Help me invent a retractable quickdraw?!

I think you need to offer the additional clarification that toproping is not possible here, otherwise Taylor hit the nail on the head

How did the FA do it?   Is it objectively poor bolt positioning or climber ability that is the issue.

edit: make way for “mid-roping”.    For those that want to feel better than mere topropers but half as hard as real leading. Lol. 

rebootwrote: Come on, eng-nerd, offer a real solution to a (mostly) theoretical problem here!!

I've got it - a similar system that old school projection screens use - you pull and release quickly, it retracts. It will be a challenge making it compact and strong enough to take falls. And, someone needs to pre-hang/extend it. 

Also, to point out, every section of a climb has you taking a hand off briefly to move from hold to hold, so really, it would be a matter of placing the bolt so that it is perfectly in the sequence of the climb. If you have to add an extra bolt to make it perfect, that would seem like the cheapest solution. Usually right at your waist is the easiest clip, or at least as you move your hand up and towards the next hold. If you are really fast at clipping, and so long as the bolt is in the perfect place, you should be fine.

Actually, you don't need any special equipment, all you need:

1. a loop of full strength (can be static) rope that can span the distance between the 2 bolts
2. tie 2 knots (butterfly?) at the mid-points and put draws at each knot.
3. hang the loop at bolt 6 and secure one of the draw at bolt 5.
4. when you get to bolt 5, hang rope to the draw (attached to the loop) and pull the loop to raise the climbing rope
5. clip the other draw back to bolt 5 (so the loop can't slip)

A progression capture device can be added to aid pulling the loop one handed, but make sure it's designed to not damage the material under excessive load.

What about a 2-headed draw? One bolt side biner, two hanging biners. One is on a 2 meter stiffy leg, the other is on a normal draw length leg. High clip the bolt using the stiffy (letting you clip from your current stance) and then clip the hanging draw as you climb past.

Or just climb a different route, idk. There's a lot of rock out there.

rebootwrote:

What's your overly complicated system? I think what can work w/o much specialty equipment is what PNelson has more or less suggested, but you clip the other end of the daisy back onto bolt 5, like what you'd do in a lead solo scenario, the daisy buckle usually can't support the force of a fall (and hopefully, is designed to slip, not break, with excessive force), but the sling/rope material should.

My system is more or less what I tried to explain in the OP.  But explaining it in words is difficult.  I'll try.

You have a static line tied from bolt 5 to bolt 6.  At the bottom of this line is a microtraxion with a biner hanging from it.  The micro is attached to bolt 6 with a stretched bungee, and is fifi hooked to bolt 5.

You clip bolt 5.  You clip the biner on the micro, then release the fifi and the micro slides up the static line until it hits bolt 6.

Why don't I like this system?  It's a mess, it might jam, all that crap might cover holds, etc.

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Edited to add: this all smells like top-roping, and I hate to say it, just get a TR send & call it good.

Ondra has said the future of hard climbing may be top roping... but it just doesn't work on steep routes, right?  Imagine a near horizontal climb, 40m long, but only 5m off the ground.  TR or lead, you're gonna have to manage the clips somehow.

caughtinside wrote:

Genius.  Have a second rope dangling from the draw with an auto locker on it.  a grigri prerigged and already attached to your belayer (or second belayer.)  you get to toprope your crux. 

This works, and in fact it's done for certain routes where rope drag gets bad enough that the climber switches to a separate (prehung) rope.

I was about to say it's too messy and a pain to set up, but it's certainly no worse than anything I've suggested with the retractable draw... :)

Matthew Jaggerswrote: Also, to point out, every section of a climb has you taking a hand off briefly to move from hold to hold, so really, it would be a matter of placing the bolt so that it is perfectly in the sequence of the climb. If you have to add an extra bolt to make it perfect, that would seem like the cheapest solution. Usually right at your waist is the easiest clip, or at least as you move your hand up and towards the next hold. If you are really fast at clipping, and so long as the bolt is in the perfect place, you should be fine.

Matthew: imagine telling Nalle to clip a bolt in the middle of Burden of Dreams.  Do you think he could?  Every move is a 100% effort deadpoint.  There's no pause in which his hand lingers, doesn't shake out, he is maxed every single moment.  It wouldn't matter where the bolt was... he couldn't clip it.

I think this is the future of hard climbing... where clips become impossible and we need another system.  (In fact, bouldering is already at this level... there would be no V17 if you had to fumble with gear in the middle)

rebootwrote: Actually, you don't need any special equipment, all you need:

1. a loop of full strength (can be static) rope that can span the distance between the 2 bolts
2. tie 2 knots (butterfly?) at the mid-points and put draws at each knot.
3. hang the loop at bolt 6 and secure one of the draw at bolt 5.
4. when you get to bolt 5, hang rope to the draw (attached to the rope) and pull the loop to raise the climbing rope
5. clip the other draw back to bolt 5 (so the loop can't slip)

A progression capture device can be added to aid pulling the loop one handed, but make sure it's designed to not damage the material under excessive load.

This works!  It's similar to using an adjustable daisy, but your system clearly can hold a fall!

It's not too messy either...

DM me your deets so I can add you to the patent.  (j/k)

:)

As said above you could learn to climb. 

Taking a look at your comments, seems like you're climbing somewhere in the 5.12 range. A little silly to compare that to anything Ondra does. IMO seems like you should just get stronger, rather than try to bring the climb down to your level.

Everyone telling me to just work on my lock-off strength: this isn't for me.  I haven't yet been on a climb where I couldn't make the clips (though on a few climbs I've struggled to clip the chains!).

This was a discussion with my (much stronger) partner who's working routes I'll never touch and he's on a project where he has to skip 2 bolts through a long PE crux with ground-fall potential at the end.  We were discussing ways to make it safe.  You can't TR this climb: there's a cliff behind you and you'd splat.

During this discussion he mentioned Ondra's prediction about the future of climbing.  And I started thinking about solutions for the route my partner is on.  It's a fun engineering problem and may even get used at some point... climbers have done crazier stuff to get up routes.

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I'm just imagining an Ondra interview:

Interviewer: So what do you think is the next step in the progression of hard climbing?
Ondra: Well, the clips start to become the crux, so there will have to be a way to eliminate the clips while keeping things safe.
Interviewer: Well, I just checked MP and they said to work on your lock-off strength.
Ondra: WOW...  For sure... thanks MP for ur geenyus.

omfg...

Jon Frisbywrote: Buy a petzl connect adjust. Not sure if something like that is fall rated though 

This is a good idea, it’s rated for FF2 and you could replace the rope with a longer one.

Fifty bucks though!

David Housewrote:

This is a good idea, it’s rated for FF2 and you could replace the rope with a longer one.

Fifty bucks though!

Kong Slyde? I like the grigri idea above. Seems like every climbing duo has two, and it's a guaranteed catch so long as the cam doesnt interfere with the rock.

Bottom rope side carabiner, attached to single strand of Dyneema cord @ minimal full strength thickness, attached to a custom made top piece that has an internal attachment point for the Dyneema cord, a (coil? watch?) spring mounted to a wheel/axle (like tape measure, blinds, projector screen) that the rope spools and un-spools from, and either a V-Notch clamp (like on a boat), a miniturized cam clamp (like GriGri), or a "max rpm clutch" (like WC Revo) either mounted internally or where the cord exits the housing (position is locking mechanism dependent). Clip, release to retract (up to next bolt), When pulled on (either intentionally to "lock" it, or in a fall) it locks shut in retracted position. Something like this would be approx the size of a grigri+draw or an Eldrid Ohm, probably pretty hard to engineer to get it to work as intended, and would probably be pretty expensive/specialized.

David Housewrote:

This is a good idea, it’s rated for FF2 and you could replace the rope with a longer one.

Fifty bucks though!

Just use a guide atc and some rope.

For maximum style points, rodeo clip bolt 6 from your bolt 5 stance. It might be best to use half ropes so you can pull up a bunch of slack for the rodeo clip while still being on a tight belay. Maybe a bit of tape on the clipping rope that lets you pull exactly the right amount of rope the first try.

John RBwrote: I want a long draw (say 2m long) where it is prehung on a bolt 2m overhead.  You clip the rope through the biner on the draw, then do something(?) and the draw retracts up to the bolt 2m higher and assume a normal length (10cm or whatever) with normal strength at that length.

The motivation here: some clips are scary/impossible through hard sections on a sport route, and this would allow clipping from a low/good hold and allow you to bust through a crux without stopping.

What might work: although klunky, imagine a microtraxion and a 2m piece of static rope.  The micro is on a bungee and held down by a latch (say, a fifi on a lower bolt). You clip through a biner on the micro, release the bungee and the micro slides 2m up the static rope to create an overhead anchor point.

The above idea is probably too klunky to work in practice, but something better engineered could be used?  You gear specialists out there have any ideas?

I once made a draw that would do this even one better, but never tried it. 

The issue was that I wanted to clip a cam into a high, traversing crack, so I wanted to clip the piece up high to reduce the fall and swing, but it was really hard to let go with one hand for more than a second. So, this is not exactly what you are interested in, but could be used for that.

My system involved two rap rings, three biners, and a long runner. Anyway, the way it would be used is that the rope would be pre-threaded through one of the rap rings to which the sling was doubled through, kept from coming out by a biner. When I got the clipping spot, I could quickly place the piece and I'd be safely protected, but the sling would be quite long. No clipping needed, so it could be done fast. Then I could reach up and clip one of the biners down to the rope, an action that would pull the rope up and reduce the sling length by 1/2. If that wasn't short enough, I could clip the other biner, making it 1/3. Seemed a bit complicated and bulky though, but I might try it sometime, just for fun.

Yes, this needs a diagram for anyone to understand how it works. I just mention it in support of John RB's post.  

John RBwrote: Sorry I wasn't super clear in the OP.

Imagine this: you're hanging on a jug at bolt 5.  You clip bolt 5.  You now have a 14-move crux sequence where there's no way you can let go to clip bolt 6, yet bolt 6 is in the middle of the sequence.  You cannot skip bolt 6 since you will deck if you fall above bolt 6.  

If it was climbed before then there’s a definitely a way to clip that 6th draw, so yeah your buddy has to get stronger (unless he’s working on a FA that’s so futuristic it requires Ondra tactics ). By the way, just say 6ft, this is America son, 2m might make some people think that’s super run out. 

If you need 2m retractable draws arent you then just top roping while clipping.  maybe you should just top rope.