thoughts on the topic. i was convinced by the mechanics of the device that this was a reasonable application of the design, but i am not an engineer or physicist.

You shouldn't use a Cinch for soloing because they didn't make it and test it for such.

That being said.

For top rope soloing, the Cinch is the bomb! compact and locks fast.

For leading forget it, just like every other non-solo device, takes two hands to pull slack on lead, don't learn this the hard way!

Guys, please dont feed this troll. the person posting under Rob Mullet/Robb Mullit/Robblivious is parodying my username, real name, and posts I've made over on rockclimbing.com regarding climbing in Crawford notch NH, and the use of the trango cinch as a rope-solo belay device, which I don't do anymore (out of respect for Malcolm daly's wishes . I ponied up and bought a Wren Soloist.) The original post to this thread, infact, is a partial cut and past from an entry I made over on rockclimbing.com

The mods have been notified.

I can't be certain, but I do remember hearing about the Cinch failing during normal belay use because the belayer tied a knot in the brake-strand as a back-up so it couldn't slide through in a fall.

Then, when the leader fell, the Cinch acted dynamically (as it should) and the knot got pulled into the device, prying the two plates from one another and breaking it in two. I apologize if this is false information but it does seem like a potential risk.

That said, I use the Cinch for TR-solo all the time and I've never had a problem. But, i do put in on a DMM belaymaster to prevent cross-loading and I back up the other strand of my fixed rope with either a mini-traxion or just butterfly knots clipped to an auto-locker. Anyways, just food for thought. Have fun out there.

Robbovius wrote:The original post to this thread, infact, is a partial cut and past from an entry I made over on rockclimbing.com

truth wrote: Just proves what a tool you must be.

What is a roep? soloes? beleive, malcomb?

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