Wild Country Revo now available for preorder

R Aviv wrote:

I usually wear a glove on my brake hand anyway so I guess it might not bother me but REI DOESN'T HAVE ANY IN STOCK SO I GUESS WE'LL NEVER KNOW. @REI I KNOW YOU'RE LISTENING

Yeah, I also wear gloves when belaying, so it wasn't a big deal to me. For my partner, though, the extra grip required was noticeable.

King Tut wrote:

Question to all early adopters:

Does WC actually recommend this device for self belay while leading???

No, it's not in any of their documentation or marketing unlike with the silent partner which was explicitly made and marketed for that purpose. 

Having said that there will be quite a few people including me that will use it for lead rope soloing, but then again I've use a number of devices for rope soloing that weren't built for it. I've been told I'm not a smart man and I can't dispute that.

There may be **very good reasons** for not using it for self-belay when leading....do your due diligence and find out why before we all say we told you: YER GONNA DIE.

Stay safe my brothers.

King Tut wrote:

There may be **very good reasons** for not using it for self-belay when leading....do your due diligence and find out why before we all say we told you: YER GONNA DIE.

  

Stay safe my brothers.

no doubt, I have another thread here where I review and test it out for self belaying with some vids. and i'm definitely gonna die, just a question of when. 

dennis.s wrote:

No, it's not in any of their documentation or marketing unlike with the silent partner which was explicitly made and marketed for that purpose. 

Having said that there will be quite a few people including me that will use it for lead rope soloing, but then again I've use a number of devices for rope soloing that weren't built for it. I've been told I'm not a smart man and I can't dispute that.

I've been trying to find my user manual for my clove hitch to see if it's recommended for roped soloing but can't seem to find the manual anywhere

kevin deweese wrote:

I've been trying to find my user manual for my clove hitch to see if it's recommended for roped soloing but can't seem to find the manual anywhere

Have you tried searching the internet for a pdf version of it?

On the other Revo thread some people have noted that the revo can come open a bit. Does someone who has noticed this think it could be a problem which might cause the Revo to open up if you hit a backup knot during a rope solo lead fall? The saving grace of problems with most rope solo systems is that at least backup knots seem fairly reliable, but if the device opens up when it hits the backup knot that would be problematic.

kevin deweese wrote:

I've been trying to find my user manual for my clove hitch to see if it's recommended for roped soloing but can't seem to find the manual anywhere

Me, Myself & I: The dark arts of big wall soloing by  Andy Kirkpatrick 

that'll do the trick

did try the clove hitch once, found it rather annoying, revo so much better

Andrew Krajnik wrote:

Have you tried searching the internet for a pdf version of it?

I've emailed the manufacturer of my knots in the past, to varying levels of success.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

On the other Revo thread some people have noted that the revo can come open a bit. Does someone who has noticed this think it could be a problem which might cause the Revo to open up if you hit a backup knot during a rope solo lead fall? The saving grace of problems with most rope solo systems is that at least backup knots seem fairly reliable, but if the device opens up when it hits the backup knot that would be problematic.

the caribiner holding the device won't let it open up very much, so if the latch is undone and the locking mechanism does not engage then as long as the back up knot does not come undone then it won't be a problem

Regarding manually activating the lock to let someone hang, is it possible to quickly lock the Revo on purpose by rapidly taking in slack? If you can visualize this, it's the same way you'd take in slack to let someone hang on a gri or ATC: jump a bit and pull in an armload of slack. Can that be done fast enough to engage the Revo's lock? Since it's supposed to lock from both directions, it seems like it should work. This would allow you to take in slack and lock the device at once.

I've never touched one, though, so maybe this is a stupid idea.

Slartibartfast wrote:

Regarding manually activating the lock to let someone hang, is it possible to quickly lock the Revo on purpose by rapidly taking in slack? If you can visualize this, it's the same way you'd take in slack to let someone hang on a gri or ATC: jump a bit and pull in an armload of slack. Can that be done fast enough to engage the Revo's lock? Since it's supposed to lock from both directions, it seems like it should work. This would allow you to take in slack and lock the device at once.

I've never touched one, though, so maybe this is a stupid idea.

Well, you can, but that lifts the climber-side shoulder of the device, which locks rotation in the other direction (preventing you from pulling more slack). The brake side shoulder is the one that you need to lock to hold the climber. Because the device is symmetrical, it actually has 2 centrifugal locking mechanisms, one for each direction of rotation.

Andrew Krajnik wrote:

Well, you can, but that lifts the climber-side shoulder of the device, which locks rotation in the other direction (preventing you from pulling more slack). The brake side shoulder is the one that you need to lock to hold the climber. Because the device is symmetrical, it actually has 2 centrifugal locking mechanisms, one for each direction of rotation.

Gotcha. I guess there's not much point, then.

I was able to manually engage the lock while my wife was free hanging on the end of the rope.  To do this I used the thumb on my brake hand to lift up on the bottom of the brake side jaw and slowly releasing my grip on the rope to let the wheel rotate into the locked position.  The best way I can describe it is a similar motion to lowering on a mega jul, but I have never used one of those, just a similar theory on how to use your thumb. I could only do this if I was standing on the ground, not if we were both hanging in the air.  It's not as easy as I would like it to be, but it is possible.

Matt Robinson wrote:

I was able to manually engage the lock while my wife was free hanging on the end of the rope.  To do this I used the thumb on my brake hand to lift up on the bottom of the brake side jaw and slowly releasing my grip on the rope to let the wheel rotate into the locked position.  The best way I can describe it is a similar motion to lowering on a mega jul, but I have never used one of those, just a similar theory on how to use your thumb. I could only do this if I was standing on the ground, not if we were both hanging in the air.  It's not as easy as I would like it to be, but it is possible.

actually, if you're willing to release the brake strand while the whole thing is tensioned, it locks very quickly. Pull in slack, put your climber in a take, and... let go for an instant. On the ropes in our gym, at least, it seemed the friction of the rope was enough to lift the shoulders and lock the device. The climber definitely didn't drop and accelerate to 4 m/s. In order to do it, we had to completely release the tension on the brake strand, so again, it's very counterintuitive to what we've all been taught. (And vastly different from a Grigri.)

We were able to get it to do this repeatedly when lowering each other. I'm not sure how much the rope itself plays into it. (e.g. would a fat or skinny rope make a difference, amount of fuzz, etc.) We'll be playing with it more next week, as well as doing some leading, so I'll definitely be exploring further.

Andrew Krajnik wrote:

actually, if you're willing to release the brake strand while the whole thing is tensioned, it locks very quickly. Pull in slack, put your climber in a take, and... let go for an instant. On the ropes in our gym, at least, it seemed the friction of the rope was enough to lift the shoulders and lock the device. The climber definitely didn't drop and accelerate to 4 m/s. In order to do it, we had to completely release the tension on the brake strand, so again, it's very counterintuitive to what we've all been taught. (And vastly different from a Grigri.)

We were able to get it to do this repeatedly when lowering each other. I'm not sure how much the rope itself plays into it. (e.g. would a fat or skinny rope make a difference, amount of fuzz, etc.) We'll be playing with it more next week, as well as doing some leading, so I'll definitely be exploring further.

 this is what is described in the instructional  video I posted above. Like I said then, James and Caroline use the Revo to work sport routes all the time. So there must be a fairly simple method to take hard repeatedly as  The climber pulls back up from a fall.  Still haven’t received mine yet. REI tried to cancel my order again and when I called in agreed to ship me a unit that was in a store. We’ll see if that actually materializes. 

Matt Robinson wrote:

I was able to manually engage the lock while my wife was free hanging on the end of the rope.  To do this I used the thumb on my brake hand to lift up on the bottom of the brake side jaw and slowly releasing my grip on the rope to let the wheel rotate into the locked position.  The best way I can describe it is a similar motion to lowering on a mega jul, but I have never used one of those, just a similar theory on how to use your thumb. I could only do this if I was standing on the ground, not if we were both hanging in the air.  It's not as easy as I would like it to be, but it is possible.

Edit: Removed original text due to it being at best unintentionally misguided and at worst just flat out wrong.

The clove hitch may be annoying but it is one of my favorite soloing techniques.   It is still the technique that inspires the most confidence when soloing, at least for me.

Byrne wrote:

I can confirm that this is exactly the same procedure that I used to lock it manually.  It *is*, however, a bit more tenuous (the lock) then what I would like to see and I'd still be nervous about going hands free with it locked like this (would probably tie a mule).

I would hope that you'd be nervous about going hands free without tying some sort of stopper knot on the brake side of the rope as no brake assisted device should ever be allowed to go hands free without tying that backup knot. Here, I fixed it for you

Byrne wrote:

I can confirm that this is exactly the same procedure that I used to lock it manually.  It *is*, however, a bit more tenuous (the lock) then what I would like to see and I'd still NEVER GO hands free with it locked like this WITHOUT TYING A BACKUP STOPPER KNOT (would probably tie a mule).

kevin deweese wrote:

I would hope that you'd be nervous about going hands free without tying some sort of stopper knot on the brake side of the rope as no brake assisted device should ever be allowed to go hands free without tying that backup knot. Here, I fixed it for you

lol.  Noted.