How long should I use my gym rope for?

I'm just curious if anyone has some insight on how long you can expect to use a gym lead rope. My rope in particular is a Mammut 10.1 and I've had it for 9 months. On average it gets used for 2 sessions per week with about 6 sizable falls per session (though if I try something at my limit I might take 2-3 decent falls in a single attempt). If it makes any difference I weigh almost 175 which is somewhat heavier than the average sport climber. The ends seem kind of tired, the sheath is slightly fuzzy and the rope folds flat against itself in this area. I already cut the ends when they started to feel worn and flat the first time so there probably isn't enough rope to do it again. 

Sounds like it's time for a new one (flat spots).

Can't put a price on peace of mind my dude. 

The amount of damage you describe sounds excessive for 9months. I would expect the rope to last a couple of years, at least... And you say that you have already cut the ends once, and contemplating cutting them again?! Doesn't sound like any ropes I've ever had. 

It's hard to say without seeing/touching the rope, maybe your perception of damage is a but exaggerated... The best thing would be to show this flat spot to an experienced local climber, and ask if he would climb on it still.

 How tall are your gym walls, how long was your rope to begin with, and how much did you chop off before?  

I'd be very surprised if you didn't get a full 2-5 years out of gym rope.  I'd chop the ends if it gets to worn, but they probably aren't getting that fuzzy from gym falls. I'd also imagine that the gym falls are not all that huge.  

Don't worry about slight fuzziness, and the rope folding flat against itself is not a concern as long as the core is intact within the sheath itself (which is always something people say to inspect for, but I don't know of any real world scenario in which the core would be severed without associated sheath damage). 

If you are concerned about it, consider swapping ends after a large fall and allowing that rope end to "rest".

Virtually all rope failures are from a rope running over a sharp edge during a lead fall, which are not relevant in the gym, barring some serious route setting errors. If you are unsure about the fraying post some photos of it. 

Let me amend that to say that it may depend on your interpretation of "flat".  And post some photos of the rope folding flat.  Even better, ask someone in your gym who has a lot of experience. 

climbing friend,

do you even troll?

for obvious as long as possible, until it is too scary with any core deformation (soft spot, flat spot significantly different than rest of rope) or core shot. 

yes if it is limp and folding against itself, there is no hope, this is not attractive

Aleks Zebastian wrote:

yes if it is limp and folding against itself, there is no hope, this is not attractive

Yes, that is exactly what she said...

I really doubt the OP is taking UIAA factor 1.77 falls in the gym...

I'm definitely don't have the science to back it up, but one would assume that a proposed 432 falls would at least come close to the damage suffered by a few factor 1.77 falls. If nothing else in damage to the sheath. 

Jack Stephenson wrote:

I'm definitely don't have the science to back it up, but one would assume that a proposed 432 falls would at least come close to the damage suffered by a few factor 1.77 falls. If nothing else in damage to the sheath. 

No. And sheath damage has nothing to do with UIAA fall ratings.

It is possible that the quickdraws in the OP's gym are more worn out/sharp than they should be, and that is causing more damage than average. It is possible that the rope comes from a bad batch, and it is certainly worth checking that there aren't a bunch of other similar complaints about this particular rope recently. It is possible that the OP has been working the same route over and over and falling in the exact same spot with the exact same amount of slack, always on the same end of the rope, and so there is one spot on the rope that is taking the brunt of the damage and abrasion.

It is also possible that the OP is exaggerating the amount of damage due to inexperience, and we are all going by what he said, without ever seeing the rope.
2x a week in a gym for 9 months under normal circumstances shouldn't cause so much damage to the rope that the ends have been cut once already, and are in need of cutting again. Something is off.

One of the gyms I climb at provides their own ropes for leading, and requires that people only use the gym-provided ropes for leading. E.i. these ropes see a lot more use than 2x a week. They are used daily, and at least on the weekends people are sometimes waiting for ropes, e.i. as soon as they are turned in by one party, they get checked out again for the next party. And yet these ropes last longer than 9 months.

Jack Stephenson wrote:

I'm definitely don't have the science to back it up, but one would assume that a proposed 432 falls would at least come close to the damage suffered by a few factor 1.77 falls. If nothing else in damage to the sheath. 

The UIAA test isn't just a factor 1.77 fall, it's a relatively short factor 1.77 fall over a pretty sharp edge, which combines to make it a far and away more abusive fall than any fall you could take a gym

I think it also depends on the type of routes you do at the gym. I do a lot of routes at my gym where there is a ridge between two draws and upon lowering, it rubs. Overtime (6-9 months at 2-3 times a week), the rope gets very fuzzy.

Skye Swoboda-Colberg wrote:

Either the OP is exaggerating and cutting off more rope that he needs, or he is actually taking a lot of falls and making the correct call. Either way, he's doing a good job of eliminating any risk because he is the one at risk. Who in their right mind wants to risk a fall in the gym because of a bad rope, this would be super embarrassing, I respect the OP, its damn hard to take cut that lifeline you spent your hard earned money on. I think its rude to call this guy a troll, and see no evidence of this accusation. 

The only person who should be making this kind of statement is a gym employee charged with periodically replacing the lead ropes. Is this your role? Maybe you know someone we do not? I would not expect a rope that is used daily to last full year, let alone more than a year. That's according to a few websites as well as my copy of Freedom of the Hills.

I didn't call the OP a troll. Are you responding to someone else? If you scroll up, my comment was that the damage sounds excessive and he should have someone experienced look at it to confirm. I didn't say nah, it's nothing, just keep climbing on it, did I?

In any case, the guy didn't ask, " should I keep climbing on it, or should I get a new rope?" Re-read the OP. He is just curious if it is normal for the rope that is used 2x a week in a gym, under what he described to be about average number of falls in a session, to be so worn out after 9 months. In fact, the rope got worn out a lot earlier than 9 months, because at some point in the past 9 months he already cut the ends-- BOTH ends!!! -- once.

And the answer to that is no, it is not normal. Can it happen? Sure. I offered some possibilities of how it could happen in my second post. 

As to the gym ropes, it is just a coincidence that earlier this week I checked out a rope at the gym, looked at it, noticed a fuzzy spot I didn't like, it felts flat-ish, I returned it to ask for replacement. So I had a conversation with the employee about their rope lifespan. And most ropes at the gym are retired because they have a schedule, not because they show any visible spot damage -- again, different than OP, who is seeing a damage spot on his rope, and it has happened more than once in 9 months.

caughtinside wrote:

It's an interesting question, how long you would expect a gym rope to last.  9 months does seem short, but if you're hammering on it and taking many falls, lots of takes, etc maybe not.  I let my friends climb on my gym rope and in a session 5-10 combined falls is pretty normal, and I trim my rope periodically (but I haven't tracked how periodically.)

It also depends on your rope though My gym rope is a cheapish 10.0, and what I've noticed is that it doesn't wear "evenly," rather, it looks good... until one day it does not, it folds on itself with no resistance and it is time to trim.  

I guess if you have a full 60m rope, and your gym walls are only 45 feet tall, you can do the end trimming for a very long time, without retiring the entire rope, and thus your rope would "last" a while, but if you bought a short rope for the gym, it's only couple trims, and then it's gone... You really think that you cut your rope 3 times a year though?

I don't have a gym rope, because our gym doesn't have leading, and the gym that does is couple hours away, and thus a relatively rare trip, and they provide ropes.

But going by outside climbing experience... I have been climbing for 13 years, and I'm on my 4th rope, (it's new as of last December).  In that period of time I got a core shot once (sharp fixed 'biner), and got a flat spot 2 or 3 times total, that necessitated end trimming. Usually when the ropes were retired it was because they just seemed overall fuzzy/worn out, or they started feeling stiff and unpleasant on lead falls -- they went on to people who needed old ropes for fixed lines, and I have also cut one for toproping, e.i. they were not, at that point of retirement, completely unusable.

The most recent rope I can actually count the number of uses, and I'm doing some math on it: It was the only rope we brought on a trip with us, so it's "life" started with 14 days of climbing. Let's translate that into 7 weeks of 2x a week gym climbing. It has since seen 10 weekends of climbing outside-- so in total that would be the same thing as 17 weeks of climbing at the gym 2x a week, e.i. about 4 months. It has seen more than 6 falls a day in that period of time. The first 14 days were on limestone, with plenty of bulges, roofs, and even toproping. The rest was on sandstone. And you know how much sand climbing at the Red entails... It still looks new. Dirty, not shiny-brand-new, but not fuzzy, flat, or anything.

But OP was, at this point, already cutting the ends of his rope in the gym? Assuming that the previous cutting happened about halfway through his 9 months of gym rope ownership? I'd be bummed if I had to cut ends at this point.

Lena chita wrote:

But OP was, at this point, already cutting the ends of his rope in the gym? Assuming that the previous cutting happened about halfway through his 9 months of gym rope ownership? I'd be bummed if I had to cut ends at this point.

Hey Lena, I should have mentioned that the first time I cut the end was a bit of a special case. The rope somehow got stuck on a hold when the leader fell. A section of the rope sustained a fair amount of abrasion so I cut it off. I'm very surprised to hear that people are keeping their gym ropes for so long, I think maybe I'm overreacting. I will measure the rope, maybe there is just enough length to cut the end that wasn't cut before, and then I think I'll keep using it for at least a few more months. Can I get one other opinion? Is this cam ok? I fell on what seemed like a good placement but somehow on one side the lobes opened all the way up and then continued to bend back slightly past their neutral position a bit (look at the far lobes to see what it's supposed to look like).

Your cam is fine.  Keep using it.

Gunkiemike wrote:

Your cam is fine.  Keep using it.

Thanks for the input. I'm probably over thinking this stuff. 

Benjamin Mitchell wrote:

Hey Lena, I should have mentioned that the first time I cut the end was a bit of a special case. The rope somehow got stuck on a hold when the leader fell. A section of the rope sustained a fair amount of abrasion so I cut it off. I'm very surprised to hear that people are keeping their gym ropes for so long, I think maybe I'm overreacting. I will measure the rope, maybe there is just enough length to cut the end that wasn't cut before, and then I think I'll keep using it for at least a few more months. 

Yeah, makes sense that getting caught on a hold damaged the rope! Don't ignore the flat spot on the rope, that needs to be looked at/cut off. But I hope the rope is long enough and you get a few more months use out of the rope.

caughtinside wrote:

No, certainly don't cut the rope three times a year.  Maybe once a year?  

It's hard to measure without data though.  For a while there I was mostly a gym climber.  So most of my falls were in the gym.

4 ropes! I"m impressed. I think I have 5 in the current rotation, and have probably owned a dozen? lifetime? not sure.  Retired some but using several extends the life quite a bit. I've got some 8 year old ropes I still lead on.

Use cases are different though... new routes, rebolting old routes, etc. I would also suspect that being a lighter climber means your falls cause less wear on your rope.  

Well, we have three ropes in the current rotation, too, though only two of them are the ropes we regularly lead on. I just think of my rope as the rope that lives in my pack-the one I  take when I go climbing without my husband. And I am climbing on my partners ropes as well as my ropes, obviously, so I'm counting only half of our ropes as my ropes... If that makes sense. 

I weight ~168, climb 2-3x per week at the gym, my friends and I prolly fall on my rope a decent number of times per session (on avg maybe 1 - 20 falls per day, depending). I retire them when I start to find soft bendy spots, on average ~9 months. I can usually feel the difference by lightly pinching it in between your fingers while flaking.

IMHO, your rope is usually one of the only non-redundant lifelines. Compared to the cost of a gym membership, another ~60$/9months for a new30m gym rope so that I always feel confident whipping on it - seems pretty fair.