New climbing rope tips

Hi, first I would like to say that I am not a complete noob, but I finally saved up enough to buy my first rope. It comes later today and I am wondering what I should first do with it. Should I flake it out? Coil it? Both? How should I store it? Coiled? In my rope bag? Flaked out on my bedroom floor?

Thank you

Flake it out a few times to get any major kinks out and you should be good to go! Any cool, dry place will work just fine for storing it. Shouldn't matter if it's coiled, flaked in a pile, etc... Enjoy!

Thanks Eric! You said to flake it out a few times? Why is that?

Only thing I've noticed on some new ropes? SLIPPERY for the first few times - really watch the belay the first few times. Slips through the device pretty quickly. After a few pitches the rope I had was a little easier to get friction on through the device. Was using an ATC...

Eric Klammer wrote:Flake it out a few times to get any major kinks out and you should be good to go!

Tyler Newcomb wrote:Thanks Eric! You said to flake it out a few times? Why is that?

Can you not read Tyler?

What I was asking was why it needs to be done more than once

The way that ropes are wound into coils in the factory twists the rope up a lot. It'll take more than a few flakes to get all the twists out, but flaking it a couple times when you first get it should prevent you from having to deal with a tangled nest of twists and knots and the crag.

Finn the Human wrote:The way that ropes are wound into coils in the factory twists the rope up a lot. It'll take more than a few flakes to get all the twists out, but flaking it a couple times when you first get it should prevent you from having to deal with a tangled nest of twists and knots and the crag.

This is what I was lookin for. Thank you!

If just flaking doesnt do the trick rapelling usually will.

Throw it in the dirt and step on it a few times and you'll be good to go.

Ed Wright wrote:Throw it in the dirt and step on it a few times and you'll be good to go.

+1 I am always suspect when I see people with shiny new gear

youtube.com/watch?v=do9bb-j…

make sure you uncoil it properly or it may well twist on ya

;)

You're going to want to keep it in your bedroom at night for the first week or so, until it gets used to its new home.

Read the instruction when you get your rope. It will say how to undo it.
Beware some manufactures coil in a circle and some lap coil side to side. Depending on which you get the unwrapping is different.

If you do f it up, just flake the rope from one pile to another until the kinks are gone or at least managable.

If - as is usually the case - the rope was wound on a spool at the factory, you'll definitely want to do as Bearbreeder says and UNCOIL (i.e. unroll) it. Simply flaking it onto the floor will put about 40 twists in the rope. Doesn't matter how many times you do it, they're there. But it takes a bit of care to unroll it off your forearms, and if it drops into a heap you've got a mess to straighten out.

Edit - That Edelweiss video shows a really neat, easy alternative to unrolling the coil that I hadn't seen before. Clever, those Germans. I'd say do it that way.

Mike Lane wrote:You're going to want to keep it in your bedroom at night for the first week or so, until it gets used to its new home.

Also, keep it in a rope bag when your not home or sleeping so it doesn't ruin anything in the house. I had a new rope that I left out and it chewed through my carbiners. If you catch it chewing on anything just use the spray bottle with some water. Ropes haaaaate water.

mtn proj is such a wealth of information!

let me add that if you decide to ignore all the advice and just climb on it dont take mushrooms that day, especially if its a 70m

HAHAHAHA AHHAHAHA some funny banter on this thread.

Bottom line to the dude/kid of the first post --- It's rope. It's a beautiful wonderful piece of equipment. Just use it. Enjoy it. Don't worry a damn thing about it, just freaking get out there and use it. Nothing matters about how you uncoil it, store it, etc etc -- Throw it on the floor, sleep next to it, coil it, don't coild it, it doesn'tmatter. Man, it's a rope and it's great, and you deserve not to over think this.

Russ Keane wrote:HAHAHAHA AHHAHAHA some funny banter on this thread. Bottom line to the dude/kid of the first post --- It's rope. It's a beautiful wonderful piece of equipment. Just use it. Enjoy it. Don't worry a damn thing about it, just freaking get out there and use it. Nothing matters about how you uncoil it, store it, etc etc -- Throw it on the floor, sleep next to it, coil it, don't coild it, it doesn'tmatter. Man, it's a rope and it's great, and you deserve not to over think this.

This isn't really very good advice. Sure, there's some truth to it--it's gear and it's made to be used and abused--but if you take the time to uncoil a new rope properly the first time, you'll encounter way less coiling and annoyance during the first few uses.

Yes, you can just unpack it, plop it down and start flaking it out but you'll quickly find that's really, really annoying and time consuming leading to unnecessary kinking/coiling. There's a reason Edelweiss has an instructional video on how to uncoil a new rope.
Some rope manufacturers, like Petzl and Mammut, pack the rope in a butterfly coil so you're really all set once you unpack it. But others, like Edelweiss, coil it in a roll and taking the extra time and care to unpack/uncoil it right the first time is worth the time investment.

Beyond that, I think most folks store their ropes flaked in a rope bag so it's ready to just open the bag and lead when you get to the crag. To expand on this further, many rope bags will have colored nylon tab/loops inside the rope bag. Most folks choose to tie the leading end of the flaked rope to the colored or green tab/loop inside the rope bag so it's obvious where the leading end of the rope is when you open the bag. I'm a big fan of the BD Superslacker rope bag.

I know, TL;DR.