Trango Vergo

amarius wrote: Do you intend to repeat your tests on Vergo?

Not unless someone comes up with another $10k, I´ll probably have a look at one one day but it´s not high on the agenda. Doing drop tests is expensive and a hassle, doing 50m ones is real expensive and hiring the measuring equipment as well. And the test rig is in bits in my garden under a heap of builders rubble.
With belay devices I´ve learnt it´s better to wait a few years after a new product is introduced before actually saying how good it is, the first flush of enthusiasm from the customers wears off.

I'm just here to talk about gear, guys

Brassmonkey wrote:Anecdotally I personally know of a few people that have been dropped by Gri-gri's and zero that have been dropped by a Cinch.... If people want to conclude that a Cinch is dangerous, then an ATC must be downright suicidal.

Second everything Brassmonkey said. My preference is to belay with, and be belayed by (less short roping than a Gri), a Cinch; but it would have never occurred to me to start hating on the GriGri+ without having touched it.

Has the Vergo set a new gear record for web-based criticism by people who have never used one?

Jim Titt wrote: More than one guy in Hawaii :-)

It doesn't sounds like it. A study consisting of 2 vs 6 user accidents isn't very compelling nor statistically significant.

Brassmonkey wrote:I climb on a cinch/vergo AND a bowline? Dear lord how am I still alive...

Damn, I like to live on the bleeding edge as well!

I tried to setup fall while feeding rope, but the gym was too crowded for shenanigans - did you manage to catch your climber's fall while feeding slack?

How many statistics do you want? We are talking real people's lifes here!

When 6 out of 10 cinch users in the DAV survey had a serious accident in 2009, I think the DAV certainly had a good reason to issue a warning.

Here is the DAV article: alpenverein.de/chameleon/pu…

Ray Pinpillage wrote: A study consisting of 2 vs 6 user accidents isn't very compelling nor statistically significant.

That's 2 vs 6 accidents in 1/7 the population, so we are talking about 20x higher accident rate. No it's not statistically significant, but we are not conducting a safety test either. One does not need statistical significance to have a legitimate safety concern: that happens at well below 95% confidence (probably <50% if the consequence is serious).

Doug Hutchinson wrote: Has the Vergo set a new gear record for web-based criticism by people who have never used one?

Myself and other "critics" of the Vergo are simply trying to let people know of the potential failure modes of the Cinch. The Vergo innards looks pretty similar and the rope still runs straight through the device, therefore it likely has some of the same failure modes.

I am not trying to dissuade anyone from buying a Vergo, just trying to give them some info that may allow them to be safer.

I may in fact end up buying a Vergo (I'm also waiting to try a WC Revo). I loved using the Cinch until the pin wore out. But I damn sure wouldn't let anyone belay me with the Cinch until they know everything I know about it and have a good technique.

Those of you who bought the Vergo and are enjoying it... Are you worse off for knowing that the Cinch/Vergo could slip for fast falls, or that you need to feed slack to the left instead of towards the climber... etc. Maybe you already know these things and you think the "critics" are being patronizing.

In case you still think I am just hating on the Vergo. Here are some things I like about the Cinch and know I will like about the Vergo.

• smoothest feeding device there is. Once you know how to use it you can easily keep your leader on a short leash, without short roping him/her.
• No special "fast-feeding" override technique necessary unlike the GriGri.
• Great for bringing up the second on multi-pitch. Takes very little effort, and captures progress better than the GriGri.
• Can be used as an ascender since it can be moved along the rope even when the rope is taut. The GriGri can't do this.

Kees wrote:How many statistics do you want? We are talking real people's lifes here! When 6 out of 10 cinch users in the DAV survey had a serious accident in 2009, I think the DAV certainly had a good reason to issue a warning. Here is the DAV article: alpenverein.de/chameleon/pu…

Only enough to support the statistics statement Jim made. If you don't want to discuss statistics don't bring it into the conversation. Give us some steak with all that sizzle.

Kees wrote:How many statistics do you want? We are talking real people's lifes here! When 6 out of 10 cinch users in the DAV survey had a serious accident in 2009, I think the DAV certainly had a good reason to issue a warning. Here is the DAV article: alpenverein.de/chameleon/pu…

Hmm, the survey of user proportion was from 1038 people, kinda normal for this kind of stuff. The accidents were those reported from the users of DAV climbing gyms in 2009 so probably 6 or 7 million visits. There were other reports from other gyms but these were not included. 6 out of 10 users having a serious accident is incorrect.
The concern for the DAV was not only the exceptionally high incidence (which could have been a statistical blip as they acknowledged in the article) but the fact that the reasons for the GriGri accidents were known (freezing on the lowering handle) but the Cinch accidents were clearly from other, unidentified causes.
Most of the issues with the original Cinch appear to have been removed with the new version and the revised instructions (an indication that the original had a fair number of problems)and it only remains to be seen how succesful it will be in the real world.

Ray Pinpillage wrote: Only enough to support the statistics statement Jim made. If you don't want to discuss statistics don't bring it into the conversation. Give us some steak with all that sizzle.

You guys are taking statistical significance way too seriously...it is not some sort of gold standard. From my perspective, the meaning and conclusions that you take away from SS is misused and misinterpreted constantly. SS only gives you one piece of information when attempting to verify a hypothesis, i.e. SS should not be interpreted to mean that your hypothesis is right or wrong under any circumstance...it just gives you some (some!) measure of confidence about your hypothesis. But without other evidence, to me its sort of a meaningless relationship.

For example, if I jump off of a 600 foot bridge and die, I am a sample of one. No SS there. But any brain dead monkey will tell you that the hypothesis that I died from jumping off of the bridge is almost certainly correct. The point is that "verifying" a hypothesis involves some combination of a plausible physical mechanism, repeatability, etc. In other words, if you give me some relationship with high significance but absolutely no plausible rationale to explain it, then I am much less likely to believe the result than if you had less SS, but you did have a very reasonable physical rationale and a "reasonable" sample size of examples to go with it. There is always grey area here, but SS tests are almost always compromised by assumptions that are not met (e.g. do you even know what your population distribution looks like that you are basing your test off of? Not likely).

In this case, Jim Titt doesn't have any SS, but he does have a plausible physical rationale for his hypothesis combined with a "reasonable" sample size. Would I bet the farm on the relationship? No. But as reboot mentioned, there is plenty of evidence there to be concerned about, perhaps even to the point that I might not want to be belayed with a Cinch.

cyclestupor wrote: smoothest feeding device there is. Once you know how to use it you can easily keep your leader on a short leash, without short roping him/her.

The first part is very true. However, from my personal experience and the reported accidents, ironically, keeping a short leash increases the likelihood of a Cinch (of a Grigri) not locking. In the end, I'm not sure it's actually a real advantage anymore.

cyclestupor wrote: No special "fast-feeding" override technique necessary unlike the GriGri.

Well, the official instruction is sort of a "fast-feeding" override 100% of the time: you are supposed to shift the brake hand away from the device when the climber falls. The "normal" Grigri feed method does not require touching the device at all.

reboot wrote: The first part is very true. However, from my personal experience and the reported accidents, ironically, keeping a short leash increases the likelihood of a Cinch (of a Grigri) not locking. In the end, I'm not sure it's actually a real advantage anymore.

Keeping a short leash on a GriGri doesn't have any effect on how likely it is to lock. A GriGri will lock as long as there is force applied to the brake strand and nothing prevents the cam from engaging. As you yourself noted, the rope makes a bend in the grigri, therefore any tension on the rope (tension from pulling on brake strand) will drag the GriGri away from your harness and cause it to lock. It is NOT necessary to shock load a GriGri to make the cam engage.

I'll concede that keeping a short leash with a Cinch could increase the chance of failure to lock. But this is why when I belay with a Cinch I always hold the climbers strand loosly and keep it to the left (even if it's only 4" to the left) and the brake strand pointing to the right. A fall with that orientation will cause the plate to rotate when the rope is jerked from my left fingers. When I'm not paying out slack, I let the device lock off.

reboot wrote:Well, the official instruction is sort of a "fast-feeding" override 100% of the time: you are supposed to shift the brake hand away from the device when the climber falls. The "normal" Grigri feed method does not require touching the device at all.

You have a point here. And come to think of it, one of the reasons i switched from Cinch to GriGri is I like the fact that most of the time I don't have to touch the GriGri.

I tried a Vergo at the gym yesterday. Going into it I didn't feel very strongly either way—I'm not particularly pro-grigri or anti-cinch, I'm just interested in whatever works best.

My impression was:
- The vergo is MUCH harder to feed out slack with than the grigri. Of course I've used a grigri for a long time, but even with knowing exactly how and why the vergo was locking up, it seemed much, much harder to feed slack effectively than it is with a grigri.
- The vergo is much more prone to locking up—you could argue that this is a good thing, as I think it would be pretty hard to have the vergo fail by being held open, but it was so annoyingly quick to lock up that it was a major downside to me.
- Lowering with the vergo was not easy. It feels like a grigri 1, where the lever is either all the way open or all the way closed. The sweet spot is so small that it doesn't really allow you to lower smoothly, because any time there is even the slightest fluctuation in the amount of friction needed it either locks up all the way or opens up all the way. I felt like I was controlling the lower entirely with grip strength, and the lever was just a binary on/off.

Of course I have some bias having used a grigri for a while, but that being said, I do feel I tried it with an entirely open mind. I would have been psyched to find a belay device that I like better than a grigri; improvement is improvement, and I'm not particularly attached to one device, just to what works best. But even with the best intentions of finding some improvement in the vergo over the grigri, I honestly would not consider buying one. There were numerous things I disliked about it compared to a grigri, and nothing that I liked about it more, except maybe its small size and simplicity, which were minor in comparison to the downsides I found.

"The vergo is MUCH harder to feed out slack with than the grigri."

I'm going to have to say that you didn't know how to use the device if this is what was happening for you.
I know how to use the Vergo and it really does feed out slack much, much easier than a Grigri.

J. Albers wrote: You guys are taking statistical significance way too seriously...it is not some sort of gold standard. From my perspective, the meaning and conclusions that you take away from SS is misused and misinterpreted constantly. SS only gives you one piece of information when attempting to verify a hypothesis, i.e. SS should not be interpreted to mean that your hypothesis is right or wrong under any circumstance...it just gives you some (some!) measure of confidence about your hypothesis. But without other evidence, to me its sort of a meaningless relationship. For example, if I jump off of a 600 foot bridge and die, I am a sample of one. No SS there. But any brain dead monkey will tell you that the hypothesis that I died from jumping off of the bridge is almost certainly correct. The point is that "verifying" a hypothesis involves some combination of a plausible physical mechanism, repeatability, etc. In other words, if you give me some relationship with high significance but absolutely no plausible rationale to explain it, then I am much less likely to believe the result than if you had less SS, but you did have a very reasonable physical rationale and a "reasonable" sample size of examples to go with it. There is always grey area here, but SS tests are almost always compromised by assumptions that are not met (e.g. do you even know what your population distribution looks like that you are basing your test off of? Not likely). In this case, Jim Titt doesn't have any SS, but he does have a plausible physical rationale for his hypothesis combined with a "reasonable" sample size. Would I bet the farm on the relationship? No. But as reboot mentioned, there is plenty of evidence there to be concerned about, perhaps even to the point that I might not want to be belayed with a Cinch.

I think you're making excuses for Jim. Here was his statement:

Jim Titt wrote: I´d still rather take a bet on the statistics from a large number of users in a relatively controlled environment and analysed by a statistician than the opinion of one climber from Hawaii:-)

Statistics without "significance" is what? Sounds an awful lot like an anecdote. I don't have a PHD in statistics but I do have an MBA and work with QA. If I made your statement in an QA engineering meeting and then put up a slide with six questionable occurrences I would be asked to come back with something meaningful. I understand that Jim doesn't like the device and he has outlined the reasons why. There is no need for the hyperbole as it only brings into question the validity of his opinion and reputation.

Jeff G. wrote: "The vergo is MUCH harder to feed out slack with than the grigri." I'm going to have to say that you didn't know how to use the device if this is what was happening for you. I know how to use the Vergo and it really does feed out slack much, much easier than a Grigri.

Agreed. There is no possible scenario where the Vergo is harder to feed than a Grigri. It's literally physically impossible unless it's being used incorrectly.

Abram Herman wrote: but even with knowing exactly how and why the vergo was locking up, it seemed much, much harder to feed slack effectively than it is with a grigri

Abram Herman wrote: nothing that I liked about it more, except maybe its small size and simplicity, which were minor in comparison to the downsides I found.

So simple a caveman could feed slack.

Or not.

I just got my Vergo in the mail yesterday, will try to make it to the gym to test it out in earnest tonight, but I did throw a rope into it and do have some initial impressions:

• Very solid device, I was almost surprised by the weight, but it's only slightly heavier than the Gri-Gri and feels great in hand. If I was doing a big multi-pitch day I don't think I would hesitate to grab the Vergo because of the weight or anything like that.
• Seems extremely straight forward to use, all the markings are clear, I didn't look at the instructions (though I've seen a video or two and a couple notes) and it felt intuitive to set up and use
• Seems very comfortable to use. I was a bit skeptical about how they were pushing the ergonomics, but I have some issues with my right shoulder and using the Gri-Gri puts it into internal rotation (which already happens from working on a computer all day), but the Vergo definitely allows my shoulder to be in a more natural and comfortable position.
• Feeds rope like a dream. I'll know more after the gym, but it seems like the camming action is all handled by the plate and attachment to your harness. I can imagine if you are pulling the device away from your harness you could keep locking it up by accident, but I suspect a little practice would eliminate this issue
• I'm not so sure about the handle. Once you get the device all set up it seems fine, but I ran through the motions of putting the rope through a few times and found if I didn't do it just right the handle would be open with the rope running through it. The handle is on the more solid part of the hardware (not the plate) and the release mechanism is actually a small pin on the plate that fits into a space on the handle, so when you open the handle it adjusts the pin which slightly opens the device. With a 9.5mm rope it seemed fine and with plenty of range to control the rope through the device, but I didn't have it fully weighted with a climber or on a fat gym rope, so I'm interested to see how it performs

Overall looks like a solid device and I don't really have any concerns about it at this point. We'll see about pin wear longer term, I wonder if the 'inspect' pointing to the pin is just because of the issues with the Cinch, or if they actually have concerns about this pin wearing quickly as well.

I found this video: youtu.be/E65mEQ7KqPw

Apparently the way the gym employee told me to use it wasn't correct at all (or at least lacked explanation of the nuances that make feeding slack easy); yeah, I know, I trusted a gym employee to tell me how something works. First mistake. I'm looking forward to trying it again with the proper technique!

"So simple a caveman could feed slack."

Really?? Hold the device perfectly flat on its side, and feed out slack only towards the left, not up towards the climber. Yeah, cause that's intuitive and straightforward... ;)

I'm still open to trying it and seeing how it stacks up to a grigri, now that I know the correct method!