Passive vs Active: Discuss

I'm old school. I lived in a van in 94 and climbed all over the country. All the rack talk now seems to focus on cams. Are you guys afraid of passive pro? I freaking love hexes, nuts, tricams, and offset nuts! What's up? Have we gotten weaker? Faster? What's up with the threads where we dis the passive pro? I love bomber pieces of massive pro! What's the problem? A new trad rack should not be based on cams that a new leader cannot place without walking danger. Learn to do it all! Is it just me? Please enlighten me because I'm wondering if the new gen is wussier or smarter. Seriously, enlighten me! And don't say that the routes are harder. Get stronger, bitches.

This is going to be an awesome thread!!! 

• Totems for the win!!!

Might be that people are lazier and richer now days.

Might be that cams are overall just objectively better, or it might be one of those cases of shit getting popular for no good reason.

Who knows why the market does what the market does.

People queue at Starbucks and McDonald's, people buy cams.

It doesn't matter much to us, as long there's enough people buying passive pro for it to continue to sell on the market - which I think there always will be because it can be made at home.

Buddy Smith wrote:

 And don't say that the routes are harder. Get stronger, bitches.

Trad:  Leads 5.7   Follows 5.9

OK...

I'm old school! Rode a fixed hardtail on Mt. Tam. What's up with all these gears, suspension and big wheels? Is no one out there as hard as me? 

opps wrong pastime.

BLAHHHHHHHHHH!

cams are better

I use the shit out of some Totems.   Must be soft.

I have hexes. They take longer to place and clean. They only come out if it's an inwardly flaring crack where a cam can walk back and open up (pretty rare). 

I look for cam placements first, but a good nut really inspires confidence. I've led many pitches with no nuts, I've also lead a pitch where I used two cams and a full set of brass and allot offsets.

There's not much competition between nuts and cams for me. There are places I'd put a nut and places I'd put a cam, and not a ton of overlap. Sure, there are lots of places where you can "make do" with one where the other would fit more firmly, and if you want to risk your life for an all-passive aesthetic or all-cam simplicity, that's your prerogative. For me it's more about the pulling myself up the wall than the sticking things in the wall--I just want to stick enough things in the wall well enough to do the pulling myself up the wall safely.

OUCH. SMOKED. I read most of these threads - no one dissed passive pro. Everyone can agree it has an obvious place on a rack. I do hate on passive when people are starting to build a trad rack and others suggest the beginner get every type of nut, and hex, and cowbell, under the sun. It just doesn't make sense. A single set of basic nuts is great for starting out. Overall, nuts have a steeper learning curve than cams, and take longer to place and remove. Whereas cams are relatively intuitive. 

And if you want to see if I am a weak bitch - I will arm wrestle you, any time, any place. 

I'd love to see the OP show at at Indian Creek with a rack of old hexes and stoppers.  

He can show us a how it used to be back in 94 when um, cams cost, no wait, um.  Before link cams?  I duno.  

Perhaps its the game going on in someones head while leading? Perhaps our generation gets warm and fuzzies and a confidence boost knowing that a cam is in place rather than a nut/tricam/hex than could zip on them if/when they whip. It could be that, or lack of confidence in proper placement because they never had a mentor teach them how to set passive pro properly. Thats my 2 cents. 

grog m aka Greg McKee wrote:

........................Overall, nuts have a steeper learning curve than cams, and take longer to place and remove. Whereas cams are relatively intuitive. 

I don't get this, do you care to elaborate ? There is nothing more basic then a restriction and a wedge where a cam with multiply moving parts there just seems to be more to watch and consider.

grog m aka Greg McKee wrote:

OUCH. SMOKED. I read most of these threads - no one dissed passive pro. Everyone can agree it has an obvious place on a rack. 

Agreed, I've never seen anyone dissing on passive pro in general on any thread on MP.  Generally the threads I see ask something like, I need a trad rack, what should I get, and the answers I always see are to get a set of nuts and a set of cams.  

Now dissing on certain types of passive pro, that's something else entirely.  Yes, hexes get a bad rap, and for a good reason.  There are certainly placements where a hex would do much better than a cam, but those types of placements are the exception, and not the rule, and generally speaking, when a crack is big enough for a hex you will find a perfect cam placement within a foot in either direction of the hex so the hex really isn't needed.  Add to that the fact that hexes take longer to place and longer to clean, and there just really isn't a reason to cary hexes in the modern world.

Now on to tri-cams, well, obviously, they just suck, especially the pink one (and now I'm going to go pop a bag of popcorn).

Those who stir the shit pot should be made to lick the spoon.

beensandbagged wrote:

I don't get this, do you care to elaborate ? There is nothing more basic then a restriction and a wedge where a cam with multiply moving parts there just seems to be more to watch and consider.

Comparing a straight forward cam placement vs a straight forward nut placement it's easier for an untrained/un-practiced eye to ID the cam placement.

However, I'd disagree with the sentiment somewhat, because it's also much easier to place a cam poorly, than a nut (generally a bad nut placements falls out easily with pretty standard tests, vs a bad cam placement may "seem" good to an untrained eye)

I'm just going to go ahead and say that cams are more versatile.  I've seen more nut placements that also take good cams than cam placements that also take good nuts. 

You do you! Nothing wrong with that. Please don't expect everyone else to do things the way you do. Cams have their place on a rack just like any piece of gear and are here to stay. I find them pretty essential for most climbs in my area. And that's with me looking for passive placements first. 

Kedron Silsbee wrote:

Trad:  Leads 5.7   Follows 5.9

OK...

As I said, I'm back on the rock after a fifteen year hiatus. I'm 52. I'm getting stronger myself.