Removable bolt trial by fire by manufacturer

Yowza - taking a voluntary 50 footer on a single(?) removable bolt.
Anybody use these - or load them? In soft stone?

vimeo.com/10674868

I'd like to try a few. Guessing soft rock won't work as well - not after many uses anyway.

Now that is a man who stands by his product.

http://www.caves.org/section/vertical/nh/45/ivyaccrpt.html

These cavers were a couple of dumbasses from the start but their experience with RB's is slightly less impressive than the video.

50 ft'r on any single piece of pro and you've got my attention though. That does take some stones.

They have been around for a while. The problem with the older ones is that if you fell on them or even weighted them, they would become fixed. The newer ones do not have this problem, making them more useful.

I've fallen on one of the old ones in Thai limestone. Not the hardest of rock, but not exactly soft either. Once you see the design, you'll have confidence in the gear. It's as safe as falling on a cam as far as I'm concerned.

Now try removing them without destroy them. I borrowed a 3/8" one to use as a TR directional for cleaning and bolting a steep route with glue-ins and the only way to get it out was with a screw driver and hammer to loosen it up, which ended up mangling the cable. Luckily my friend thought they were useless anyway so I didn't have to replace it.

In the video he used a 3/4" one. So we are supposed to drill 3/4" holes for them? How is that low impact?. Sorry, I see very little use for them.

^ are they really removable now, Ryan? If so, then they would be useful for bolting steep routes. Instead, when working from the top down if I couldn't hook anything I would place temporary small cheap removable hardware store bolts to hold myself in enough to do the work(a regular climbing bolt if failure would be critical). When my glue-ins were dry I would then take them out and carefully patch.

I don't have a ton of experience w/ the new ones but have had someone explain to me how they were reworked. It's been a while, but I believe that if the new ones don't come out by hand, there is a flat surface on the bottom of the inner piece that you can tap with a chisel point or drill bit (pushing it into the hole) and freeing the outer two pieces.

The person explaining this had some w/ him and said that it was a large improvement over the old style. It seemed to me like it would work. IIRC, on the older ones, the two outer pieces completely covered (surrounded) the inner piece when placed, so there was no surface to tap. If you couldn't get them out by hand, they weren't coming out.

I liked the idea of using them instead of expansion bolts when I was going to go back and bolt the entire pitch w/ glue ins. But I didn't have many, so like you, I resorted to hardware store concrete bolts when bolting steep stuff from above, and used proper Petzl or Fixe expansions when failure was critical. That was enough for me to do a few moves on TR and figure out the best place for the glue ins, and held me close enough to the wall to do the drilling.

The main advantage I saw (but never got the chance to try) was that I could use the same holes I drilled for the RB's to place the glue ins. This means I drill half as many holes and don't waste glue patching them up. A nice clean pitch w/ ONLY glue in bolts is a wonderful site.

The problem with that is that we either used Ti staples, or the Ushba Ti bolts, depending on what type of rock we were drilling. Sometimes I'd use 4 staples and 9 Ushba bolts on a pitch, and other times it would be the other way around. You'd never know until you could drill and hammer to test the rock.

You need different size and different types of holes depending on what bolt you use, which means two different sized RB's... it becomes confusing.

A 3/4" hole is lower-impact than a 1" hole. 1" is the other size that is available.

EDIT: I see that 1/2" is the size marketed to climbers.

The design looks pretty solid. It's basically a two-sided ball nut. But, I don't really see the application for these. Or, at least, it's hard to imagine them catching on.

Are route developers going to put up routes with only drilled holes so that people can come along later with their own set of RBs? Are sport climbers going to go out and buy a set of these at $55 a pop so they can go climb boltless sport routes?

The impact on the rock is no less...it's drilled full of holes. I suppose the visual impact is a bit less from a distance but, if they did catch on, we'd still have walls of rock with holes all over them. Considering the limited benefit, I can't imagine the majority of sport climbers are going to spend $500-700 on new gear.

These guys also make a complete line of carabiners, quickdraws and perma-draws, etc.

climbtechgear.com

Like Crag Dweller said, I don't really understand where you would need them. Are they useful for developing routes?

i kind of like the idea of a holey route, where you plug and chug (kind of like indian creek). HOWEVER i think the problem is that there would be borderline manufactured monos that can be used to climb. Also, due to the nature of sport climbing, the RBs may be intentionally left fixed anyway with draws on them. speaking of that, maybe the cable tubing could be grey or brown to blend in.

i suppose i can see an application for steep aid routes or route developing.

one thing's certain. if they did catch on, the whole redpoint/pinkpoint debate is going to blow up.

is it a redpoint if i climb second and the bolts are already in place? what if the bolts and 'draws are both in place?! Oh Their God (OTG)!!! We'd have to come up with another term that none of use could agree on.

this technology would create a divide in the climbing community that we could never undo. we need to act now to prevent this from happening. someone call Anonymous. ClimbTech's web site must come down.

Crag Dweller wrote:one thing's certain. if they did catch on, the whole redpoint/pinkpoint debate is going to blow up. is it a redpoint if i climb second and the bolts are already in place? what if the bolts and 'draws are both in place?! Oh Their God (OTG)!!! We'd have to come up with another term that none of use could agree on. this technology would create a divide in the climbing community that we could never undo. we need to act now to prevent this from happening. someone call Anonymous. ClimbTech's web site must come down.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that these will catch on as sport climbing protection. As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, the main application for these is route development. With a removeable bolt the developer can keep close to the wall for drilling, and then use the same RB hole to place a glue-in.

I guess I could see these being used as sport climbing protection in areas that don't allow fixed gear, there may be a loophole where drilling a hole isn't illegal since you aren't leaving any hardware (not that I'm condoning this idea).

muttonface wrote:I like how nonchalant he is about it. "welp, this looks like a good place for a fifty footer on one removable piece. later."

And with no helmet. Surprised me at first, but then i guess if the thing failed a helmet wouldn't have done him much good anyway.

Dude looks like he just got up from watching a football game on the couch. Ha!

kennoyce wrote: ...the main application for these is route development...

ah, that makes more sense, thanks.

caughtinside wrote: Some guys experimented with that way up in NorCal, full RB routes. The problem is once the drill dust is gone... those holes can be very difficult to see. The routes were in limestone and I think the idea died when a guy took a fall and ripped off a whole plate. Those holes will wear down under repeated loading.

Yeah, I remember hearing about Lindner putting up a testpiece on RBs a few years ago. It was on the NoCal coast, and I think their logic was that any permabolts would corrode from the salt spray quickly, so may as well use RBs for the send.

ukclimbing.com/news/item.ph…

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caughtinside wrote: I was thinking of a different area/route, but you may be right. Although I though lindner's route used a triplex bolt, which is also removable. I think they filmed the route then removed the gear? Not that cool.

Why is that uncool? I think it is better to remove the bolts than leave them knowing they will corrode and be a hazard.

I could see how these would be useful for doing big wall FA's in remote locations. Imagine only having to carry a handful of removable bolts vs a ton of hangers and bolts.