How many people leave the racking biner on the sling?

So your climbing along, place a #2 C4 in a crack, realize you will have to extend it a bit, and then do what:

1) clip a sport draw onto it, leaving the racking biner on it.

2) clip an open sling(Alpine or other) onto it and leave the racking biner on it

3) clip a draw and take the racking biner off

4) clip a sling and remove the racking biner

5) clip a sling with only one biner onto the racking biner

I see a ton of pictures with cams with two biners in the sling, and wondering why someone would do that.  If I have to extend a cam (I carry Dragons and C4, so sometimes I don't need a sling) , I will generally use a sling that only has one biner(for the rope), and clip the racking biner with the open sling(one reason I use a CAMP Dyon to rack with).  I can save the number of biners I need to carry by the number of cams I place an extension on. With everybody trying to go lighter, I would think this practice would be standard, but it doesn't appear so. 

For a standard Eldo route like Rewritten or Yellow Spur, I will carry maybe 10 cams, up to #3 (a .4, doubles of .5 thru #2 and a #3) and a set of nuts.  Then probably 6-8 alpine draws and 3-4 30cm slings with only one biner to extend cams. I don't think I have ever placed more than 12 pieces on any pitch in Eldo. Depending on the route, I would adjust from this. Obviously if I was going to do The Diving Board I would bring larger. 

What do you guys/gals do?

I mostly do either single-pitch stuff, or if a few pitches then it tends to be a fair bit below my onsight grade (like 3 letters below/full number). I don't climb that hard either, so weight for me isn't really an issue, or at least not a limiting factor to the point where a handful of biners may bring me to take action to cut weight there.

Meaning I typically do #2, since I mostly climb with alpine. I know, sports draws would be a bit lighter. But again, weight isn't what's preventing me from climbing harder. I just like the simplicity of having a handful of draws that are all the same (alpines), with maybe one or 2 double length if it's longer/meandering stuff. Imo, most of the time, if I were OK with extending with a sport draw, I would probably be OK clipping straight into the cam, so I don't see the point.

EDIT: you comment about everyone wanting to go lighter is true. I personally don't really see the point, at least for me personally, I think it's a good case of premature optimization, 95% of the time I fail to send a route, it there's not amount of weight cutting that would have made the difference. Perhaps if I ever get into 5.12 trad/ 5.13 sport I'll change my mind, but at this point I think it's not necessary.

Because I am a sport climbing gumby I often just rack with the quickdraw already on the cam eliminating the extra biner. I think the main reason for the double biner is that it is easiest. If you have to place a cam but remove the biner that it is attached to your harness that is hard coordinated thing to do/might drop the gear it is attached to. I think the crux of what your doing is how do you carry your cams so you don't use a racking biner?

1 or 2, depending on how far I want to extend it. My trad rack consists of cams with color-coded racking biners, a handful of light trad quickdraws (wiregate biners with dyneema dogbones), and light alpine draws (wiregate biners with dyneema slings).

Unclipping the racking biner is an extra step that takes time, something just as important as weight. In addition, if climbing something hard it’s good not to have to fiddle with gear much.

As for carrying alpines with one or two carabiners, I generally take a mix of both, but the ones with two biners are useful for a couple reasons:

1) you can clip nuts and other pieces of gear without individual racking biners

2) easier to rack on gear loops neatly (I generally prefer this to over the shoulder)

1 or 2 most of the time, depending on how much extension I want. I'll occasionally throw some extra slings over the shoulder with just one carabiner too. Most of my 'biners are light enough (WC Astro, DMM phantom) that I find the extra weight of them is acceptable when compared to the extra time (and pump factor) of constantly shuffling around racking 'biners. Plus, I place a lot of nuts too, so having draws/slings with 2 'biners is easier. 

1. or 2. Depending on the amount of extension needed. Why?

If you’re climbing anything near your onsight limit or red point limit, the last thing you’re going to want to do prior to a crux is faff around with getting the racking carabiner off the cam sling.. of which now you just in fact added weight back to the leader... 

The only reason I’d remove the racking biner is if: A. vastly below the lead grade in moderate terrain/rest.  B. I’d for some reason want the crab for anchor fuckery

As you can see, I don't have that much gear. I have maybe 20 quickdraws, 12 alpine draws, 3 set of nuts/offsets, Torque nuts and 20 cams(and about 12 slings). Point being, I don't like to carry a lot of gear, so carrying a racking biner that I am not even going to clip seems wasteful, if that makes sense. Why carry a single use item?   

2 or 5

https://vimeo.com/114698902

I've tried the "over the shoulder, w/ one biner" multiple times and I just can't ever see the benefit, in totality. I'm 99% gumby, so there's that... but the smoothness/ease of either clipping the piece direct to a Dyon (the best racking biner in the world), or grabbing the Dyon on the rope end of your alpine, smoothly clipping it to the piece and extending to a nice Alpha Sport bent gate makes the process so buttery smooth that I couldn't care less about 6oz of weight savings from slings w/ single biner. YMMV but if 6oz is making you whip off... Less time faffing about with the sling/piece = less pump on the pitch.

I mean, isn't the answer 'yes?' Any of those options, sometimes. In order of less to more pumped, it would go:

4) clip a sling and remove the racking biner

3) clip a draw and take the racking biner off

5) clip a sling with only one biner onto the racking biner

2) clip an open sling(Alpine or other) onto it and leave the racking biner on it

1) clip a sport draw onto it, leaving the racking biner on it.

But again, I'm a gumby. I don't feel like having one method of extension uber-dialed is going to save me enough time/energy to justify the dialing.

JonasMRwrote:

I mean, isn't the answer 'yes?' Any of those options, sometimes. In order of less to more pumped, it would go:

4) clip a sling and remove the racking biner

3) clip a draw and take the racking biner off

5) clip a sling with only one biner onto the racking biner

2) clip an open sling(Alpine or other) onto it and leave the racking biner on it

1) clip a sport draw onto it, leaving the racking biner on it.

But again, I'm a gumby. I don't feel like having one method of extension uber-dialed is going to save me enough time/energy to justify the dialing.

Hey, opinions change over time, mine sure have.  Long ago, my rack that is thinner than the one I now carry probably weighed twice as much, maybe more. Why? Cuz' the only biners were ovals and heavy, all your pro was slung with cord or webbing, it was hexes and nuts, and cams if you could find any and could afford them. My rope was 11mm and 150' long, but weighed more than my current 70m. 

Most people still carried all their gear on a sling, so you had to make decisions about how little gear you were willing to carry. 

So that is why I probably mentally still try and decide "what can I leave behind and still finish the climb"...

1 or 2. By carrying a 30cm sling with a single biner you're effectively doing what you're trying to avoid. Carrying a single use item.

For me, the speed and simplicity of just clipping an alpine draw to the cam and going creates far more efficiency over the course of a climb than the efficiency gained by leaving behind a few wire gates.

Sometimes it's nice to clip the alpine draw biner to the cam sling and clip the racking biner so the alpine draw. I've done this for critical pieces as well as those pieces where I'm worried that one of the biners could interact with the rock or that a fall would result in a big swing. 

I just came here to make fun of the NoobieGunkies who rack multiple cams on one biner.  Haha! Dorks!

1) clip a sport draw onto it, leaving the racking biner on it. OFTEN

2) clip an open sling(Alpine or other) onto it and leave the racking biner on it SOMETIMES

3) clip a draw and take the racking biner off NEVER

4) clip a sling and remove the racking biner NEVER

5) clip a sling with only one biner onto the racking biner SOMETIMES

add 6) take an alpine draw off my harness and clip a single loop of the webbing to the racking biner on the cam. Remove one of the draw biners and put it back on my harness, the draw extends and I clip the rope to the remaining biner. OFTEN

A long time ago I bought a bunch of light draws with smaller biners like Astros and put one on each cam on the rack. It worked OK but I didn't like fiddling with the smaller biners. It also led to extra fussing when I needed a runner instead of the small draw. Since then I have bought WC Friends and the small extension on the cam eliminates any advantage of the mini-draws.

2 most of the time,  sometimes 5.  Over the years I reduced the number of over-the-shoulder slings in favor of alpine draws (i don't use any sport draws).  So now I'll probably have 10--12 alpine draws and maybe 3--4 over-the-shoulder slings, two of which are double-length thin dyneema (very versatile) and two of which are Edelrid Aramid cord slings, which because of their stiffness and robustness  are fantastic for fabricating threads.

Most of the time I'll clip a draw, extended or not, to a cam and leave the racking carabiner on the cam.  The main reason for this is to make cleaning/rereacking as efficient as possible (which of course isn't an issue for single-pitch routes).  But I don't rack my smaller cams one to a carabiner, so in the small sizes there may not be a racking carabiner unless the cam is the last one of its rack group to be placed.

Wait, y'all don't untie and thread the rope through the sling???

Often: 5) clip a sling with only one biner onto the racking biner. Especially for long multipitch climbs, often with an approach, where I really want to minimize weight.

• I have a couple 12" open slings with one biner, that get used almost every pitch. I rarely see other people use these, but they are often just the ticket to give a little extension, and a floppy connection to the rope so rope movement doesn't cause the cam to walk (I avoid quick draws for trad climbing because they do transfer more rope movement to the cam). They're easy to rack and super light/unbulky.
• I have about half and half trad draws with 2 biners and 24"/48" slings with 1 biner. I twist rack the ones with 1 biner.

I rack 1/3 open slings over shoulder w/1 biner for cams (#5)

1/3 open sling tripled w/2 biners (mostly for nuts, but if used on cam then racking biner stays on cam) on hip

1/3 sport draws on hip (mostly nuts, but if cam then leave racking biner on cam)

Sometimes I clip straight into cams sling via racking biner if early on a pitch or if I need to shorten potential fall do to obstacles.  

#5 for me. Weight savings for long alpine approaches on long Multipitch climbs, not because I send super hard.

I could see switching technique if I get into sending 512-513s at a trad crag and clip efficiency while totally pumped out matters more.

On ice where I do get crazy pumped I definitely appreciate the quickness of going straight in with an alpine draw.