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Ropes 23-May-2009 At 10:52:08 PM peterc

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In answer to Gordo's question about noticing impact forces - I used to think that it didn't make much difference, and that it would be hard or impossible to perceive differences in impact forces. But then I conducted some rope testing a few years ago that involved taking lead falls on a number of different ropes.

The falls were all taken on the same climb, onto the same bolt, from identical heights with a series of ropes. A number of us took the falls and then rated the ropes from hardest to softest catch (without knowing the ratings of the ropes before we took to the air).

At the end of the testing, I compiled the ratings from everyone and then looked at the impact forces of the ropes and discovered that all of us had the order correct (except for one climber who had one rope out of sequence - but then the difference in impact forces between those two ropes was not much anyway).

In other words, we were all able to tell the difference.