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Moof
Big Wall climber
Orygun
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Jan 22, 2014 - 10:49pm PT
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I liked the look of the Kong Ergo Wirelock more, looked like a good compromise for more security with little extra clipping hassle, but haven't picked up any. The downside is it lookes like there is no way for the Kong to open the gate while under any load, which gives me pause for wall use.
This grivel thing just looks like too much hassle for even slightly desperate clipping.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jan 22, 2014 - 11:12pm PT
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They should replace the second gate with a corkscrew.
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Srbphoto
climber
Kennewick wa
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Jan 22, 2014 - 11:23pm PT
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Steve's fingers look stubby
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TrackerTodd
Mountain climber
CA
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Jan 22, 2014 - 11:35pm PT
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Super cool idea, he makes it look so easy! Ica nt wait to get some and try em out.
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Jan 23, 2014 - 01:58am PT
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what is the weight?
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H
Mountain climber
there and back again
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Jan 23, 2014 - 10:57am PT
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Sometimes its hard enough to hold a bent gate steady with one hand and clip the rope in. Sure if its stable like a hanger bolted to a wall. But on the end of a quickdraw? It definitely has its uses but definitely not sport climbing.
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enjoimx
Trad climber
SLO
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Jan 23, 2014 - 01:44pm PT
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Does it integrate with the Mammut pants with a built in harness?
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Rudder
Trad climber
Costa Mesa, CA
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Jan 23, 2014 - 01:54pm PT
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I love Stevie's feigned looks of consternation. Hilarious.
Me too! haha
Totally fun to see this new product!
For me, I'm mostly heliums now, at 32grams each.
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Bda9426
Trad climber
Tacoma, Wa
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A few thoughts:
This is a solution looking for a problem, at least more so than the alternative. It's neat to have on a quickdraw, but they're heavy and also legitimately make those more desperate clips just that much harder to make.
Regular biners won't come off the piton/ice screw/bolt like the video showed because the rock wall or ice would get in the way and not allow the biner to orient itself like that. Try it out to see for yourself.
I could see this actually causing more whippers due to its inconvenience. Picture some dude pumped out of his mind, he takes in a bunch of slack to make the clip, but just can't quite get that first upside-down gate open with shaky sweaty hands. You know that feeling. So with all that slack that you can't quite pay into the biner, you're taking a bigger fall. Yes it gets rid of the back-clipping problem, but I honestly don't like the idea of anything training people that it's alright to back-clip. These won't go mainstream and be commonplace enough to justify teaching such a bad habit. That just adds more people to the already frighteningly vast pool of uninformed and careless climbers.
That said, it would inspire more confidence when climbing above one of these biners than just a regular gate. But the margin of extra safety seems minimal. Perhaps save these draws only for the easy clips. As a locking biner, again looks awkward but might be neat to have reserved for specific applications.
Any winter glove (like for AI, WI, expedition climbing) makes it noticeably more difficult to manipulate. Dude must have practiced a thousand times before recording that promo video.
Overall thoughts:
-It's nice to have 2-3 of these among my 10 draws on a regular sport route. Still too heavy and difficult to manipulate for me to replace my wire-gates with them.
-For locking applications, these don't seem near as versatile as the standard screwgate, or even some of the other alternative lockers.
-It's a neat idea with very limited realistic applications. Probably more for the skeptics, newbies, or those climbers who need unique/interesting gear to feel good about themselves.
-This product will probably not go far due to it's impracticality for most situations.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Rock Exotica has had a "twin gate" caribiner for years. The bi-wire.
But they got it "wrong." Unlike the biwire, one gate on the Grivel opens up, the other down, and this makes one-handed clipping more feasible, as Stevie demonstrates.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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But they got it "wrong." Unlike the biwire, one gate on the Grivel opens up, the other down, and this makes one-handed clipping more feasible, as Stevie demonstrates.
Have you tried it?
The RE biwire looks like you can open both gates just by putting your finger twixt them.
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miwuksurfer
Social climber
Mi-Wuk
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But they got it "wrong." Unlike the biwire, one gate on the Grivel opens up, the other down, and this makes one-handed clipping more feasible, as Stevie demonstrates.
I haven't actually tried it yet. Seems you would just open the outer gate and slap it on the bolt, rope, etc. Might be nice replacing lockers on an anchor maybe, not replacing normal biners en-route.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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The gram weight of the Lambda is no surprise,..
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Lorenzo, I did try the biwire when it came out and concluded it was very awkward in practice, far more awkward then the Grivel carabiner appears to be in the Haston video.
Of course, that evaluation could be the result of insufficient practice on my part, but every climber I know who actually tried out the biwire rejected it.
The Grivel appears to be better. Whether there is any real need for what is offers is another question.
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lubbockclimber
Trad climber
lubbock,tx
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I could see it having a couple uses here and there. Otherwise, NO!
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Lorenzo, I did try the biwire when it came out and concluded it was very awkward in practice, far more awkward then the Grivel carabiner appears to be in the Haston video.
Haha. Well, he is clearly an amateur magician who has the whole act down with facial distractions and everything. I bet he does a good hidden card trick that looks easy, too.
I'll probably never buy either, but I submit you haven't done a proper comparison from your description.
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Apr 16, 2014 - 06:31pm PT
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Hadn't seen this thread. And likely would have ignored it. But had a chance to play with the dbl gate for a few minutes. Not into faff and thought these one pretty cool.
Just as easy to use as Stevie shows. No magic here. Just exceptionally elegant and simple design work.
and ya, dislike lockers but I use them on occasion. A few this last week in fact...glacier skiing and ice climbing. Rather had these new ones which is why I thought it worth mentioning.
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