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General Climbing Discussion

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why don't you use your belay loop? 1-Mar-2012 At 8:36:15 PM climbau

Message

On 1/03/2012 pmonks wrote:
>Because belay loops aren't redundant.
You don't have to worry about redundancy of your belay loop if you inspect your gear on a regular basis and don't keep your cash stacked for the sake of $80.
You cannot always control the way the rock behaves, but you can at least control how serviceable your gear is.

Some points to think about:
1) Fraying can indicate friction which generates heat. You cannot always see what the heat has done to the webbing internally.
2) Heat is not as localised as finely as a cut.
3) The way the webbing is bound
4) Is it flat webbing or tubular webbing.
5) is the webbing dyneema (or any other brand name) and if so how much dyneema.
6) Is it polyester? There is more energy absorption in nylon than polyester or dyneema. 7) Dyneema is more prone to UV damage.
8) Dyneema is more susceptible to heat damage.
9) Polyester is more resistant to Acids, and Nylon is more resistant to Alkalines (could be other way around, you may have to do a wikisearch????).
10) A slightly exposed rivet end on the gate of a carabiner can be the difference to catastrophic failure and not.
11) Mismatch of materials with tied "back-up" belay loops can be a not so flash idea. But negligible if you regularly inspect your gear.
12) soft goods are consumables in climbing. They don't last forever. Do regular inspections.
13) The direction of the cut (in terms of the lay of the webbing) can determine the failure rate.

Moral of the story: Do regular inspections! Which ever your preferable method of belay/abseil device attachment.

Then there is the gear compatability issue:
1) Do you have a beer belly to interfere with device operation?
2) Do you rig other bits of gear at the ventral point of your harness? e.g. fifi's, use double ropes, daisy chains, shewee.
3) Trad or sport.
4) Rescue crew.
5) Can you use "belay master" style connectors or even a Petzl Freino to minimise cross-loading?
6) If you like tube style devices, why not use a rigid stem device? e.g. Omega Pacific SBGII.