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Chockstone Forum - Gear Lust / Lost & Found

Rave About Your Rack Please do not post retail SPAM.

Author
Cam usage (survey), if interested or have time.
...
18-Jul-2005
10:48:20 PM
.

billk
19-Jul-2005
11:34:34 AM
AGE: 43

MALE/ FEMALE M

What type of climbing do you participate in? trad/ gym
Trad, sport, gym, bouldering

How many years have you been climbing? 11

Do you use cams when climbing? Yes/ no just about always
1. What are some of the advantages of SLCDs?
1 Fit where other bits wont - that simple
2
3
4
5

2. What are some of the disadvantages of SLCDs?
1Can pull easily if not properly placed
2 Heavy
3 Expensive
4
5

3. Do you find removing cams from your harness difficult? And what difficulties do you come across when
trying to remove SLCDs from your harness?
1 Yes if carrying full rack
2
3
4
5

4. In regards to the trigger and thumb grip on SLCDs, do you find placing SLCDs difficult? In what ways
are the design of the trigger and thumb grip difficult to use?
Depends on brand. Aliens a little sloppy. WC and BD pretty good

5.a How long does it take you to place gear? Give an estimate.
Couple of mins for good cam placement. 10 secs if desperate

5.b Please rate your satisfaction levels for the below scenario using the below scale.
1=exceeds expectations, 2=ideal, 3=happy, 4=becoming a hindrance, 5=unacceptable.
example: <10 sec (1), 10-20sec (2), 30-60 sec (3), 1-2mins (3), 6+ mins (5)
If placing cams took
Less than 10 seconds 1
10- 20 sec 2
20-30 sec2
30-60 sec3
1-2 mins3
2-3 mins4
3-4 mins5
5-6 mins5
6+ mins5

6. Could you please ESTIMATE how many steps it would require for you to place gear into the rock if the
gear was placed on your harness.
5 or 6

7. Now describe those steps taken to place gear into rock. Begin with the SLCD positioned on the harness
and the final position of the SLCD is a GOOD placement in rock.

1 eyeball placement
2 pick probable best fit cam
3 remove form harness
4 retract trigger
5 place in crack
6 adjust placement
7 clip
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
20

This question focuses on how many body postures and hand movements are required to remove cams
from your harness and place them into the rock.
What would be your preferred number of body movements required for placing gear? Use the below rating
system for the given choices
1= exceeds expectation, 2=ideal, 3= happy, 4=starting to become a hindrance, 5= would feel that the
product begins to hinder your climbing

1 hand movement from harness to rock1
2-3 hand/body positions1
4-5 hand/body positions2
5-6 hand/body positions2
6+ hand/ body positions3

8. How do you ‘rack’ your SLCDs on your harness? Please draw a diagram and explain the drawing. Do
you rack cams individually with biners, do you group them etc…?
usually 1 cam to biner smallest at front largest at back. 2 cams to biner for smaller sizes when mutipitching or doing long single pitch

9. How are your hands and fingers positioned on the cam when removing it from your harness? Please
draw a diagram and explain your diagram
fingers are on biner

10. What position are your hands and fingers in when you are just about to place the gear? Please draw a
diagram and explain the diagram.
thumb on end of stem first two finges on trigger
11. Have you ever dropped, or nearly dropped, gear in the process of placing gear?
Yes/ No
wot do you reckon?

12. Do you find the current design of cams frustrating to remove and place in rock?
Yes/ no
if placed too deep

13. Do you wish that there was a better way to remove gear from your harness?
Yes/ no
yes

14. What price range increase would you consider acceptable for a SLCD that made removing and placing
gear more efficient. Please rate 1,2,3 and ‘never’ for the price ranges below using the below rating
system.
1 = that’s a bargain,
2 = reasonable/ most acceptable/ happy to pay,
3= if I have to
‘never’ = get real, I’ll manage with what I’ve got.

$10-$201
$20-$301
$30-$402
$40-$502
$50-$602
$60+3

IdratherbeclimbingM9
20-Jul-2005
4:49:46 PM
Ti,
Your survey is to a large extent a self fulfilling prophecy, however here is a help-out as I enjoyed reading billks' response.

AGE:
old

MALE/ FEMALE
Male

What type of climbing do you participate in? (Trad, sport, gym, bouldering)
Trad, aid, solo, sport, bouldering.

How many years have you been climbing?
Too many & not enough. (Since ’66).

Do you use cams when climbing?
Yes.

1. What are some of the advantages of SLCDs?
1 Fast
2 Generally reliable
3 Already pre-slung
4 Fit a fair range of size per any given placement
5 Work in parallel cracks and flares to an extent, as well as roof cracks; more easily than previous protection options.

2. What are some of the disadvantages of SLCDs?
1 Expensive
2 Heavy
3 They are not idiot-proof (user interaction).
4 Can be hard to retrieve
5 Unsound placements can be found/used and appear better than they really are.

3. Do you find removing cams from your harness difficult?
No; but compared to what?

And what difficulties do you come across when
trying to remove SLCDs from your harness?
Depends how cluttered it is with other gear.

4. In regards to the trigger and thumb grip on SLCDs, do you find placing SLCDs difficult?
No.

In what ways are the design of the trigger and thumb grip difficult to use?
Can be difficult to exert sufficient compression to extract a jammed placement.

5.a How long does it take you to place gear? Give an estimate.
SLCD usually <20secs; other pro can be longer (particularly on aid).

5.b Please rate your satisfaction levels for the below scenario using the below scale.
1=exceeds expectations, 2=ideal, 3=happy, 4=becoming a hindrance, 5=unacceptable.
example: <10 sec (1), 10-20sec (2), 30-60 sec (3), 1-2mins (3), 6+ mins (5)
If placing cams took
Less than 10 seconds 1
10- 20 sec 2
20-30 sec 3
30-60 sec 3
1-2 mins 4
2-3 mins 5

6. Could you please ESTIMATE how many steps it would require for you to place gear into the rock if the gear was placed on your harness.
Seven or eight.

7. Now describe those steps taken to place gear into rock. Begin with the SLCD positioned on the harness and the final position of the SLCD is a GOOD placement in rock.

1 Eyeball the placement
2 Choose appropriate cam
3 Unclip it from harness
4 Manipulate it into hand/fingers
5 Make the placement (includes retracting trigger, ie as one movement)
6 Eyeball/adjust placement if required.
7 Extend runner if required.
8 Clip the rope to it.

9 … sometimes anticipate the desperation and pre-extend/clip the rope prior to racking the SLCD much less placing it!

This question focuses on how many body postures and hand movements are required to remove cams from your harness and place them into the rock.
What would be your preferred number of body movements required for placing gear? Use the below rating system for the given choices
1= exceeds expectation, 2=ideal, 3= happy, 4=starting to become a hindrance, 5= would feel that the
product begins to hinder your climbing

1 hand movement from harness to rock 1
2-3 hand/body positions 3
4-5 hand/body positions 3
5-6 hand/body positions 3
6+ hand/ body positions 5

8. How do you ‘rack’ your SLCDs on your harness? Please draw a diagram and explain the drawing.

Individually and each with its own krab, generally on the left side of harness. Smallest at front through to largest towards the rear.
Will eye the line beforehand and rack accordingly. Unnecessary stuff on multipitch goes at rear or is left with the second. Sometimes when fatigue is recognised as a potential issue on the next pitch I will rack the half sizes similarly but on the other side of the harness, as this gives more options while clinging on in desperation due to not knowing which hand will be encumbered at various points enroute!
I also often trad climb with an over-the-shoulder gearsling. SLCDs when racked on it are usually all together, again with smallest at front through largest at rear.
On aid I use a chest harness with double gear slings. When I use this I tend to rack the SLCDs on the lower tier (or the waist/thigh harness) because I want my centre of gravity lower and achieve this by having heavy stuff lower. The truly fiddly stuff goes on the higher tiers where it is more accessable and less inclined to snag.

Do you rack cams individually with biners, do you group them etc…?
‘As above’, but my dedicated SLCD krabs are colour coded in groups of 4. This allows immediate size grading within a cluttered rack.

9. How are your hands and fingers positioned on the cam when removing it from your harness? Please draw a diagram and explain your diagram
Hand is on its attachment krab. Once removed I ‘feed the SLCD up’ within my fingers. If desperate I sometimes place its sling in my mouth 1st in order to change the one handed grip on it appropriately prior to placing.

10. What position are your hands and fingers in when you are just about to place the gear? Please draw a diagram and explain the diagram.
Placement hand on its trigger mechanism ‘syringe fashion’, the other hand holding the rock.

10(b) After describing your hand positions in qs9 and 10. What process do you use to move your hands from position A (described in Q9) to position B (described in Q10). Example: do you place the cam into your mouth and reposition hand or do you swivell it like a pistol etc..?)
‘as above’

11. Have you ever dropped, or nearly dropped, gear in the process of placing gear?
No / Yes !!

12. Do you find the current design of cams frustrating to operate when removing them from your harness and placing in rock?
No

13. Do you wish that there was a better way to remove gear from your harness?
Not really. The present situation is part of the game...

14. What price range increase would you consider acceptable for a SLCD that made removing and placing gear more efficient. Please rate 1,2,3 and ‘never’ for the price ranges below using the below rating system.
1 = that’s a bargain,
2 = reasonable/ most acceptable/ happy to pay,
3= if I have to
’never’ = get real, I’ll manage with what I’ve got.

$10-$20 3
$20-$30 ’never’
$30-$40
$40-$50
$50-$60
$60+

rhinckle
22-Jul-2005
6:48:27 AM
one thing comes to mind.

a cam with a stopper on the trigger mechanism that means that the second can flip it and get that tiny bit of extra camming to get the sucker out, and that the leader cannot over cam in the first place.

damnit, haven't patented the idea.

(remember that you read it here first)

IdratherbeclimbingM9
22-Jul-2005
1:55:30 PM
On 20/07/2005 ti wrote:
>By self fulfilling prophecy, do you mean that the questions tend to lead the participant?
Yes somewhat, I think your descriptions often leave little room for deviation from your theme, but thats only my opinion :)

>Are the questions not objective?
Not sure. What I suspect though, is that if you received 100 responses you would probably find about 90 of them would be almost identical. If this was the case what would that indicate to you?

The lack of responses publicly ... possibly also indicates a convoluted way of finding out what most of us take for granted?
Full marks for enthusiasm though.
:)
:)

>By the way, I starting learning the basics of clean aid climbing the other
>week, it was awesome fun! It was a short 15 m (?) climb. I think I only
>started to get into the rhythm of things in the last 5 metres. I can see
>what I'd like to be doing over the summer.
Carefull ... it can become addictive!

>Thanks for filling out the survey! I'll post my finding on chockstone
>when I've compiled everything.
Sounds good. I shall certainly read it!

rhinckle
>(remember that you read it here first)
I think you are onto something with that idea.
I can see it now ... The 'rhinckle'; a patented 'adjustable stop limiter' device for trigger stems to prevent overcamming, making retrieval easy and keeps 2nds cool !

Nick Kaz
22-Jul-2005
2:25:30 PM
I agree with M8, the questionare does tend to answer itself. (not that I could do any better recently I was faced with helping make a survey and put it in the too hard basket, I think I almost needed to put out a survey to ask what people wanted to be asked about cos I had no idea...)

On 22/07/2005 M8iswhereitsat wrote:
>rhinckle
>>(remember that you read it here first)
>I think you are onto something with that idea.
>I can see it now ... The 'rhinckle'; a patented 'adjustable stop limiter'
>device for trigger stems to prevent overcamming, making retrieval easy
>and keeps 2nds cool !

*sigh*
Now im going to have to spend money on rack expansion ;)
dalai
22-Jul-2005
2:40:52 PM
Or you could just keep using your current cams and place them rather then slamming them into the hilt... ;-)

IdratherbeclimbingM9
22-Jul-2005
2:47:14 PM
>slamming them into the hilt... ;-)
True, but sometimes the beggars 'walk' or pivot into an over-cammed state.

Nick Kaz
22-Jul-2005
3:28:16 PM
On 22/07/2005 dalai wrote:
>Or you could just keep using your current cams and place them rather then
>slamming them into the hilt... ;-)

Nooooo! Dont tell them that, I was hoping there was a period of time before there were no more stuck cams, no nobody will lose gear and I will have to pay for it sooner...

IdratherbeclimbingM9
25-Jul-2005
11:06:18 AM
>Most people have developed a system that has become an unconscious act and that they have adapted to
You are right, ... I am one of them, and consider it all part of the 'game' of climbing/learning to climb.

I don't know if it was computer glitches that day or not, but I found troubles after 'cut & pasting' your survey offline to a word doc when putting it back again with the answers inserted. It took several goes and only went cleanly in chunks instead of in one hit. Page breaks? ... more gnarly to lead than an offwidth!

A thought; ... ~> new design of easy to use SLCD in the future = downgrading of some climb grades? ... (Why when I were a lad, we etc)

IdratherbeclimbingM9
25-Jul-2005
12:57:35 PM
>As for down grading climbs due to redesign of gear... I thought grades were allocated for difficulty of finding gear placements and the skill came with being able to assess and find gear placements where others could find none?
Hehehe,
... I was being facetious.
There are plenty of threads on this Site regarding grading of climbs (a search on 'Ewbank' would turn most of them up).
Modern gear may make protecting some climbs easier, but it doesn't necessarily equate that the climbing is easier.
To the extent that a climb is unprotectable however, does become a factor in the grading of it. This is known as the 'exposure' element within the Ewbank system as originally adopted, however exposure also takes in chossy-ness (gear reliability), fiddliness of placing gear, height/landings as well as sheer air under ones feet.
Other factors that come into the grading are technical difficulty, sustained-ness of the difficulty etc.

Eduardo Slabofvic
12-Sep-2005
10:26:36 AM
Great idea, but it's been done before. Check out the Wild Counctry Cam book. It's a great read about how they were first developed.

There are 12 messages in this topic.

 

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