Twisted Rope

I have a new Petzl rope. I can't get the twists out of it. I have backstacked it, flaked it, lightly stretched it... and still when we get to about the middle of the rope it twists up and makes little curls that you have to untwist before it goes through a belay device.

Any ideas on how to straighten it out?

^^ +1 I always make sure I take a new rope out to a crag with a route that uses the entire length of the rope. Get it up there and pull it back and forth a few times. A free hanging rap will work great usually.

Just make sure the top anchors aren't just rap rings or single quick links in the hangers. Pulling your rope through these will just twist the shit out of it all over again.

John Wilder wrote:A 100' (or 115' if you have a 70m) free hanging rappel can help with this. You can do it in your house and pull it through the device as well, but it's not quite as effective as having weight on the rope, forcing the twists down to the ends and out of the rope.

Yup, a full-length or close-to-full-length rappel using a device that doesn't add twists to your rope (i.e. rap on an ATC, not a Munter hitch) will generally work most of the twists out. Make sure, of course, the ends are free to twist as you descend, so that the twists are forced out the end of the rope.

sometimes a twisted cord is a manufacturing defect.

everything all the other folks have said is spot on.

If it dosent go away, contact Petzl.

Just make sure it's not a sport route, otherwise you'll just look foolish.

did you uncoil it properly?

youtube.com/watch?v=58ViRJm…

;)

bearbreeder wrote:did you uncoil it properly?

There's no audio with that video.

A lot of people coil their ropes by going from both ends. This pushes 'coils' into the center of the rope. To prevent this coil from the halfway mark on your rope and push 'coils' out of the rope or simply go from one end.

Kind of miss the audio but I got the idea. No I didn't uncoil it that way with my new rope. Today I pulled it through a draw numerous times, appears to have helped a lot. And yes, the little curls in the video look almost exactly like the ones that I had except I had 5 times as many of them.

In fact I spent about 4 hours today running the rope through the quick draw while applying hand pressure on the other side. It only took me a few seconds of this to hunt up a pair of gloves. Then I tied the middle to an anchor and starting at the anchor with the gloves on "milked" the rope by applying hand pressure and pulling out to the ends. I also painstakingly examined the rope inch by inch to look for odd twists in the sheath. Only found a couple and counter twisted until it looked normal. It wasn't a lot of twist, it didn't appear that the rope was abnormal.

Next week we are taking the new rope and an old rope up to Smith Rock State Park and climb the Cave Route and do the double rope rappel. If this doesn't get it straightened out It will be warranty time.

Thanks for all the advice and the video. My next new rope I will certainly be more careful on how I unfold it for the first time.

Used this method plus the pulling through draw mentioned in the video above and it worked fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIYcka_wYYo

Just got a new pair of Mammut ropes. They were lap-coiled at the factory - no need to unroll them like other new ropes. Just tie in and start climbing. See mammut.ch/en/ropes_quality_…. Other manufacturers take note!

Martin le Roux wrote:Just got a new pair of Mammut ropes. They were lap-coiled at the factory - no need to unroll them like other new ropes. Just tie in and start climbing. See mammut.ch/en/ropes_quality_…. Other manufacturers take note!

All of the Petzl ropes that I've seen are also "lap-coiled". They call it ClimbReady coil - petzl.com/us/outdoor/vertic…

Are you properly butterfly coiling the rope when you pack up for the day? If you simply coil it in one direction (mountaineer's coil), you'll induce "twists". I know you probably know how and this isn't relevant, but just in case you didn't, here's an example: climbing.com/video/how-to-c…

Nice video, that was the way I first learned to haul a rope around, except I was taught to start at the midpoint bite. The trick being that when you went to unwind the rope you had to get both ends of the butterfly laid out flat or it would tangle.

Then I discovered rope bags. Tie one end of the rope into the bottom, flake/backstack into the bag, tie the other end to the flap. If even a little bit of care is taken during the flaking when you go to pull the rope out of the bag it pulls out free of tangles.

Toproping with a bag, pull/backstack the front half of the rope next to the bag until you see the mid-point mark (all of my new ropes have a mandatory mid-rope mark) set into the anchor toss the unpacked half then toss the other half.

On shorter routes I toss the second half still in the bag. The rope gives it enough weight to pull the bag down without kiting, and the rope uncoils smoothly from the bag, plus you have the bag at the bottom to belay off of so you don't get it dirty. This sometimes backfires on longer tosses, the bag and the rope get caught up in a crack or a ledge and then has to be "managed" during the rappel.

And of course the key part of this procedure is knowing for sure your rope is long enough to reach the bottom.

John Wilder wrote: Yeah, Petzl will not warranty your rope because it has twists in it. Totally not a warranty issue.

Ha, Petzl doesent seem to warranty ropes even when they are defective. Anyone remember the Zephyr? What a POS.

Martin le Roux wrote:Just got a new pair of Mammut ropes. They were lap-coiled at the factory - no need to unroll them like other new ropes. Just tie in and start climbing. See mammut.ch/en/ropes_quality_…. Other manufacturers take note!

As with all features it comes with an added cost at the point of purchase. My local specialist climbing shop now gets Mammut super-dry 9.8mm rope manufactured to order, however it isn't lap-coiled to keep the cost down - dicksclimbing.com/products/…

It took me a good while to uncoil my 60m rope (well over an hour?) but I not going to complain given the money I was saved.