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Rave About Your Rack Please do not post retail SPAM.

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A rack for a beginner

Nooj

25-Dec-2009
8:12:44 PM

Payday and the holidays = $1000 spending splurge. I've got a helmet, harness, shoes, atc belay, a handful of draws, and I've been mostly top-roping and relying on partners for the rest (it's a shit thing to do, which is why I'm trying to cut that stuff out). Could someone point out what sort of things I need? I've got a helmet, harness, shoes, atc belay, and 10 draws. What are the prices on a 10.5mm rope nowadays?

audtracol

26-Dec-2009
9:18:18 AM

I started off with a set of nuts, hexes, quick draws (10), a few bolt plates, some alloy and steel crabs, slings of different lengths. I recking ropes are about $300 to $400. You can always use extra gear of your climbing partner. From there i'd get an extra set of nuts and some RP's and then when you hit a big payday buy some cams. This was mainly for climbing at the gramps and araps. Check for sales as i think bogong may have a sale on at the moment.

Cheers and happy shopping

Pat

26-Dec-2009
10:31:40 AM

What sort of climbing and where abouts? You should do a search of the forums for threads on racks
for arapiles etc. They have heaps of good info. If you plan on any pitches of more than 25 meters, you
will probably need more than a handful of draws. You might find depending on the route and your
boldness that 10 is just a few short. I wouldn't think about getting any steel biners - too heavy and
overkill. Depending on what kind of climbing you are planning to do here my 2 cents worth on what you
might need to go the next level:

2 prussik loops (and learn how to use them)
1 set of wires (you could get a few doubles of the medium & small/med sizes - you will get more as
you go along I promise)
1 set of one of the micro wires (cue a long debate about the merits of the various sets)

mmm... some people always carry a few hexes - cheap and effective (cue the next debate)

A few cams - how long's a piece of string? OK I'll stick my neck out and suggest you could start with a
number 1,2 & 3 cam to get you covered for a range of crack sizes
6 more quick draws to take you to 16
A few slings - say 1 each of short, medium and long until you get to understand what you need for the
type of climbing you are into.

A few screw gate alloy biners. One for the ATC and a few for belays and other places where you might
want their security. Maybe a total of three to start with. Make at least two of them big.
A few bolt plates for the ever present carrot bolts (cue bolt debate)
Nut removal tool. (Ask someone else for an explanation - I'm a bit squeamish)

Rope. Some might suggest you get a big beefy 10.5 or 11 mm tough rope to start out. One that can
take a little more mistreatment until you learn how to look after a thinner, softer rope. A lot of people
are opting for 60m now, but you can still get up and down a lot of cliffs with a 50m and it will be a bit
cheaper.

This list should get you up a few decent cliffs and quite a few not so decent ones, but be warned. Gear
is a slippery slope. Once you start, you'll 'need' much more - and sadly none of it makes you a better
climber.

Good on you for having a helmet. Always wear it - even in the car, you can't be too careful. (cue
massive helmet debate by those stuck at home, not out on the cliffs)

Welcome to the forum.

One last thing, make sure you really know how to use the gear you have. Being sure of your skills
makes the climbing experience a whole lot more enjoyable.

h_rouse

27-Dec-2009
10:10:55 AM

hey mate. im newish to climbing also. i just started getting a bit of a rack together and like everyone
said its snowballs. i started out with 10 draws a full set of nuts and a 50m rope.

I have been climbing for about a 18 months and i now have 15 draws including some adjustable ones
made up of a 120cm sling and some wire gates and they come in handy.

i have a set of nuts, a set of hexes and a almost full set of bd c4s and i TRY to use them all
efficiently.

there are Beal top gun II 10.5mm 50m ropes of sale at the moment for $250 at rock hardware. i got a
new Beal 60m the other day for $300 and i find that 60m ropes are just that bit more useful for
servicing abseils when your using a single.

but again like everyone has said its all about what climbing you want to do and where you want to do
it. the one thing i can say for sure is a shinny rack is a unused one and at the moment mine is
glistening and it makes me sad.

good luck and fun racking

salty crag

27-Dec-2009
8:48:19 PM

Hmmm, can we ever have too much gear... dropped in to Phil at Natti today, he has Beal 10.2 50m for $199 and 60m for $239. Broke my heart as I need both but supporting Santa in his endeavours has left this fat little elf broke for some time to come. (New set of quickdraws in my santa sack was a nice surprise though).
Good luck compiling your rack and have fun using it.

Wendy

28-Dec-2009
7:57:16 AM

I still have some of the best quickdraws around for sale in another thread if you want to add to your quickdraws.

http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?Action=DisplayTopic&ForumID=10&MessageID=6098&Replies=5#newpost

Other than that, I disagree on the RPs and other microwires (cue even more basic debate about to have them or not). When it comes to beginners, I would definately say not. They have low breaking strains, are difficult to place well and only go in limited places, and very rarely will you find yourself on an easy to moderate route without other choices that are better.. The $120 or so you would spend on a set would be much better off spent on another cam or some more wires. On which note, I have some old cams I'm thinking of getting rid of if you are suitably impoverished to be looking at 2nd hand ones. For $100 you could have 4 of your choice from these:

Note that all slingage on them should be replaced.

I think slings are some of the most useful bits of gear around - I'd pile quite a few of them onto any beginner rack as easy routes are often well endowed with bollards, threads and trees to sling and being able to extend your runners will make you much happier at the end of a long pitch. I rarely leave the ground with less than 4 on my shoulders and a few more extendable draws.

When it comes to buying new gear in Oz, I only ever really go to Phil (here in Nati), Rockhardware or climbinganchors.com.au. They tend to have the best deals short of leaving the country.

bl@ke

28-Dec-2009
7:56:56 PM

Nuts get nuts, well if you are climbing at Arapiles. i have 2 sets and a set and a half of rp's. Arapiles eats them up.

Pat

29-Dec-2009
8:53:28 AM

Yep Wendy,

on reflection you are right regarding the micro wires - its been a long time since I was a beginner in the
wire placement department.

Agree with the slings comments too.

mikepatt

29-Dec-2009
1:32:11 PM

When I started climbing in Sydney I relied quite a lot on mates gear. You'll find out what you like etc. I started buying the odd bit here and there when the shops had sales and often I'd buy specific pieces for specific climbs (First cam, 1 /12 WC flexi friend, bought to lead Prof Wigginsworth at Barrenjoey) Despite a reasonable income I didn't buy the 'full rack' option and not a lot of climbers I climbed with did either. I do think a rope is essential when starting out, especially I you end up spending a lot of time hanging on a rope. Incidentaly I started off with 6 quick draws and didn't increase the for sometime. As above threads, what gear you need will depend on where/what you climb.

wallwombat

29-Dec-2009
2:01:02 PM

On 28/12/2009 Wendy wrote:
>When it comes to buying new gear in Oz, I only ever really go to Phil
>(here in Nati), Rockhardware or climbinganchors.com.au. They tend to have
>the best deals short of leaving the country.

Good advice. Being in Sydney, you might want to check out climbinganchors.com.au. That's where I buy all mine nowadays.

Also, the dollar is pretty good at the moment, so if you are wiling to wait a few weeks , maybe checking out some of the online retailers in the states might me value.

Rob S.

29-Dec-2009
3:37:30 PM

Me and my brothers havnt been climbing for long and we had good fun for months with just 10 draws,
a set of nuts, 3 hexs (the biggest 2 of which would fit much larger cracks than the largest nut), 4
locking biners and a bundle of tape slings for toprope anchors.
After that we got more slings and a few cams and so on.
As you buy more stuff the shopping list seems to get bigger rather than smaller.

On 29/12/2009 wallwombat wrote:
>Also, the dollar is pretty good at the moment, so if you are wiling to
>wait a few weeks , maybe checking out some of the online retailers in the
>states might me value.

yeah. For the little bits and pieces it's not really worth it cos of shipping and stuff but me and my bros
just ordered 9 BD C4s for under AU700 from the states and it's only supposed to take 3-5 days after
they post it.

wallwombat

29-Dec-2009
4:31:54 PM

Last time the dollar was up near the US$, capt mulch bought a rope from backcountrygear.com for a really good price and didn't pay much postage. I think he might have bought a fair few other things at the same time.

I bought 4 Mastercams from them and only paid about $25 postage. They are a lot lighter than a rope though.

It really depends on the item. They sell those Metolious Roc Rings for $25 US. I haven't seen them anywhere over here for under $100.

They will give you a quote on postage, so it's always worth a look.

Nooj

30-Dec-2009
7:15:29 PM

On 28/12/2009 Wendy wrote:

They tend to have
>the best deals short of leaving the country.

As it happens, I'm in Korea but I'm heading back in a week. For anyone who's thinking of climbing here, don't go in the winter. Too cold to climb (although the snow is nice) and indoors is pretty much the same as Sydney, probably worse. One of the reasons I came over here was that I heard the prices were massively cheap.

Really thanks everyone. Don't have internet access a lot, but I'll let you know what I bought when I figure out how to use the freaking trains...

There are 13 messages in this topic.