Do TCUs still have their place?

C devries wrote:The dmm tri-cam units are great.

Sadly the 3CU appears to be discontinued... Still listed on DMM's site but I cannot find them for sale anywhere

Ted Pinson wrote: C3 <8

Those are the ones I still own and love.

This is a very odd thread. What "small cam options' do you think make TCUs obsolete? I've had the old 0.1 and 0.2 BDs since they first came out and don't think they're that different than the new X4s. I also have the old friend zeros and don't see much difference. I've fallen on the grey zero cam, but wouldn't bother taking it on harder rock because TCUs just fit better.

I pretty much won't climb granite without TCUs. They're the only thing that will fit in small gaps in dihedral seams which are so common in 11s and up.

I swap them out for 4CUs when I hit soft sandstone, but for harder rock TCUs are a must. Hell, I wish I had a red TCU.

Ball wrote: ...because TCUs just fit better. I pretty much won't climb granite without TCUs. They're the only thing that will fit in small gaps in dihedral seams which are so common in 11s and up.

TCUs definitely still have their place. They're utility will be area dependent but there are 100% areas that the 3 cam "tripod" placement works better than the 4CU setup. Seams and cracks in dihedrals (as noted above by several) often like just one cam on a face. TCUs and Offsets rule the tips, granite dihedral world. I've moved over to C3s for the most part as they don't have the U-Stem cable that would occasionally mess with a seam that pinched down completely .

Ball wrote:Hell, I wish I had a red TCU.

Could probably fix that for you...

In shallow cracks, flares and pin scars, especially horizontal nightmares, absolutely.

Mike Pal17 wrote:They don't walk; they pivot.

TCU's make a great multidirectional first piece for this very reason.

Lynn Evenson wrote:In shallow cracks, flares and pin scars, especially horizontal nightmares, absolutely.

Do they perform differently than a BD C3?

Bump for TCUs: Light, cheap, reliable design, no known systematic manufacturing quality issues, available in perfect offset sizes for scars.

They're like little little chocolate donuts

They're awesome! They are a permanent part of my standard rack. The orange one especially gets a lot of use. I have taken big falls on them and never had one pop. Also, as someone else mentioned, they don't walk, they pivot. To me that's a pretty big deal. An Alien that gets pulled perpendicular to the rock will probably fail if fallen on where a TCU will pivot down to the direction of pull. They are super light and don't take up much space on your harness.

I have done two hard-for-me routes where the green BD C3 was a pretty essential piece. Nothing else would go in at one place for one of these routes and I probably would not have led it if the placement didn't exist. I have since then become a big fan. But I still use Aliens most often.

- Alex

I started my rack with camaots and aliens. Last year I got a set of TCU and I'm sorry didn't get them 10 years ago. They are more useful then tricams.