pros and cons of two different rope solo techniques

Been wanting to get into rope soloing so have been playing with a few different systems (testing while climbing a ladder).

Right now the two systems I'm thinking of are either a micro traxion and pre tied figure 8's on the second rope or a micro trax and a tibloc on the second rope.

In both cases the micro trax is held upright by some 3 mm shock cord tied to the chest harness and through the carabiner hole on the device. The tibloc is clipped to the belay loop, but no shock cord. Using a 10.2 and a big fat carabiner, the tibloc seems to bite well and not require setting.

Somewhat concerned about the tibloc and micro trax making contact and somehow interfering with one another but haven't had it happen yet in testing.

BTW, yes I'm aware that rope soloing is inherently more risky and don't plan to do it outside of a controlled environment till I'm fully confident.

Not familiar with the rope man since I don't own one. In the event that the traxion failed (cam locked or held open by accident) would the contact with the two devices cause any potential issues with the 2nd device if they were on the same rope?

I ask because it seemed that with the tibloc on the bottom, the failure of the microtrax and contact between the 2 caused the tibloc to slip, it was a retired rope luckily :)

caughtinside wrote:Don't bother with the second rope. Put both devices on the same strand. I wouldn't use a tiblock. I use a wild country ropeman as the backup but others will work. I trail the ropeman on a 12" sling girth hitched to belay loop to keep it clear of the traxion

if you use a sling to trail the lower unit, if the upper unit doesn't engage the lower unit will slam the shit out of it, possibly keeping both units from engaging. it's better to have the upper unit extended a small amount, using a chest harness/etc to keep it up high and have the lower unit on a biner directly attached to the belay loop.

It's psychologically nice to have some redundancy in ropes when one device has teeth though.

tr rope solo setup

after using basically every setup on earth, this is pretty similar to my current setup, but with a micro instead of a mini. the only other difference is that i have a second, taller belay loop made out of cord, and just use a biner through the microcender. the microcender makes a great primary device. i also use an elastic band to connect the microcender loop to my chest harness.

i agree - the chest harness is kind of the crappiest part. most chest harnesses have the chest loops too low. i will probably sew in a higher chest loop or something.

Link below is the way to go. I've been using this method for many years - except with a different ascender.

petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Setti…

Note links to the right on the page for more info.

My experience is that using two separate lines does have some advantages.

yeah, i've switched from the two strand to one strand. saves a ton of weight, complications. i am super careful about how i route the rope though. sometimes i will set up a 2 strand configuration if the route traverses a bunch or has some other weirdness.