Russian Aiders - Fact or Fiction

Russian Aiders - Fact or Fiction

By Pete Zabrok

Like, how’s it goin’, eh?

There has been a lot of talk about Russian Aiders over the years, and something of a cloak of mystery enveloping the things because Trango no longer manufactures them, and they are difficult to come by.

Are Russian Aiders truly the Better Way? Or are they just Big Wall Theory? Will Kate’s new Russkies allow her to reach Steve Gerberding’s rivets, or will she go flying off the slab when she changes from aid to free climbing? Will Kate ever switch to free climbing again? Will Wee-Wee the Big Wall Crab ever make it back home? Are Russian Aiders anything more than communist propaganda?

In this post, the Diabolical Dr. Piton will pontificate on the benefits and drawbacks of Russian Aiders, and attempt to debunk a few of the myths surrounding them. He will work hard to avoid writing in the third person and refrain from using bold text. [Oops, like sorry, eh?] It’s my hope that someday soon an intrepid entrepreneur or two will begin making the things, and we will see a Bolshevik Revolution taking place on the big walls as traditional aider use is phased out and the commies take over.



Russian Aiders in action on Wyoming Sheep Ranch - note duct-taped hook for pro!
Photo by Kate Robertson = Batgirl

CAVEAT: Dr. Piton does not purport to teach the Best Way or the Only Way, merely the Better Way, and the Better Way is whatever works best for you.

So grab yourself a coffee or a beer, depending on whether it is before or after Changeover Time, and have a read. What do yous guys and gals think of the things? Have you tried ‘em? Where did you get ‘em, and how do you like ‘em?

Most importantly, who will step up to the plate and start making Russian Aiders? I believe there is potentially a huge market for them – virtually everyone who aid climbs. How many aid ladders were sold last year do you suppose? Think about it….

Right, let’s talk about Russian Aiders. I look forward to all your feedback! I would especially like to see some good photos of Russian Aiders in action, including close-ups so people “get” what I’m talkin’ about.



Floyd Collins - a Kentucky native - checks out his new set of Russkies
With Russian Aiders, you will be able to climb faster than Floyd!

BENEFIT: You can stand taller in the saddle more easily, especially on steep ground
Think of downhill skiing. Imagine that you are standing on the grass, or on a level area of snow, wearing your downhill ski boots connected to downhill skis by their bindings, which unlike cross-country ski bindings or telemark bindings are fixed in the heel. Your ski boot is rigid and goes high up above your ankle and rests against the back of your calf, completely encircling your leg. In fact, imagine a really tall and stiff ski boot that comes up to a couple inches below your knee.

First sit down on the back of your skis. Then lean back a bit so your ass rests right on the grass or snow, on top of the tails of your skis. Now from this sitting-down leaning-back position, stand up again without using your hands to press down on the ground. Stand up using only your legs and abdominal muscles, taking advantage of the leverage you get with the ski boots going right up to just below your knee, along with the bindings and the backs of the skis pressing against the ground. In other words, take advantage of the camming action between your knee and your foot to stand up. It's easy, isn't it? Anyone who downhill skis knows this.

Now, let's extend the example. Standing on grass this time so your skis don't slide on snow, point the tips of your skis uphill, and then sit down on the grass and the tails of your skis. Even though you are in an "overhanging" stance, you can still stand up without using your hands, only by using your legs.

If your legs were not clamped into the skis, it would be virtually impossible to stand up from this sitting-down leaning-back position, because you would have no leverage. Similarly if the ski boots were only ankle high like say running shoes, instead of knee high like these imaginary stiff downhill ski boots you're wearing, you wouldn't be able to stand up very easily, would you?

Now, if you were not leaning back, you wouldn't really need your downhill ski boots to help you stand up. You could stand straight up. The only benefit of the ski boots to standing up is because you are doing so from a backward leaning position. Get it?

This is the analogy to the leverage benefit you get from the stirrup assembly of Russian Aiders. Your point of attachment to your gear is not your daisy chain, nor is it the bottom of your foot which is standing in a regular aid ladder. Rather it is the hook which is held by the stirrup on the inside of your shin, just below your knee. The stirrup gives you the very same leverage benefit as I just described above with the ski boot. You get the benefit of the knee-foot camming action to help you stand.


Top-stepping from Russian Aiders - note gear on which Buddy is standing is approximately at his knees!

The photo above I scarfed from an old Trango advert, sent to me by John Raaf = raffie [Cheers, mate!] Unfortunately the photo does not show the Russian Aider cuffs Buddy is wearing, but you can see from the position of his body how high he is standing - and effectively top-stepping - above his piece of aid gear, which is the bolt on the climbing wall just a shade above his knees.

This "high standing" benefit is really only achieved when the rock is steep. If the rock is vertical, or slightly less than vertical, then you don't get a huge benefit from the Russians, because standing in aid ladders is easy. But when the rock starts to lean back towards you - which is the norm in aid climbing - Russian aiders really shine. This is because you can use the knee-foot camming action of the stirrups to generate leverage in your favour, and more easily stand on steep ground.

When you first try it on steep ground, you will be amazed! Sure, you still need to fine tune your top-stepping with your adjustable fifi and all, but it's incredibly easy to "stand tall in the saddle". Especially when combined with the 2:1 mechanical advantage you get with your adjustable daisy or adjustable fifi [precise mechanical advantage being 2:1 less the friction of the daisy through its buckle] you will be able to easily "pull yourself up" the steps of the Aid Tree, and then most importantly stand in comfort from a much higher stance than you could using regular aid ladders, because of the leverage you get in your legs from the knee-foot camming action of the stirrup



Standing easily on steep ground on The Shortest Straw - you'll feel like you're climbing naked!

Not only will your stomach muscles thank you, but so will your kidneys, because you will no longer need to generate such huge downward forces on the waist belt of your seat harness with your adjustable fifi when top-stepping. You can “spread the weight out” more over your legs - and less over your waist - thanks to the Russkies.

So the primary benefit of Russian Aiders is your ability to stand around easily on steep ground while fiddle-farting with your next aid placement. Your stomach muscles will not ache as much, you will be less tired, aid climbing on steep ground becomes less strenuous [or not strenuous at all], and most importantly - you will have more fun when aid climbing, a LOT more fun!

TRICK: When you have just stepped into your Russians from down low, if you are using a Yates-style adjustable daisy which has a steel ring on the free end, you can put the hook from your free leg into the ring on the adjustable daisy, and stand up on the ring, pulling yourself up with a 2:1 mechanical advantage using your foot. You can only do it for about a step or two, but it's a very cool and virtually effortless way of standing.

The technical term for this type of upward movement is "Karl Baba-ing."

MYTH: You can stand taller in Russian Aiders than in regular aid ladders

Actually, you can't. In fact, the opposite it true - if you are highly skilled at top-stepping, or you are on low-angle ground, you can stand taller in regular aid ladders because you can get right up in your hero loops. There is no way to do this with Russian Aiders, as your top stepping ability is limited to the distance between your knee hook and the base of your foot.



Hook placed inside of Aid Tree ring - this looks to be a very bitchin' home-made stirrup assembly. Colourized photo by Richard Heinrich = spike

DRAWBACK: On less than steep ground, where you are doing extreme top-stepping [example: low-angle rivet ladder beneath Timbuktu Towers on Never Never Land = Aquarian Wall] you will have to clip a regular small sling into the rivet, and put your foot directly into the sling to do an extreme top-step without using your Russian Aider at all, in order to reach the next rivet without using a cheat stick. If you are climbing a lot of moves this way, regular aid ladders would probably be better.

MYTH: Standing in the top ring gives you the same reach as standing in the top step of your aid ladder

TRUTH: Standing in the top ring is more or less equivalent to standing in the second steps of your aiders, but is dead easy, even on steep ground. You can hang around in comfort for a long time, and aid climbing becomes much less strenuous.

TRICK: To extend your reach farther, you can put the hook on your shin directly into the piece, and not into the top ring of the Aid Tree clipped to the piece. Sometimes this will require you adding a carabiner to the piece, lowering your reach one carabiner length, but giving you the extra degree of freedom you need to put the hook directly into the gear. You will be amazed at how well this works when you are doing that most scary of aid move, top-stepping on hooks.



Close-up front view of the hooks, located on the shin just below the knees. The hooks have shifted position about 3" to the outside of my knees because they are not weighted - when you hook them into the Aid Tree rings and stand up, the hooks will rotate back into position on the inside of your knee

BENEFIT: So what you can do with the Russkies is stand the equivalent of one step higher than regular aiders, but with the same amount of effort. It is “usual” to work mostly from the third step of your aid ladders, because this is the position which gives you the greatest reach-comfort benefit. You only get into your second steps when you feel you have to, because it is much more strenuous. With Russkies, you will hop right up into your top ring most every time, quickly and easily, and you will hang out there in comfort, even on [formerly] strenuous steep ground. You will get used to seeing your adjustable fifi cord pointing downwards from you to the hook.

Not only that, but you have the ability to make each aid move one foot higher with little further effort. Think about it – how much will an extra foot of reach on every placement improve your wall experience? You will reach the summit faster, in fewer moves and with less effort.


Close-up Front View of Trango Hook

You will also be able to more comfortably and competently climb harder aid, because you will be able to position your body better in strenuous placements for a longer time, in order to suss the best placement. This is only a real benefit on harder aid – on easy C1 cracks like you find on the Nose or Salathe Wall, it doesn’t really help you much.

MYTH: With Russian Aiders, 5’4” Kate [Batgirl] will be able to clip Steve Gerberding’s rivets on Reticent Wall, which Steve [who is very tall] drilled from his top-steps.

TRUTH: No she won’t. Batgirl would have a better chance of clipping Steve’s rivets from the hero loops of her aid ladders, but is probably too short to have done that. Since Kate is shorter than me, she had to extend her reach with her nut tool to get up some sections of Gerberding’s rivet ladders, because that is the only way she physically could make the moves. How do I know? Because I’m 5’9” or a bit less, and I had to cheat my way up a few of Steve’s rivets on Reticent Wall. I probably girth hitched a couple of wired stoppers together, or maybe duct taped a rivet hanger on the top of my hammer. I try not to do that very often, but I had to do it on Reticent because I'm too short.

I wonder if I could make the reach now with Russkies? I wonder how badly I'd do trying to repeat one of Dave Turner's routes?!

TRICK: Try adjusting the length of your stirrup, to shorten the distance from your hook to your foot. The lower your hook, the less mechanical camming advantage you get, but the higher you can stand on each placement. Figure out which distance works best for you.


Side View of Trango Stirrups and Hook
Note that I am wearing no shoe, so consequently the hook sits too high - with shoes it will it lower

BENEFIT: You get a lot less clusterfriggage* with Russian Aiders than you do with regular aiders. There is simply less stuff to get in your way. Instead of having two, three or four full-length aid ladders flailing around all over the place, you have two or four Aid Trees – nothing more than a dangling piece of webbing with some rings on it. Everything is attached, and there is no risk of dropping an aider [or Aid Tree].

There is also a huge benefit when you have to untwist your system because you misclipped, and crossed something over something else the wrong way. Instead of having to pull your daisy plus one or two pairs of aiders through everything to straighten it out, you only have to pull your daisy plus Aid Tree, which is hugely less klunky. For the same reason, switching feet is also a lot easier, for instance when you are switching direction of climbing from moving leftwards and up to moving rightwards and up, and you want to move the lead rope from across your right hip to running across your left hip – you only have to step over a daisy and Aid Tree.

In addition, your arms get less tired when climbing, because lifting the weight of an Aid Tree or two is rather easier than lifting a much heavier pair of aiders each move. This is particularly important to wiener-armed part-time climber-weaklings like me, who only get on the rock during their holidays. This way you can avoid the nuisance of training altogether.

Undoubtedly, Russian Aiders decrease your Wank Factor* when climbing.

Russian Aiders in action on Lunar Eclipse - photo by Richard Heinrich = spike

DRAWBACK: Russian Aiders do not work as well on low-angle terrain – especially low-angle cracks – than regular aid ladders. This is because the damn rings on the Aid Trees keep getting jammed in the crack like an inverted chockstone pulled upwards! It can really drive you batty on certain pitches, if you have to keep downclimbing to free stuck rings. It is extremely difficult to prevent this from happening, and even more annoying to fix each time.

This situation is the one place you will find your Co-Efficient of Wank* increasing with Russian Aiders vs. regular aiders.

MYTH: Russian Aiders are not so good, because bitchin’ climbers like Ammon McNeely don’t use them, and wankers* like Dr. Piton do. Perhaps this is because so few people can get their hands on the things to actually give ‘em a try. Well, if you are as bitchin’ a climber as Ammon, you can climb any damn way you like. And as for that other aforementioned wanker – ”Buuuuuuuurp!”

DRAWBACK: Russian Aiders can be a pain when transitioning from aid climbing to free climbing. This is because you have a nylon strap underneath your instep, and more junk around your lower leg. It’s not like you can reach down and remove the things – you put them on in the morning, they stay on all day long, and then you take them off at night. If you switch from aid to free and are trying to friction up a slab, you will not like that slippery hunk of nylon between your rubber and the rock. If your “aid” climb requires a lot of transitioning back and forth from free to aid, you might want to consider using regular aiders.

BENEFIT: In alpine climbing, where Russian Aiders made their debut, proponents like them because they can easily use the things while wearing crampons. It is difficult to use regular aiders when wearing crampons, for obvious reasons.

MYTH: Russian aiders are no good for Yosemite jugging systems, bounce-testing or aggressive hauling because your hook keeps popping out of the ring when you lift your leg.


Trango Clip-In Loop for Jugging

TRUTH: If you are a Russian Aider n00b, like I was the first time I used the things, you will not realize that there is a small clip-in loop directly above the hook that allows you to clip your stirrup directly to your Aid Tree with a crab when performing such activities – sheesh.


Russkies rigged for jugging - note clip-in point above hook on cuff

You can see above how Buddy has attached his Aid Trees to his cuffs with the dedicated clip-in loop that is nearly invisible directly above the hook. I can't comment on his ascending system, but if you know what you're doing, you can make a standard Yosemite Jugging System, or like me - a Frog system.

I climb big walls using the Frog system [because I am first, and always, a caver] and this uses a dedicated sling assembly. When I first tried Russkies on Excalibur, my upper jug and dedicated sling "disappeared" one night - funny how that happens, eh? So I switched my froggy over to the Russians, jugging while trying to keep my hooks in place! Sheesh.

If you use the clip-in point shown above, you can jug at will, or do crazy-ass upside-down hauling, without worrying about your hooks slipping out.

DRAWBACK: It is sometimes difficult to get both hooks of your stirrups into the rings, especially the top rings, because there is not much degree of freedom when the Aid Tree is weighted. Please see the suggested product improvements below, which the Pro Model Russian Aiders will solve


Russian Aider cuff hooks placed in top rings of Aid Trees - this is hard to do!

RECOMMENDATION: When Big Wall Camping in your portaledge, be certain that everything you need for a night of comfort is with reach of you while you are standing in your ledge. Once you remove your Russian Aider stirrups, you are effectively “grounded” in your ledge. If there is anything that is too high to reach, you may well be buggered* since you have no way of climbing up to grab it.

SUGGESTED PRODUCT IMPROVEMENTS:

Note that these product improvements are vis a vis the Trango models. Various prototypes have been developed, none of which is commercially available, that address some of these issues.

Pro Model Aid Trees – It’s awkward climbing with only two Aid Trees, each with pairs of hooks near the top. The tolerances are tight, especially with the other clusterfriggage going on in your system, and it is often difficult to get the hook on your second shin into the second ring when your other leg is already weighting the Aid Tree.


Aw, shoot - the Horse Chute!
Above the Truck Stop - SW Face El Cap
Photo by Holly Beck

The Pro Model will consist of four Aid Trees, one being a full length of five rings, and the other being a half length of three rings. I currently climb this way, using four Aid Trees - one new Fish Aid Tree and a second old Trango Aid Tree, one pair on each adjustable daisy. It is enormously faster and easier.

The Pro Model will also have a very tight loop at the top of the Aid Tree [see photo below] for attaching it to the Lead Carabiner, which is the dedicated keylock [non-toothed] crab you clip into each aid placement. My lead carabiner is pictured below - the purple Petzl Spirit straight gate. You want to minimize the height loss beneath the piece you’re standing on, but you also don’t want to risk losing your Aid Tree. While a larger hole permits the addition of a locking crab, it will lower you a carabiner length beneath your piece, or reduce the length of pull you get on your adjustable daisy by the same length, or both.


Trango Aid Trees - note Dr. Piton modification of tightened attachment loop at top

A tight loop on top of the Aid Tree – so tight that a carabiner will only barely fit – will give the Aid Tree enough “bite” on the lead carabiner that you don’t have to worry about the Aid Tree somehow falling off. As you can see in the photo of my blue Trango Aid Tree directly above, I took it to the shoe repairman, along with the lead carabiner I use, and asked him to bar tack the hole in the Aid Tree tighter so that the crab could just barely slide in and out. The yellow Trango Aid Tree pictured below has this bartack on it, although you cannot see it because it is hiding behind the Fish Aid Tree, which has not yet had this modification made, but is temporarily frigged with duct tape. This modification has worked well for me, and I have yet to drop anything [from my Russian Aider system] – sheesh. A disadvantage of this setup is that you lose a half a degree of freedom of the Aid Trees sliding easily along the bottom of the lead carabiner, so be careful to avoid gate loading. However this seems to me like the lesser of two evils - as you can see the system is compact and [reasonably] wankproof


Pro Model Rigging showing direct attachment of all components - yellow Yates Adjustable Daisy, Fish [black] and Trango [yellow] Aid Trees - to the purple [right] Lead Carabiner. In my left hand is my left Lead Carabiner on red adjustable daisy, with attached Fish [yellow] and Trango [blue] Aid Trees. Note the shortened rigging of the right Lead Carabiner [above] - the "holes" in the Aid Trees and daisy are held tightly shut with duct tape to prevent accidental loss

Currently Yates Adjustable Daisies have too large a hole in their end, and you risk losing the whole lead carabiner plus Aid Trees assembly if you don’t incorporate a locker. Accordingly I put the daisy connection on the spine of the carabiner, and “block” it on the bottom with the tight-fitting aid tree.

Better “Chicken Loop” – this is the Velcro-secured elastic strap that goes round your foot and holds the stirrup in place. The strap needs to be beefier, and the patch of Velcro much larger in order to stick.


Side View of Trango Hook
Note tied-off strap due to lame-ass buckle

There needs to be more padding on the calf, and there needs to be a better buckle system for both the calf and the foot which doesn’t slip like the Trango models


Evan Freeman's homemade Russian Aider cuffs - nice and comfy and wide. I used these on several walls until the hook system failed irrepairably. Note Big Wall Crab for scale - I will pay a $200 US cash reward for the return of my crab, or you can join me on my next ascent of El Cap

The strap beneath your foot also needs to be burlier – currently I have put a piece of 1” tubular webbing around the skinny webbing, and this prevents abrasion of the Trango unit. However this strap should be bigger, and why not? It’s not like you’re it around or anything. Why not make it as wide as seat belt webbing for extreme comfort?

The damn things need to be colour-coded! Make the right stirrup "red for right", and the left stirrup another colour completely, so you know which one to put on which foot each morning. With the Trango models, this is rather trickier than you might at first think.


Hooking on the Ranch - photo by Kate Robertson = Batgirl

CONCLUSION AND PROCLAMATION

Dr. Piton believes that not only are Russian Aiders the Better Way, but they are emphatically The Sh|t. While they are not a panacea, they are pretty darn nice most of the time.

I will also stand behind my previous proclamation that Russian Aiders will one day become the norm in aid climbing, if not entirely superseding standard aid ladders, at least becoming substantially more popular. I believe that this will happen sooner than later, as soon as a cost-effective and reliable model becomes commercially available.

Is there a market for these things? Holy Moses, yeah! Now somebody go out and make the damn things, will ya?

Cheers and beers,
The Diabolical Dr. Piton aka “Pass the Pitons” Pete Zabrok


Floyd looks happy with his Russian Aiders!
And maybe so will you

• Wank Factor = Co-Efficient of Wank – That unitless number, which when multiplied by the total amount of time spent performing a task, equals the amount of time lost to unproductive activity [i.e. wanking about]
• Wanker – one prone to operating under a high Wank Factor
• Clusterfrig – what you get when your Wank Factor spirals out of control
• Buggered – finding yourself in a bad situation – usually self-inflicted – ranging from slight discomfort to extreme risk of death. Not necessarily baaaaaaaaad when referring to inflatable Big Wall Sheep [e.g. Eva]

Nice write-up Pete. Sign me up on the list of people who would buy a pair of these. I used them for the first time on Sunday and they were way easier to deal with than the traditional setup. On the loop above the hook, does the carabiner hit you in the side of the knee when you jug? On the pair I used, the hook was welded onto a rectangular piece of flat stock metal. The metal continued about a 1/2" above the top of the hook and had a hole drilled into it. For ascending we threaded a piece of webbing with an over hand knot through the hole (from the backside) and over the hook. This seemed to work well and never fell off. Do you prefer the easy daisys with this system over the daisy/fifi combo?

sqwirll wrote:... Sign me up on the list of people who would buy a pair of these. ...

sqwirll, I am making garage shop cuffs for $60/pair plus $5 shipping to US. Pics of what I'm cobbling together can be seen at:

supertopo.com/climbing/thre…

I make them to match our calf circumference to assure maximum padding coverage. I will also make them with a choice of wacky or boring coloration (see supertopo pics for wacky, boring is whatever plain old webbing I have available). I will also do 1" or 2" stirrups. I recommend 1" for reduced bulk.

Russ at fishproducts.com makes the aid trees, I DO NOT.

I was looking around at some of the ancient posts on this forum, and found this old chestnut.  

The best Russian aiders that have ever been made - and are currently BEING made! - are those by Olle Hjort in Sweden. I can't remember if he is on this forum or not, because I have been diagnosed with and now suffer from a chronic and debilitating cognitive and memory impairment known as CRS. But I will message Olle and ask him to chime in here. His design fixes all of the design flaws mentioned above!

Aideer Climbing in Sweden by Olle Hjort

I truly believe Russian Aiders to be the Better Way for climbing steep overhanging hard aid pitches.  The "ski boot" advantage you get in top stepping on the steep is significant. They are not for everyone, and especially they do not work well on less-than-vertical C1 C2 type cracks, because the titanium rings will jam frustratingly in the cracks below you!  But for hard stuff, they are the bomb. 

Here's a picture of the stirrups I make:

There is a discussion above about how to connect your daisy when jugging. With my Russkies you can jugg directly with your aid trees and connect them to stirrups in three ways:

By the way Pete; you did not explain CRS in your word explain list above...

You also find my Russian Aideers on WeighMyRack.com now:

https://weighmyrack.com/brand/aideer-climbing?f[]=field_retired:0

Olle Hjort wrote:

Here's a picture of the stirrups I make:

There is a discussion above about how to connect your daisy when jugging. With my Russkies you can jugg directly with your aid trees and connect them to stirrups in three ways:

By the way Pete; you did not explain CRS in your word explain list above...

Hahaha!  

CRS = Can't Remember Shit.

Ollie I just messaged you!

I've got a pair of Olle's Russian Aiders. They're  awesome. He gives you a choice of 3 distinct types of Russian aiders. Top quality as everything he makes is. 

I'm unsold on them as a product though. I haven't given them enough work to know for sure but my notes this far. The hook on your leg has an irritating habit of shifting left or right so I haven't been able to step into the rings with ease yet as I have to look down and figure out where the hook is in order to step into the next ring. I've considered taking my duct tape and securing them mid pitch. It's irritating to step down the ladder tree when compared to how easy it is to step down reg ladders. The rings get caught on things in the crack or the crack itself. 

That said, I've no doubt that with enough time and experience those issues I have with moving up and down the ladder trees will become as easy as with reg ladders. And to echo ptpp, for overhanging aid, they are emphatically the sheit as there's less stress on you and you can chill high in the ladder tree without gasping for air as your core slowly gives out while your feet feel like there's knives being driven into them. 

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

I've got a pair of Olle's Russian Aiders. They're  awesome. He gives you a choice of 3 distinct types of Russian aiders. Top quality as everything he makes is. 

I'm unsold on them as a product though. I haven't given them enough work to know for sure but my notes this far. The hook on your leg has an irritating habit of shifting left or right so I haven't been able to step into the rings with ease yet as I have to look down and figure out where the hook is in order to step into the next ring. I've considered taking my duct tape and securing them mid pitch. It's irritating to step down the ladder tree when compared to how easy it is to step down reg ladders. The rings get caught on things in the crack or the crack itself. 

That said, I've no doubt that with enough time and experience those issues I have with moving up and down the ladder trees will become as easy as with reg ladders. And to echo ptpp, for overhanging aid, they are emphatically the sheit as there's less stress on you and you can chill high in the ladder tree without gasping for air as your core slowly gives out while your feet feel like there's knives being driven into them. 

You'll always have to look down. And most likely will have to use your hand to coax the hook into the ring with each step. 'tis the nature of Russian aiders. They are slower.

Isn't there a hybrid version of regular aiders / Russian aiders out there? custom job of course, but best of both worlds i'm sure.

jcs