What is your gear grudge?

With all the new gear out there, what climbing item do you personally dislike? What would you have thrown out of the market place if you had your say?

When I started climbing as a professional arborist back in 1978 there were few choices of gear to choose from. We were stuck with a small assortment of pieces- many of which we had to adapt to or modify so we could be safer in the trees and/or more comfortable. Back then I hated twist construction rope (laid construction- three strand) because of the spin it would produce when you hung suspended in air. But times have changed with the large amount of choices a climber must now make regarding gear.

Now it has gone the opposite direction. There are all kinds of stuff, more stuff, and even more stuff! Some gear is straight forward and easy to understand where there is other stuff that takes high levels of skill (and luck) to figure out the application. Some stuff doesn’t seem to work at all, causing frustration which is not a good bed fellow for a climber aloft.

The stakes are high! If you fall from grace (fall out of the tree) you die or worse, spend your life with a terrible injury.

What would you return back to the distributor for a refund? What would you tell a fellow climber NOT to buy? Do you have a gear grudge?

yes. products that have too many moving parts, plastic parts, poor construction.

In my view there is NO PLACE for plastic components in the rope community. Petzls ball lock biners come to mind, as does the plastic handles and components of the Grigri and other devices.

- aluminum rivet axles in pulleys (Petzle FIXE , other brands) - cmon, just put in a stainless steel axle , its actually cheaper metal cost wise, stronger and more durable.

- I cant stand bushings in pulleys instead of sealed bearings. I hate bushings. You can feel the friction compared to a sealed bearing. They are NOT self lubricating, no matter what the manufacturer claims. The pulley also heats up quite hot in a bushing pulley after a long run (but the manufacturers deny this.....) Bearing pulleys run cold in comparision. I would be ecstatic if Petzl put sealed bearings into their FIXE pulley........ that being said, i do quite like the Fixe pulleys, I just feel they could be better. I'll even pay for it, i dont mind!

- plastic pulleys (with aluminum sideplates). CMON!!!! the plastic lasts about three uses in REAL FIELD CONDITIONS and then they crack or chip.....just make them out of aluminum or stainless steel already!

there is more, but thats all i can think of right now.

I wouldn't say throw them all out but tree climbing harnesses are not as good as maybe they could be. If I could combine the best characteristics of a New Tribe, and a few other arborist saddles I might find the ideal. There are some new saddles just out and more to come. I'm settled on my NT Vi's work saddle but it is modified to optimize. NT makes great stuff and I hope to see continuing evolution.

Besides that I never met decent gear that I didn't like (except the Retreever, don't like it at all, used it once, never again). The main thing is how to keep gear to the minimum for the climb. There's definitely more gear out there then needs to be on my harness. It's great to have choices though.
-moss

Petzl Pantin. Used to use it all the time for footlocking the tail on a DdRT climb. It wasn't very stable on the foot, and popped off at awkward moments, but it sped things up a bit and the popping off wasn't dangerous on a DdRT ascent. Then I discovered single footlocking and never looked back. By the time you have enough rope under you to gravity-feed the Pantin, you also have enough to gravity-feed on a single footlock. I'm keeping the thing around in case I want to try to develop a ropewalking system, but it hasn't been in the regular climb bag for a year.

I agree with Mark, the single footlock has made the Pantin mostly irrelevant. After all you can use a single footlock with either foot - unlike the Pantin.
-moss

ive never like how the Pantin pops off the rope either.....great concept, needs work.

overall, I'm pretty darn impressed with the quality of my climbing gear.

The one think that bugs me is the waxy coating that comes on the velocity rope. Does this eventually wear off? I think this would be a great rope without the stick'em.

It wears off. I'd head that they're putting less sticky stuff on it now after many complaints.
-mosss

Just to clarify, I hate carabiners that like to snag on things. I don't understand why people make them. It is too easy to make the no-snag key-lock carabiners nowadays.

When I am at a store looking at a rack of carabiners, I look for the pin on the gate that would go in to the notch. I can know in a split second, without even opening it, if a carabiner is a key-lock or a crappy snagger.

BEWARE THE MARK OF THE DEVIL!!!

love
nick

Originally posted by coonrad
overall, I'm pretty darn impressed with the quality of my climbing gear.

The one think that bugs me is the waxy coating that comes on the velocity rope. Does this eventually wear off? I think this would be a great rope without the stick'em.

Next time get Blaze. Great rope and no sticky stuff!

love
nick

My gear pet peeve is incompatibility. It seems that for every piece of equipment I buy (especially pulleys), I have to search for a perfectly shaped carabiner in order to use it. I always end up buying more carbiners because my other hundred biners are too big, too small or shaped wrong.

I love my gear! and I love to learn new ways to incorporate or to set up the old pieces into a new use or configuration. Some of the set ups are not very efficient or practical but the idea of being able to reconfigure and use gear safetly is a fullfilling experience. I finally learned to use the Panting in a lot of climbing situations and it works fine for me.
The retreever has not lived to my expectations so I do not use it most of the time and stays in the box in the garage.

I often find myself not satisfied with recreational gear that is available. I demand bombproof robust gear, that can take a beating and double as rescue gear when required. I find recreational gear to be low quality, seemingly intended for very casual users.

So i buy rescue gear or industrial gear instead. I pay more for it, yes, its often a little heavier, but i get more enjoyment from using it, and it lasts longer.

Case in point: i used to own a Portaledge, i used it for camping of all things, suspended over a stout limb several feet off the ground. What a piece of crap. Lasted about two seasons before the webbing and nylon blew out, and the corners cracked. Junk.

so my next "hanging home" so to speak, will not be another Portaledge or tree specific ledge. It will be a stainless steel Stokes litter stretcher, lined with a Thermarest, rigged and suspended by industrial stretcher rigging and a Petzl Bear Paw and topped off with either a mesh fly or rain fly. A very "post modern, industrial" treepod


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Originally posted by SRT-Tech
I find recreational gear to be low quality, seemingly intended for very casual users.

Are you referring to rock gear when you say recreational gear? There is very little gear that is sold as "made for recreational tree climbing".

New Tribe make a few items specifically for recreational tree climbing, most notably their saddles. Their stuff is very far from being low quality. For instance NT tree boats are very well made and are lightweight and comfortable (not a bad combination).

That would be a sight to see you sleeping in a rescue stretcher in a tree It would make an excellent base for a photography blind in a tree. How heavy is it? Oops, just reread your post, it's stainless steel, going to be very heavy. It would make sense for a semi-permanent installation.
-moss