New Products For The USA

90% of Ten Sleep is side by side Fixe rap rings. Kind of annoying, but given the fact that there are hundreds of most amazing otherwise well-equipped routes, it's a small price to pay. I don't go there often enough to re-equip here and there, but given the popularity of the area and the fact that the local climbing community is pretty small and it would be a burden to them, it would be nice if people who go there to spend their summers year after year pitched in to upgrade the anchors. Quite the opposite, sounds like people keep stealing anchor biners from what it was supposed to be an equalized vertical anchor system: mountainproject.com/v/snake…

doligo wrote: Unless it was one person putting up a dozen+ of sport routes over a relatively short period of time in the same area

Except that is often the case.

Bobby Possumcods wrote: If you can make a product that competes with this Fixe anchor and have it priced less, then you will have absolutely no problem selling. In fact, I'm in need of about 40 at the moment and would love to have a lower cost option. These are hands down the best anchors for use with mechanical bolts available here.

Well I played around with a few concepts today, this one would probably be the most potential since it removes a lot of the rope twisting issues at a reasonable cost(though nothing removes them completely with horizontal orientation).

Would it be possible to change out those welded links for quick links to make it easier to replace when they get worn? because the sandy rock here makes lowering hardware wear down long before corrosion ever becomes an issue (and that's with plated steel)

Jim Titt wrote: Well I played around with a few concepts today, this one would probably be the most potential since it removes a lot of the rope twisting issues at a reasonable cost(though nothing removes them completely with horizontal orientation).

Maybe I am missing something, but that anchor seems problematic. The hole on the hanger is small, so the only place to clip a biner is to the link. This would make cleaning/threading the anchor difficult since the climber would have to tether themselves directly to the link, and thread the rope through that same link. after threading and tying in, they will have to un-weight the rope and their tether in order to remove the tether.

I am in the habit of transfering all of my weight to the rope (yelling "take") before i ever detach my tether, and i see it as an important safety measure.

Maybe it wouldn't be such an issue if this were installed on the top bolt in a vertically oriented anchor, but as you know, vertical anchors are uncommon in the US.

cyclestupor wrote: Maybe I am missing something, but that anchor seems problematic. The hole on the hanger is small, so the only place to clip a biner is to the link. This would make cleaning/threading the anchor difficult since the climber would have to tether themselves directly to the link, and thread the rope through that same link. after threading and tying in, they will have to un-weight the rope and their tether in order to remove the tether. I am in the habit of transfering all of my weight to the rope (yelling "take") before i ever detach my tether, and i see it as an important safety measure. Maybe it wouldn't be such an issue if this were installed on the top bolt in a vertically oriented anchor, but as you know, vertical anchors are uncommon in the US.

Exactly. Same goes for Fixe single ring anchors (though the ring is slightly better). Not to mention how much of a pain these are when they start showing up on multi-pitch routes and you have more than one person at an anchor. IMO, this style of anchor, along with the Metolius Rap Hanger, are a short-sighted design.

Josh Janes wrote: Exactly. Same goes for Fixe single ring anchors (though the ring is slightly better). Not to mention how much of a pain these are when they start showing up on multi-pitch routes and you have more than one person at an anchor. IMO, this style of anchor, along with the Metolius Rap Hanger, are a short-sighted design.

+1

eli poss wrote:Would it be possible to change out those welded links for quick links to make it easier to replace when they get worn? because the sandy rock here makes lowering hardware wear down long before corrosion ever becomes an issue (and that's with plated steel)

A 12mm stainless quicklink is going to be more expensive than the hanger and welded link together so you just replace the whole thing.

cyclestupor wrote: Maybe I am missing something, but that anchor seems problematic. The hole on the hanger is small, so the only place to clip a biner is to the link. This would make cleaning/threading the anchor difficult since the climber would have to tether themselves directly to the link, and thread the rope through that same link. after threading and tying in, they will have to un-weight the rope and their tether in order to remove the tether. I am in the habit of transfering all of my weight to the rope (yelling "take") before i ever detach my tether, and i see it as an important safety measure. Maybe it wouldn't be such an issue if this were installed on the top bolt in a vertically oriented anchor, but as you know, vertical anchors are uncommon in the US.

Well it´s hard to see the scale but that link is big, the hole in it is about 22mm x 60mm so hanging a karabiner in and threading the rope as well isn´t an issue.
Normally I´d expect it to be installed as vertically orientated anyway with just the one big link and something else lower down.
We already make a different hanger which takes as many karabiners as you want, this one has a quicklink installed but usually it would be a ring or a big link;-

We could make the plate hanger hole larger but this means the hanger would be much wider and start costing a lot more.
As usual there is no perfect solution to all scenarios, the customer has to decide which is best for their application (and their budget).

The 6mm rod hangers are no longer made, too fiddly to weld properly so only the 8mm rod ones are made now. The difference in material cost is minimal compared to the hassle welding them.
Sure, having the load offset by the hanger increases the outward pull on the bolt, it does with all types of hanger like on any overhanging route. That´s why we test pulling straight out with all hanger types. The 8mm rod hangers bend long before bolt failure though we have no experience with anything but 10mm and 12mm bolts. Pulling on that hanger straight out or down would make no difference to the ultimate failure strength of the bolt.

I think this last page has illustrated some of the hurdles a gear manufacturer has. Make a piece of gear for one thing (vertical setup) and someone will set it up horizontally. You can't mandate that these only be installed in a logical configuration on single pitch routes. Fixe tried when they sold a vertical setup as one continuous piece but everyone pretty much hated it.

So what is a gear manufacturer to do?

highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion wrote:I think this last page has illustrated some of the hurdles a gear manufacturer has. Make a piece of gear for one thing (vertical setup) and someone will set it up horizontally. You can't mandate that these only be installed in a logical configuration on single pitch routes. Fixe tried when they sold a vertical setup as one continuous piece but everyone pretty much hated it. So what is a gear manufacturer to do?

One just offers a bewildering array of every posible combination, last time I looked something like 400 different versions. Some never sell and some sell sometimes. The problem an importer has is what to stock, for the manufacturer it´s easy, just bend something up and maybe a bit of welding and away you go but to supply this at a distance is impossible.
Inline chainsets with a ring are probably our best selling single top anchor, same as for Fixe over here but Americans are different!