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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Gris Gris banned at Sydney Indoor 28-Jun-2006 At 5:10:22 PM garbie

Message

>
>Don't blame the device, blame the user! You don't need to be a rocket
>scientist to use a gri gri. Just use common sense!
>
>Sorry Garbie, but I feel this is just a knee jerk reaction and the easy
>way out... You just need to push the issue with staff to be vigilant and
>enforce correct belay technique...

If it was the first incident here, and there was no history of Gri Gri's being involved in a lot of accidents, it would be knee-jerk. But we've been thinking about it since the accident last year, and decided to act.

It's not an easy way out - we're going to cop some flak for sure & it would be easier to do nothing. You can say "blame the user" but runnning a climbing gym is about providing the safest system you can without ruining the experience completely. The climber is part of that system and if there is technology that improves the system without ruining the experience then we should use it, or ban technology which compromises the system. So e.g "slo-goes" on our top ropes improve safety without the climber even noticing, so are a must IMO.

If someone designed the ultimate lead belay device which paid slack quick & always locked, we'd make it mandatory, buy it and lend it to all our customers!