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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Poll Option Votes Graph
No, ban them 5
10% 
Yes, we want to use what we want 40
77% 
I'm on the fence on this one, I should be ashamed. 3
6% 
I like em, but ban them if u have to. 4
8% 

 Page 3 of 4. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 73
Author
Should GriGris be alllowed FOR LEADING in gyms?

..::- Chris -::..
10-Feb-2011
12:25:57 PM
I think getting certified for each type makes sense perhaps have a colour chart on the lead pass / tag so it's easily viewable by gym staff.

Green - Eddy
Silver - Gri gri
White - ATC
Blue - All of the above.

I use the Eddy mostly indoors as I climb at bayside, I don't find them too bad, I still however prefer my Gri-Gri.

Unfortunately I have found of late when I’ve been outdoors the first lead or two I try and feed it out ATC / Eddy style which doesn't work well for the old grigri due to habbits formed at the gym...

In regards to gri-gri / autolocks failing, I’ve heard about it happening but in 15 years of climbing never SEEN it happen, mind you I’ve never really required the gri gri to autolock as I am always on the brake at the right time, which comes from practise and also the ability to "read" when to feed and when to brake, when a climber is pushing into their personal pumped / fall zone and also taking part in reading the route, are there dangerous clips? are there run out sections? I try to minimize risk by using all the information I can gather BEFORE the climber sets off.

This is Not always possible but these things help balance the safety and also send / tickage side of things in yours and the climbers favour. If I am working a known route and have a new belayer I usually take the time to point out some "belay" strategies for know hard clips i.e. ....." I find the 3rd clip desperate, I will basically head up to the small crimp on the right and clip from there so if ya can be ready to feed."

It Just means I can relax knowing the belayer SHOULD be ready for what might be a desperate clip for me.

Overall my .02 is all devices are safe as long as people are trained / assessed correctly and thoroughly.

Chris.

nmonteith
10-Feb-2011
12:35:10 PM
On 10/02/2011 gfdonc wrote:
>The gri-gri cases that worry me are where the device hasn't locked up,
>rope has fed through in a hurry, the belayer has received rope burns and
>let go of the rope, leader decks.

I'm intrigued to know more about these type of accidents, as I have never seen one and can't seem to make it happen fiddling around at home. Are these accidents with people not holding the rope - and solely relying on the Gri Gri to hold? Thus it doesn't lock up and the speed of the rope running through is fast - then they try and grab the rope and it burns them? I imagine I could easily hold a fall with a Gri Gri even if the cam was held in open mode - providing my hand was on the rope when the fall happened.
Richard Delaney
10-Feb-2011
12:54:14 PM
On 10/02/2011 garbie wrote:
>What do you think, Richard?

Australia is a very interesting place to consider - discussions I've had in gyms in France and Canada went along the lines of:
RD: wow, only leading, where are the top-ropes?
Reply: top-ropes? what would we want those for?
RD: what about groups, and beginners?
Reply: What??? This place is for climbers.

The desk staff generally said: there's the bolted wall. You've got all you need, go for it.
BYO rope, belay device, harness, ...

The very difficult line for Australian gym operators/staff to tread is where do you start and stop with inspecting gear? Do you check the manufacturing date on all soft stuff? Do you check byo ropes from end to end? Then, as for skills, is it just assess them, give them a ticket and let em go - or continuous supervision - which varies in 'continuous' according to how many others are active in the gym.

So, what do I think?
Assess them as competent lead climbers/belayers (including gear selection) and then let them go with byo everything.

Richard

nmonteith
10-Feb-2011
1:08:59 PM
On 10/02/2011 davidn wrote:
>Anecdotally, number of decking incidents prior to grigri << number of
>incidents after introduction. Sure, fewer people with the extremely rare
>'belayer knocked unconscious and I fell and survived' situation, but many
>more with the 'grigri taught belayer to eff up and I hit the ground' situation.

Gri Gri's appeared about the same time that sport climbing arrived in the mainstream. In my mind sport climbing = climbing where its safe to fall off. Obviously belay accidents would be MUCH less when people didn't use to fall off every 2m!
maxdacat
10-Feb-2011
2:01:09 PM
Good point re Oz vs overseas. I think because climbing is more of a niche activity here than say europe, walls have a harder time justifying such a laissez-faire approach to their insurers.

I did happen to go to a wall in Rotterdam once that nice and tall but was top rope only....wierd?
bones
10-Feb-2011
2:08:01 PM
On 10/02/2011 maxdacat wrote:
>Good point re Oz vs overseas. I think because climbing is more of a niche
>activity here than say europe, walls have a harder time justifying such
>a laissez-faire approach to their insurers.
>
>I did happen to go to a wall in Rotterdam once that nice and tall but
>was top rope only....wierd?

the UK's different though - the standard of belaying required was much higher than here and climbing is very popular. I think the insurance companies have a bigger impact there?

garbie
10-Feb-2011
3:08:15 PM
On 10/02/2011 Zoe_Kay wrote:
>Hi Garbie,
>Not sure if you will want to/ can answer this... But how do the numbers
>stack up in your gyms?
>Eg. How many leading accident have there been with people using an ATC,
>how many using a GriGri and how many using an Eddy???
>
At StPeters, there were two accidents using GriGri's, none using Eddy's, and one that I know of using an ATC (I'm at Villawood now so don't have the stats on hand). So I don't think these stats are statistically significant - would have to have a lot more accidents for better data - but we don't want that do we?

At Villawood we are allowing any device for a trial period but we're being strict on technique, in particular, keeping your brake hand on the tail at all times, no matter what the device.

I agree people probably become better belayers if they first learn on an ATC, but as long as they use their device of choice correctly while they are here, we don't mind what they learnt on.

garbie
10-Feb-2011
3:10:24 PM
On 10/02/2011 maxdacat wrote:
>On 9/02/2011 garbie wrote:
>>>
>>Mike/SICG
>
>Hi Mike....I think it should be up to the climbers personal preference
>as long as they know how to use their device.
>
>Just worth noting that SICG has a rule stating "no gri-gri's and ropes
>under 10mm". I took this to mean gri-gris are fine on ropes over 10mm
>and proceeded to use mine. No one pulled me up on this but i gather they
>are not allowed at all.

No they are currently not allowed at StPeters at all. You must have slipped under the radar, just proves I guess that its impossible to watch everybody all the time, but this should have been picked up!

garbie
10-Feb-2011
3:16:08 PM
On 10/02/2011 yankinoz wrote:
>On 10/02/2011 Eduardo Slabofvic. wrote:
>>
>>Person how learns to belay on Gri Gri and doesn't know how to control
>>break line, has left hand holding Gri Gri in open position whilst using
>>right hand too fee out slack...
>>
>>This happened to me, and I will never ever ever be belayed leading with
>>a Gri Gri...
>
>I would never ever ever be belayed leading by that person who doesn't
>know how to control the brake line.
>
>Agreed that learning to belay on a GriGri is bad. Teach on ATCs and
>I would suggest that Gyms should check lead climbers/belayers on ATC usage
>for a 'pass/fail' then allow them to actually belay with whatever they
>want.
>
>-Rob

No we prefer to check them on the device they actually use. Their technique on other devices is neither here nor there. But I'm a bit old-school in one way that I think all climbers should be proficient on a few devices including an ATC and even a munter hitch in case you need it one day.

garbie
10-Feb-2011
3:20:27 PM
On 10/02/2011 nmonteith wrote:
>My 'worst case scenario' is that the leader rips off a big block and then
>also falls off - the block then brains the belayer, and then the leader
>gets caught by the rope at the end of the fall. In this situation you obviously
>don't have the ability to downclimb - as you are already falling. I've
>taken quite a few big falls in my time with holds breaking, and I've certainly
>dodged a fair few flying rocks on belay. Even if the belayer doesn't gets
>knocked unconscious - I can see that being hit by even a small falling
>rock will cause extreme pain and obviously 'distract' the belayer from
>holding the rope! With an autolocker this isn't a problem*
>
>This isn't an argument about sport vs trad. Loose rock and big falls happen
>in both trad and sport. Even on trade routes.
>
>* Peter Monks disclaimer - obviously not 100% of the time.

I'm generally with Neil on this. Rock-fall is rare at the gym, but holds sometimes break (less often now with urethane holds) and can either hit or distract a belayer. More often its other distractions - people chatting to you, or wandering around without much on...

garbie
10-Feb-2011
3:26:39 PM
On 10/02/2011 Richard Delaney wrote:

>So, what do I think?
>Assess them as competent lead climbers/belayers (including gear selection)
>and then let them go with byo everything.
>
>Richard

Yeh thats our current policy. We expect people to have safe gear, and we can't check everything especially ropes. You take responsibility for your own gear.

garbie
10-Feb-2011
3:29:40 PM
On 10/02/2011 davidn wrote:

>You're presuming that the hand is on the bottom of the rope? People grab
>the cam with one hand, feed rope with the other (above the device), someone
>falls, you're holding the wrong side of the rope with the cam wide open
>and since you're not controlling the brake side of the rope, there's no
>friction on it other than your skin sliding over the rope above the device.
>
>Sure, you wouldn't do that, but it seems to happen a buttload to people
>who learn on grigris.

This is what made us ban them a couple of years ago after the accidents - people using this bad technique. But we don't see it here, and if we do we'll stop them belaying.
maxdacat
10-Feb-2011
4:16:30 PM
On 10/02/2011 garbie wrote:
>On 10/02/2011 maxdacat wrote:
>>On 9/02/2011 garbie wrote:
>>>>
>>>Mike/SICG
>>
>>Hi Mike....I think it should be up to the climbers personal preference
>>as long as they know how to use their device.
>>
>>Just worth noting that SICG has a rule stating "no gri-gri's and ropes
>>under 10mm". I took this to mean gri-gris are fine on ropes over 10mm
>>and proceeded to use mine. No one pulled me up on this but i gather
>they
>>are not allowed at all.
>
>No they are currently not allowed at StPeters at all. You must have slipped
>under the radar, just proves I guess that its impossible to watch everybody
>all the time, but this should have been picked up!

Indeed it should have been picked up while i was using the Gri-Gri for the belay test LOL....although i'm not complaining and certainly don't want get anyone in trouble!

IdratherbeclimbingM9
10-Feb-2011
8:01:54 PM
>Should GriGris be alllowed FOR LEADING in gyms?

Lead climbing in gyms? Now that is a novel concept!
~> Keep the adventure, let 'em use whatever they like*,... including ye olde waist belay!


(*... but get them to demo proficiency, by holding a bodyweight log thrown from the ceiling 1st!!)




Heh, heh, heh.
ultimate flasher
10-Feb-2011
10:12:48 PM
nmonteith: i find when im flashing every route issues such as unconcious belayers dont affect me, i just mantle the top out and walk back down. seems to work everytime. only if your strong enough of course

i also find that as long as it is not a woman belaying then ground falls also aren't an issue.
Garbie: in those gri gri accidents you mentioned, what was the sex of the belayer? i am pretty certain they were women each time

garbie
10-Feb-2011
10:28:10 PM
On 10/02/2011 ultimate flasher wrote:
>nmonteith: i find when im flashing every route issues such as unconcious
>belayers dont affect me, i just mantle the top out and walk back down.
>seems to work everytime. only if your strong enough of course
>
>i also find that as long as it is not a woman belaying then ground falls
>also aren't an issue.
>Garbie: in those gri gri accidents you mentioned, what was the sex of
>the belayer? i am pretty certain they were women each time

ultimate flasher, first post glory! why do you say that?

BoulderBaby
10-Feb-2011
11:22:08 PM
What do you guys think of the Trango Cynch?

nmonteith
10-Feb-2011
11:30:18 PM
On 10/02/2011 Musique wrote:
>What do you guys think of the Trango Cynch?

Terrible. Handle is too short and thus lowering and abseiling is a nightmare.

Superstu
11-Feb-2011
8:01:40 AM
On 10/02/2011 nmonteith wrote:
>I'm intrigued to know more about these type of accidents, as I have never
>seen one and can't seem to make it happen fiddling around at home. Are
>these accidents with people not holding the rope - and solely relying on
>the Gri Gri to hold? Thus it doesn't lock up and the speed of the rope
>running through is fast - then they try and grab the rope and it burns
>them? I imagine I could easily hold a fall with a Gri Gri even if the cam
>was held in open mode - providing my hand was on the rope when the fall
>happened.

I never got around to getting a gri-gri because the first time I saw one being used was at Nowra when I also saw someone deck while being belayed with one! The belayer was watching someone else climbing nearby, had his hand holding the device open, and didn't respond quick enough when the leader popped.

Do grigris encourage bad belaying? And a few years later I decked at Arapiles after being dropped by a sport climber. He was using an ATC but it was clear he'd belayed most of his time with a grigri.

Don't know any solutions... but their introduction hasn't really improved climbing safety based on my experience!








Maidy
12-Feb-2011
6:33:38 AM
I hate the Cinch. It weighs a lot less, but it grabs very hard and the short handle makes it difficult to control IMO.

Gri-gri accidents? The only time I ever decked in 10 years of climbing was on a gri-gri belay. We were using a brand new rope that had a lot of coils and somehow- a loop of rope got wrapped around the handle holding it open while my belayer was distracted trying to straighten out the coils. It didn't lock up and I took a ground fall. I'm not anti gri-gri at all.. Just anti bad belay technique BTW. If a block knocks my belayer unconscious... I'm kinda hoping there's a gri-gri in the mix. ;)

Gym leading? It nice when gyms serve as educational facilities. Why not offer lead certification in both? (Insurance permitting) . I'd start everyone out on ATC for both TR and lead belay. Gri-gri could be offered as a separate course. The gym staff tests the student for lead certification one or both. Outsiders coming in from elsewhere? Again- the staff has to test them regardless. Ultimately- the staff has a responsibility to do what is best for the safety of the gym.

 Page 3 of 4. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 73
There are 73 messages in this topic.

 

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