Petzl Evolve Adjust & Aid Climbing...Anyone Try it?

Hi,

Has anyone any experience incorporating this device into big wall / aid?

Petzl Evolv Adjust

Sample

Yes, it is terrific. Makes all other adjustable daisies totally obsolete.

Pros:

1. Strong. The bodyweight only rating from petzl is ultra conservative. Much stronger than any other daisy out there.
2. Twisting is irrelevant. The main thing that slows me down with the buckle style adjustables is making sure there are no twists.
3. No way to accidentally trigger the buckle and go shooting out to the end of the daisy. I only did that once and it scared the shit out of me, but that is why i spend so much time futzing around with getting twists out.
4. Daisy is somewhat dynamic - daisy falls are bad, but i'd much rather take one on this than any other daisy.
5. Long life span - petzl rates it for 10 years. The buckle style starts slipping after a few years of hard use. This will not be an issue with these - the end of life is purely about the lifespan of the rope.

Cons:

1. Slightly harder to release under load than the buckle style adjustables, though much easier to release than the stupid metolius version.
2. Doesn't get you in as close as a buckle style adjustable. I never used fifi hooks with the buckle style, but they are pretty necessary with the petzl. For some reason petzl recommends girth hitching around the belay loop, but that makes the problem worse - i girth hitch around the tie in loops.
3. Expensive, but i think that will be a wash over the lifespan of the petzl.

Andrew Gram wrote:Yes, it is terrific. Makes all other adjustable daisies totally obsolete. Pros: 1. Strong. The bodyweight only rating from petzl is ultra conservative. Much stronger than any other daisy out there. 2. Twisting is irrelevant. The main thing that slows me down with the buckle style adjustables is making sure there are no twists. 3. No way to accidentally trigger the buckle and go shooting out to the end of the daisy. I only did that once and it scared the shit out of me, but that is why i spend so much time futzing around with getting twists out. 4. Daisy is somewhat dynamic - daisy falls are bad, but i'd much rather take one on this than any other daisy. 5. Long life span - petzl rates it for 10 years. The buckle style starts slipping after a few years of hard use. This will not be an issue with these - the end of life is purely about the lifespan of the rope. Cons: 1. Slightly harder to release under load than the buckle style adjustables, though much easier to release than the stupid metolius version. 2. Doesn't get you in as close as a buckle style adjustable. I never used fifi hooks with the buckle style, but they are pretty necessary with the petzl. For some reason petzl recommends girth hitching around the belay loop, but that makes the problem worse - i girth hitch around the tie in loops. 3. Expensive, but i think that will be a wash over the lifespan of the petzl.

Awesome beta. Thanks! Just ordered one.

In the event of a daisy fall...is this going to be a bigger ouch?

Just throwing it out there. Looks pretty neat, and my fears might be unfounded.

I hear taking a fall with an adjustable daisy hurts, this looks like a steel cable???

Embarrassed to say wrote:In the event of a daisy fall...is this going to be a bigger ouch? Just throwing it out there. Looks pretty neat, and my fears might be unfounded. I hear taking a fall with an adjustable daisy hurts, this looks like a steel cable???

Look closer. It's standard climbing rope.

does it come with the spirit biners???
seems you could make this with 2 juls, a piece of rope and some knots...
if you use a mega for everything and carry a back up(lighter than a gri/reverso combo) you already have the $ part....hmmm, might try this.

It doesn't come with biners.

I suppose you could make something like this, but it would be bulky and clunky for a piece of equipment that you really don't want to be bulky and clunky. I don't see the point - just use regular pocketed daisies if you are super cheap.

FWIW, I found the "harder to release under load" feature to be a real pain. You do this hundreds of times in a route, and having to do a mini-pullup or some other trickery to release the stupid thing is annoying. Plus, if you're a doofus like me and often place/tighten the top daisy into new gear while top stepping, you're kinda screwed in terms of releasing the buckle on the lower piece, because both buckles are loaded.

Maybe there's a trick to it that I was missing, tho. I tried it and quickly went back to strap-based adjustable daisies.

I'm going to check them out a shop next week. I'll report back.

As far as Daisy falls go, to me it's a simple DON'T DO THAT! I never move into a new peice with my daisy connected to the previous peice. Even when I'm bounce testing something, I'm not connected to the lower peice.

Been using these for the last few months. Haven't had a both-sides-weighted-simultaneously-under-high-tension-with-no-rock-to-push-off-of situation (like a roof pitch) to see about the releasing when both sides are , but so far they seem awesome.

Pros:
- No twisting like with a flat webbing daisy

- Very easy to extend and cinch up

- Buckle won't slip over time like my Yates/Fish buckles eventually do when the webbing fuzzes out (Normally after a year of climbing for me)

Cons:
- More expensive than two webbing daisies.

- They are a bit of a PITA when soloing with a Silent Partner as it ends up being a lot of stuff going through the tie-in points. Not a deal-breaker in any way.

- I feel like they will start getting abraded at a faster rate at the girth-hitching point from general mucking about in flares, corners, etc. (So far they're fine, but I'm a bit worried about how they'll hold up a year down the road.)

- You have to watch the buckle a bit to make sure it doesn't get trapped against the rock or piece as it can get stuck in the "open" position. (But this is not that different from having to watch the buckle to make sure it's not compressed by the rock or piece with a normal flat webbing daisy.)

- The end of the cord doesn't have a loop that allows it to be clipped back to the biner so the long length of the extra cord can get cluttered and easily tripped over when walking about with it if you're not aware. (I like to loop my free end back to the carabiner, none of my friends care about this so YMMV)

- This system forces you to girth hitch to the tie-in points rather than allowing you to attached one side to one belay loop (I use two belay loops on my Shield Harness to un-clutter my daisies by attaching one to each belay loop - you could argue that this could be a pro if you're working with one belay loop as it will be less cluttered in that area than two separate webbing daisies.)

Overall I love them so far. If you're new to Bigwall or plan to focus on speed walling, these are not for you. If' you already know you're going to be bigwalling a lot and you're of the vertical camping style of climbing, these are awesome.

Cameron Saul wrote:FWIW, I found the "harder to release under load" feature to be a real pain. You do this hundreds of times in a route, and having to do a mini-pullup or some other trickery to release the stupid thing is annoying. Plus, if you're a doofus like me and often place/tighten the top daisy into new gear while top stepping, you're kinda screwed in terms of releasing the buckle on the lower piece, because both buckles are loaded. Maybe there's a trick to it that I was missing, tho. I tried it and quickly went back to strap-based adjustable daisies.

I've found that these are no different in their difficulty to release in normal situations compared to buckle webbing daisies. You can't "pop" them like a fully weighted buckled daisy, but you really shouldn't be doing that anyways and if that's happening very often, then technique needs to adjust rather than the device.

Andrew Gram wrote:3. No way to accidentally trigger the buckle and go shooting out to the end of the daisy. I only did that once and it scared the shit out of me, but that is why i spend so much time futzing around with getting twists out.

Not exactly as the instructions specifically speaks about making sure it doesn't get trapped against a rock or piece of protection (I've had this happen already and it's a bit disconcerting just like when it happens with a buckled daisy)

Andrew Gram wrote:For some reason petzl recommends girth hitching around the belay loop, but that makes the problem worse - i girth hitch around the tie in loops.

Compete agreement with AG, if you attach these to your belay loop, you're gunna have a bad time. This ABSOLUTELY HAS TO be attached to the tie-in points or else there's so much distance being lost as to make them worthless

I am not a fan of mine, I like the Yates better. Lack of easy release under even minor load sucks. They also get clustered in hand sized cracks more than Yates, and can even lock open in such clusters. Mine pissed me off enough in a couple pitches of fixing that I swapped them back out for my Yates.

YMMV

I've used these for a few walls and am pretty happy how they've been working out. Anyone know what the 2 bumper guards are for that come with them? Is it to prevent abrasion? Also I've learned that attaching your ladders onto a seperate carabiner that's attached to the main one allows for much easier tension release. After reading the above comments, I'm going to begin girth hitching to the tie in points. Also, I took a full length daisy fall on one of the strands and it held up just fine, just fyi.

Bumper guards (the rubber sleeves that come with them) are meant to be placed upon the carabiner at the end to trap the device into the best position on the carabiner.

Moof wrote:I am not a fan of mine, I like the Yates better. Lack of easy release under even minor load sucks. They also get clustered in hand sized cracks more than Yates, and can even lock open in such clusters. Mine pissed me off enough in a couple pitches of fixing that I swapped them back out for my Yates. YMMV

Wanna sell me yours?

Just getting into the aid game and have had a chance to try different brands and want to throw my hat into the Evolve promotion (probably 10 pitches with the Evolve so far)... these things are great. What I really like about them is how smoothly and predictably they release compared with the other adjustable daisies out there.

And yeah, having a separate biner for your aiders makes using these a lot easier as there's not the aider webbing to get in the way of these releasing smoothly

For those that have used these on walls, how did they fair when cleaning/jugging? For example, whey you step up on the left ascender+aider and unweight the right ascender (and thus it's Evolv arm), will it allow some of the rope to move through the cinching device? My concern is that with all the jostling of ascenders that the Evolv arms won't remain at a fixed length while jugging.

Thoughts?

I find that certain situations they can get locked open. But not often and usually no big deal. Easy to deal with. I like to fisherman knot the tail at the belay for safety, Kinda liking these. A bit of a cluster at times but enjoy them on expando and other fun ;) pitches. Worth the $.
Best adjustable on the market.
Imo.

Have encountered no slippage

Erik W wrote:For those that have used these on walls, how did they fair when cleaning/jugging? For example, whey you step up on the left ascender+aider and unweight the right ascender (and thus it's Evolv arm), will it allow some of the rope to move through the cinching device? My concern is that with all the jostling of ascenders that the Evolv arms won't remain at a fixed length while jugging. Thoughts?

I've done a lot of aiding and jugging with these and they don't slip or move at all. Really great daisies. My only gripe, and it's small, is that the tail, if long can sometimes get in the way. It's not a big enough of a reason not to buy them, but thought I'd mention it. That really is the only reason that I can think of not to buy them. Someone mentioned above that they can get locked open. This can happen, but only if the locking mechanism gets jammed against a biner or rock or something before you get it set. I've had it happen once or twice, but no big deal. You notice before anything bad happens because the rope slips through. Worse case scenario is that all of the rope would slip through so that the sewn end stops in the locking mechanism and you're still safe so again, no big deal.