Mad Rock Lifeguard for Lead Belay

David Kerkeslager wrote:

From the GriGri manual section 7C: Do not keep the thumb continuously pressed on the cam.

Link.

This being the major point IMO and I feel like it should say "do not rest your thumb on the cam". 

John, I completely agree with you on the proper way to use the GriGri. My disagreement with Kyle was the following:

Kyle Tarry wrote:

If you just use the Grigri the way Petzl tells you to, this isn't a problem.  The specific method of overriding the cam the way they suggest allows you to feed slack quickly, but doesn't provide sufficient force to keep the cam open in an actual fall (your hand isn't strong enough in the orientation they intend for you to use).  It doesn't turn the Grigri into a tube-style device, it still works exactly as intended.

Which directly contradicts the GriGri manual:

7C. Giving slack quickly

One technique is to simply move toward the cliff.
The other technique, used occasionally and short-term, requires different hand positioning for a very limited time.
Your hands must immediately return to the principal belaying position.
Warning: in case of a fall, you risk clenching the cam, which would negate the braking action on the rope.
Do not keep the thumb continuously pressed on the cam.

I've since come around to agreeing that the device probably catches in that situation, due to tests, but I don't think it was weird to want evidence if I'm going to believe something that directly contradicts the manual.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

There's quite a few instances of falls which can't be verifiably attributed to user error.

. . . 

David--can you cite to those instances?

I'm not writing this to be argumentative or pedantic.  I am interested in whether there are have been any instances of a dropped climber when the belayer claimed to be using the "new" techniques, much less "quite a few."  (T Roper sort of made that claim on this thread or another one your Grigri threads, but in retrospect I don't think he understood the issue, and he didn't cite to anything credible.)

Grigri drops can be contrasted with Cinch failures, where there have been a number of claims of experienced climbers using the device, dropping someone, and saying they have no idea why it happened.  (Who knows if the belayers were using the Cinch correctly, but the point is there have been claims of failures without any clear cause.)

Grigri drops result from the belayer either death-gripping the climber strand of the rope (and not holding the brake strand) or holding the cam down to prevent the device from lacking (and not holding the brake strand).

As an aside, I don't believe there have been any reported failures where the belayer just took his hands off of everything, which, believe it or not, people used to do regularly with Grigris (of course that's not the right way to do it and no should do that).

Thanks for posting your test results -- from them, I may suspect that it would be possible to drop a climber when using a thin, low-friction rope and using something sorta similar to the new-technique (but not the actual new technique).

pfwein wrote:

David--can you cite to those instances?

I'm not writing this to be argumentative or pedantic.  I am interested in whether there are have been any instances of a dropped climber when the belayer claimed to be using the "new" techniques, much less "quite a few."  (T Roper sort of made that claim on this thread or another one your Grigri threads, but in retrospect I don't think he understood the issue, and he didn't cite to anything credible.)

The Ashima accident discussed upthread can't be verifiably attributed to user error, IMHO, but it's definitely not clear. It was discussed pretty thoroughly with lots of information (by other users, not me, upthread) so you can make your own judgment.

To be clear, I'm not saying it can be attributed to device failure, either. I'm merely saying that there are a lot of accidents which are reported where the belayer disabled the cam and dropped the climber, and very few reports clarify whether the belayer disabled the cam in the position recommended by diagram 7C in the manual. I think it's probable that most of these accidents were caused by user error, but we can't be sure all were based on how these accidents are usually reported.

Even if the belayer has their hand in the correct position and the climber falls, I wouldn't consider it a device failure. The manual specifically says this can happen, so it's not a device failure, it's just expecting the device to catch in a situation where the manufacturer explicitly said there was a risk of it not catching.

It seems like the correct hand position isn't correct because it's guaranteed (by Petzl) to never drop a climber, it's correct because it's the least likely to drop a climber. And it's pretty unlikely if my tests are any indicator.

As an aside, I don't believe there have been any reported failures where the belayer just took his hands off of everything, which, believe it or not, people used to do regularly with Grigris (of course that's not the right way to do it and no should do that).

Sadly, I think people still do that regularly. But yeah, I think the GriGri is probably capable of catching a fall completely unattended.

Thanks for posting your test results -- from them, I may suspect that it would be possible to drop a climber when using a thin, low-friction rope and using something sorta similar to the new-technique (but not the actual new technique).

Yeah. My reason for testing those positions was that in a fall situation I think it would be easy to grab the device slightly off from the new technique.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

I don't have a video camera.

I've got a camera(s). I've also got a GriGri 2 and a GriGri+ and time next week. Let's meet up and show these trolls what's up.

I saw this video after watching the lifeguard promo video and thought it was interesting the lifeguard holds a greater force of tension than the grigri 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZi-gKHVXgQ

LB Edwards wrote:

I've got a camera(s). I've also got a GriGri 2 and a GriGri+ and time next week. Let's meet up and show these trolls what's up.

I saw this video after watching the lifeguard promo video and thought it was interesting the lifeguard holds a greater force of tension than the grigri 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZi-gKHVXgQ

Please explain how this translates to a climbing application (catching a leader fall) and how that is related to the sheath damage demonstrated at 0:58 with the Lifeguard?

I'll be waiting for this one...lol.

John Wilder wrote:

It doesn't. 

The test is a slow pull on an 8mm poly line, which the grigri isn't rated for to begin with. All this tells you is that if for some reason you're hang dogging a sport route on a canyoneering line, you're more likely to experience rope creep with a grigri than a lifeguard. 

If you boys really want to do a bunch of tests and video them, you should probably start with the uiaa tests for assisted braking devices.... 

Just hanging on a rope generates something less than the body weight of the climber....1/10th of a kilonewton or usually far less....at the device. There will be no appreciable creep when simply hanging (at least that is what I took from your post)...though there is intended to be some creep at higher fall forces.

The cams in both devices have to be designed to "clamp" the rope, but not cut it. There must be slip or it will sever the rope in a severe fall. 

And I am quite sure the engineers at Petzl understand that and have designed the cam angle of their device accordingly because we never hear of problems in this regard. Whether the Mad Rock guys have used an equally rigorous approach is unknown (probably just copied the Petzl cam angle, in a smaller size).

IOW, the GG is functioning normally (Petzl Parameters we have to assume they have explored), the Mad Rock device (may be) functioning with their intended parameters, but we see the additional rope damage caused by less slip at high forces.

The question of course, is if in a real FF2 event is either device better or worse? The video does not remotely provide any guidance in that regard.

It should be mentioned that the Alpine Up from Climbing Technology has been shown to shred ropes in a high factor event....not exactly inspiring.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

The Ashima accident discussed upthread can't be verifiably attributed to user error, IMHO, but it's definitely not clear. It was discussed pretty thoroughly with lots of information (by other users, not me, upthread) so you can make your own judgment.

You have people, including me, who have personally witnessed Ashima's dad using the non-recommended full hand grip technique from less than 6 feet away. For hours straight. I can't say 100% that that was the cause of his drop. But if I were asked to bet on it, I know where I'd put my money.

I lead belayed with the Lifeguard for the first time a couple of days ago. I was really suprised at how I could pay out slack like a tube style device.  It is also much more compact and slightly lighter.  I think it is an upgrade compared to the Grigri 2 based on how easy it was to pay out slack.  It will definitely be my main belay device while cragging.  I use the Megajul for multipitch trad mainly due to the 2 rope rapping ability and lightweight features.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

That being said, when I first started my foray into buying my own brake assisted belay devices I had the same initial reaction that you seem to have with not only changing belay technique specific to the device, but also working and temporarily opening the brake to feed slack. Most of us learn and start on an ATC and that is what is familiar. When I first bought my Mammut Alpine Smart Belay, I despised it. But when I discovered the limitations of the Alpine Up that I bought next, I went back to the Smart Belay and within two evenings at the gym had it all figured out and operating smoothly, and it is now one of my most loved and comfortable brake assisted belay devices. I'm not saying that this is the one for you. I'm saying that each one of these devices needs practice to learn the differences in technique and getting the muscle memory down so you can use it without having to actively think about it, without looking at it, and work it smoothly and effortlessly. I can assure you that this does indeed happen. You just have to get past your own resistance to change and allow yourself some time to learn and acclimate with it. 

Regarding that every brake assisted belay is great for top rope...  I'm going to put this out there that that is not necessarily the case. I own a Edelrid MegaJul that is in the same family as the Jul2. Although I understand that the Jul2 and MegaJul Sport had some geometry changes which may make it perform a little different. Myself and a few of my climbing partners do not like to top rope with the MegaJul, because if you need to keep the rope tight, say like at the start of a climb, on a slab climb, or above a ledge, it wants to lock up each time such that to pull in slack you have to unlock the device with your thumb in the loop before you can do so. It makes operating it much more tedious as you have some initial resistance in the rope until the brake is opened fully. The Smart Belay does not have this problem. And in my own humble opinion the MegaJul is only really good at lead belaying and nothing else. But it does that very well once you learn the technique. One of the things I like about the Smart Belay, MegaJul, and AlpineUp for lead belay is that you can keep slack to a minimum without shorting the leader, as with the prior two your thumb always lands back in the rest position under the nose, or in the nose loop, after taking in slack such that you can feed it back out at a moments notice. I can do this much easier than with a Grigri. Ultimately this does though depend on the focus and experiece of the belayer with the device they are using. 

I've never used the Jul2 or Black Diamond Pilot, but the principles of operation for feeding slack will likely be quite similar to each other and the Smart Belay and MegaJul by hooking the thumb under the nose. 

I hope you find something that works for you.

P.S. - You might want to consider not using re-direction URL's here in your posts. In the way you are using them by having a word or sentence become the link it's unnecessary as that is covering up a long link but still allows the user to hover over it to see where it would take them. I personally won't click on re-direction URL's as there is no way for me to know where I'm being re-directed to. If someone has malicious intent, that can be a security issue for the user. 

anotherclimber wrote:

P.S. - You might want to consider not using re-direction URL's here in your posts. In the way you are using them by having a word or sentence become the link it's unnecessary as that is covering up a long link but still allows the user to hover over it to see where it would take them. I personally won't click on re-direction URL's as there is no way for me to know where I'm being re-directed to. If someone has malicious intent, that can be a security issue for the user. 

Thanks for your input, I am excited about the ClickUp+ because the ClickUp is my favorite device so far for thinner ropes.

I'm using redirect links because YouTube links in comments import the YouTube video widget, completely removing the link text that I put, which really makes it impossible to read my comment as a sentence. Using tinyurl.com prevents MP from doing that, probably because MP doesn't follow the redirect and therefore doesn't replace it with the YouTube video widget. I agree that it's not ideal to use redirects in this way, but it's worse to have my comment be illegible because the forum decided to rewrite my comment to insert the YouTube link. Maybe it's something to bring up with the devs, but I didn't expect anyone to have complaints about my workaround (or even notice I was doing it). I'll keep in mind for next time and restructure my comments accordingly.