Uncoiling a new rope question!

Every year I buy a brand new rope. And every year I stand in my living room cursing. This is due to the fact that when I unpack and uncoil the rope, for the very first time, the rope gets tangled and twisted into a mess of coils and hateful knots. Does anyone have a trick to avoid this two or three hour headache and uncoil a new rope without getting it hopelessly tangled?

Yep, what John said^.

Here's a helpful video if you're not sure what he's describing.

youtube.com/watch?v=Jkfeqoa…

Ryan, John, thanks for the help!

Be aware some ropes are coiled from a single end, and some are coiled with the rope doubled (i.e. folded in half, starting with the middle mark). The rope should come with some indication of which is the case. I think Mammut coils it doubled, based on the above video Sterling does not.

six pack and a sharp knife ;)

Ahh. BBQ's problem explains why so many people are taking up bouldering.

A solution:
If you have a waste-paper basket and a swiveling chair, turn the (emptied) waste-paper basket upsidedown on the chair seat, stuff the uncoiled rope over the top of the waste-paper basket (instead of stuffing it on a pair of forearms as shown in the video Ryan posted), rotate the chair, and unwind the rope. Sometimes you can stuff the rope over the back of the chair & unwind. team of two can be a bonus, one to turn the chair and one to pull the unwinding rope out of the way.

If you send me a new rope, I'll post a video of how to unwind it on a swivel chair. A new 70 meter, dry, bi-color rope would be optimal to show the benefit of the swivel chair technique...

Meanwhile, blame me for any increase you see in the popularity of roped climbing.

How about opening up the handy dandy booklet that gets shipped with each and every rope and following the directions printed inside?

Nah, too easy...

BBQ wrote:Every year I buy a brand new rope.

Out of curiosity, how often do you climb and what kind of stuff?