Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Gris Gris banned at Sydney Indoor 3-Jul-2006 At 10:11:25 AM garbie

Message

On 3/07/2006 climbingjac wrote:
>On 30/06/2006 dave wrote:
>>Anyone out there who'll support the ATC?
>
>My personal choice is that (provided I'm not climbing on trad) I'd prefer
>a grigri belay. If the belayer's attention strays a bit at the time of
>a fall, you have a second chance that the device will probably catch you.
> The same cannot be said for an ATC.

Good point Jac, I also like auto-lockers for that reason & others: getting knocked out by a rock while belaying, useful for rapping, bolting, rescue etc etc.

But if you are going to use an auto-locker, it has to be effective a very very high % of the time because you are relying on it to lock and not expecting it not to. It shouldn't have any failure modes that are perfectly forseeable in normal use. So its design is critical.

We are not making people use any device they are not familiar with - we have some good top-roping here as well! We are checking people's belaying on the (non-grigri) device of their choice, and if in the staff's opinion you aren't competent on your device, they will not issue a belay card. I honestly think most grigri users once used conventional devices and will be able to adjust to using them here: if they haven't used them much recently, the fact that they will have to concentrate on the belaying will be a good thing.

If you do have an accident here on another device, don't try telling us we made you do it! We aren't making you do anything! Dont lead climb here unless you accept responsibility for what happens! Hate the way that sounds, we love you all we really do.