Umbilicals?
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I really rely on my umbilicals. As much as they are a moving belay for me I also have come to rely on them to retain my tools while climbing leashless. On the occasions I do climb without umbilicals I am very careful to watch where my tools are all the time and that they are securely placed. And I don't worry about my partners kicking or bumping them off the climb. May be I should be more concerned all the time.. |
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Nice article. I'm curious though: Do you know folk who have actually fallen onto their umbilicals? Granted, the FF will be low, but it's still static webbing. It seems like it would be really easy to generate forces that would rip out most placements. Might adding a screamer between your harness and the umbilical tie in be a good solution? |
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I saw one guy fall on his on mixed. We were all surprised it held and then were just waiting for him to get hit in the face with the tool. It worked out okay but it was pretty interesting to watch. |
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OReid wrote:Do you know folk who have actually fallen onto their umbilicals? Granted, the FF will be low...Actually the fall factor can get pretty high on umblicals. And none of them are rated to take a fall. But yes I know and have seen reports of a number of folks falling on their umbilicals. To date not heard of a umbilical failing and on what other wise would have been some big tumbles...stopped. But just a matter of time is my take on that one. Screamers? Good idea and you aren't the first to suggest it. Just too much rubbish at my crotch was my take on it. Likely the tie in loop will blow before the commercial umbilicals will. |
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More on umbilicals in general: |
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I made my own as well and looped my nomics like Dane. Then I bought a BD umbilical last year that is pretty nice. The BD biners could be nicer (as in stronger), but it is much better than my homemade setup. |
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Typical commercial umbilical biners are a good bit stronger than the webbing they are sewn to. |
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Well I have a pair of the grivels and played with them twice I really thought I needed em but sofar they spend all there time in my pack. |
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The gate on the BD biners reversing is a pretty common issue. They had to have experienced it in testing?? It's the only thing that bugs me about them. |
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I replaced the stock 'biners on my BD spinner tether with the Metolius FS mini-biners. I have not had any trouble with them spontaneously un-clipping. |
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So BD or Grivel? |
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Kevin Craig wrote:I replaced the stock 'biners on my BD spinner tether with the Metolius FS mini-biners.I have a FS mini, i'll have to try it out. Thanks. I generally like climbing w/o the tethers too but leading hard (for me) or long routes I need the piece of mind still. |
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Chris Plesko wrote: I have a FS mini, i'll have to try it out. Thanks. I generally like climbing w/o the tethers too but leading hard (for me) or long routes I need the piece of mind still.OK, so here's the trick. Unless you have a lot of patience, you'll need to cut just a little bit of the bar tacking to fit the Metolius biners through the webbing (and use a Dremel to cut off the stock biners). I was a tiny bit concerned about this, but the tethers are only supposed to be body weight anyway, I was very careful to cut the least amount possible and haven't experienced any additional fraying or anything (and I mainly just rely on them to keep my tools with me). Your choice if you want to make the same trade-offs. |
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For a little info on the BD Spinner Leash, and good info on umbilicals in general check out: |
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Kevin Craig wrote:I replaced the stock 'biners on my BD spinner tether with the Metolius FS mini-biners.Hey Kevin. Mind sharing why you changed to the Metious mini biner? umbilical biners left to right BD flat steel biner is labeled 2Kn (450#) rated on 13mm (1/2"?) tube webbing. (1/2" nylon tube was rated @ 1800# in the old Chouinard catalog) But the system will hold 1500# with the webbing always failing first. Grivel flat alumnum biner is 3Kn (675#) on 16mm (9/16"?) tube webbing (9/16" tube was rated @ 2800# in the old Chouinard catalog) No clue what teh Grivel system will actually hold. Metolius mini is 22Kn (4950#) and a good bit bigger physically in every way as well. By the "feel" of it the Grivel biner has at least twice the gate opening resistance as the BD and easily 3 times the opening resistance of the Metolius mini biner. |
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I don't know about Kevin but I've seen the BD biner's gate reverse at least half a dozen times. A couple on my spinners and also on multiple partners' leashes. |
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I like the BD spinner leashes, but the poor biner design seems like an extremely large oversight. Any speculation on why it wasn't designed with a key lock of some sort? I'm guessing the biner is designed to fail if someone falls on it (even if they don't say so). |
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just figured I'd mention that the grivel umbilicals available today come with mini-locking biners, rated to 750kg (1650 lbs), which is way different than the old grivel biner attachment that keeps getting mentioned and shown in this thread. it's about the same size as the metolius fs that kevin said he's attached to his spinner (but, of course, not as strong), with the + or - (different strokes for different folks) of the locking aspect. |