Bent Gate with Aiders??

I'm currently in the process of trying out aid climbing. All my research so far has recommended the use of keynose biners with aiders. However the only such biners I have on my rack currently are a couple of wild country oxygen bent gates. Would it be alright for me to go ahead and use them with my aiders (Yates Speed Ladders) or would I be unduly risking my life and limb??

Thanks.

Short Answer: You're fine.

Longer Answer: Every type of biner with your aiders will be safe so you've no need to worry about life and limb. The only difference is going to be comfort and convenience. If the type of biner you use for your aiders is the only problem you're having with your setup, you're doing fine.

Thanks. That was indeed the first and only problem I had until now but something tells me there are plenty more on the way :-)

Your aiders are only going to take body weight. ANY biner is overkill really.

Bob Dobalina wrote:Your aiders are only going to take body weight.

Incorrect. Bounce testing.

I like to use petzl spirits! They work great, but like Kevin said, it really does not matter!

Kevin,
I dig your new picture :)

The best option for the aiders is a straight, solid gate oval with a notchless nose. This is something well worth investing in if you plan to get into aid as it will save tons of time cumulatively over the course of an entire route.

These are the biners I use on my aiders, and they work great:

madrockclimbing.com/product…

I also recommend spray painting the top half of the biner to aid in quick orientation identification. Every time you pull out your aider to clip to the next piece and your carabiner is upside down, you waste time flipping it right side up. Spray paint will make for quick identification.

Kevin - how...?

20kN - why a straight gate? I agree with the keylock, but I've been thinking that a bent gate would more likely stay closed when I'm climbing on knobby rock. I currently use a pair of Chouinard ovals, and I have two problems; the nose hook grabbing stray wires & webbing edges, and the gate getting pressed open by bumps in the rock. Oddly, I have zero problems with the carabiner changing orientation.

kevin deweese wrote: Incorrect. Bounce testing.

All biners are built to take whippers. Bounce testing doesn't even get close to the force of a lead fall. So yes, any biner is essentially overkill when used on your aiders. The strength of the aider's nylon loop is still the weakest link in the chain.
Also, try to find a keylock biner with the smallest nose profile (for your aiders) so you can clip them into tighter spaces like old school hangers, piton eyes, and choked fixed gear. Some biners have huge noses and won't fit into many small the clearance clips commonly found when aiding.

Bob Dobalina wrote: All biners are built to take whippers. Bounce testing doesn't even get close to the force of a lead fall. So yes, any biner is essentially overkill when used on your aiders.

I obviously quoted too much of your statement and made it unclear what I was getting at. I fixed it in my upthread post so it only quotes "your aiders are only going to take bodyweight"

Obviously any biner is going to be fine, no one's arguing that.

but your "aiders only taking body weight" is the incorrect statement, because, bounce testing.

Everyone who aids is going to know this but a new aider might not think about bounce testing when they decide what they're going to attach their aider to their system with. It's easy to imagine some earnest new aid climber finding that statement out of context on the big wide interwebs and running with it

Umm... bounce testing uses all static materials; a lead fall at least involves (I hope) a dynamic lead rope. What is the force generated by a 2' bounce of 200# of gear & climber onto a static system?

i don't know but i suspect that it is too much force for a bent-gate to hold

Max Supertramp wrote:i don't know but i suspect that it is too much force for a bent-gate to hold

lol, so much win

caribouman1052 wrote:Umm... bounce testing uses all static materials; a lead fall at least involves (I hope) a dynamic lead rope. What is the force generated by a 2' bounce of 200# of gear & climber onto a static system?

here's a response from a thread dealing with just that (thread found here: MP Bounce Testing Forces Thread )

rgold wrote:I don't think it is hard to approach 4 kN. Of course there are many variables. I assumed a 180 lb climber with a bounce that creates a 2 inch drop, using a four foot sling with a UIAA fall impact rating of 20 kN, a reasonable number in view of the fact that nylon slings have been tested and found to have a UIAA fall impact rating of 18 kN. With these assumptions, the standard fall force equation gives a maximum load of 3.8 kN. This equation tends to overestimate loads for the leader-rope-anchors-rope-belayer situation, because of friction and give in the system, but in this situation it is likely to be much more accurate. If you can double your bounce, i.e. drop 4 inches on a four-foot sling, you could hit 5 kN.

and here's another response from another thread dealing with just that (thread found here MP Thread on Load Testing a Bounce Test )

20 kN wrote:The absolute highest force incurred on the top piece occurred during the last test (the excessively aggressive test,) and racked in 681 lbf. or 3.03 kN. However, that test was synthetically extreme. The highest force incurred during a realistic aggressive bounce test was 643 lbf. or 2.86 kN. But again, I was hanging solely from the piece which is not realistic in a wall climbing scenario. So the highest force incurred using an aggressive daisy bounce test that is realistic to a wall climbing scenario is 618 lbf. or 2.75 kN. So my testing seems to imply that a hard bounce test in your aiders will produce 400-550 lbf and a hard bounce test directly on your daisy chains will produce 500-600 lbf. I find it unlikely that I would be able to produce a higher impact force using conventional nylon pocketed daisy chains simply because I was bouncing around hard enough that if I were fified into a pocketed daisy, the aggressive bouncing would likely result in the fifi coming out of the pocket. However, it is possible that using a Dyneema daisy chain would result in a higher impact force; maybe I can test that in the future.

Hope that was helpful

Ok, "you could hit 5kN", which is still less than either an open/ cross-loaded biner. (the lowest rated biner I could find on my rack was 7 & 7 & 25) My assumption based on those two pieces of info is that a bent gate biner should do just fine, at least in terms of raw strength.

I find this an odd statement: "But again, I was hanging solely from the piece which is not realistic in a wall climbing scenario.". Why is this not realistic? When I test a piece, I am hanging solely from that one piece...

caribouman1052, the following phrase is the only thing I was taking issue with. "Your aiders are only going to take body weight." Biner strength has nothing to do with what I was responding to, two separate issues as I said upthread

Hope that helps.

caribouman1052 wrote:"But again, I was hanging solely from the piece which is not realistic in a wall climbing scenario.". Why is this not realistic? When I test a piece, I am hanging solely from that one piece...

Ideally, you bounce test a piece with one leg while still standing on the previous piece with your other leg (or at least holding on to the previous piece with your hand). Everyone can bounce test their own way, but the "realistic" part of his statement probably refers to it making sense that a climber employs a process that doesn't cause an actual belayed fall each time a piece blows.

Probably not an issue on C1 or A1-2 because it's probably not going to blow anyway, but on C2/A3 and above, the piece you're bounce testing will blow out more often than most people expect if you're moving at a reasonable pace.

caribouman1052 wrote:Kevin - how...? 20kN - why a straight gate? I agree with the keylock, but I've been thinking that a bent gate would more likely stay closed when I'm climbing on knobby rock. I currently use a pair of Chouinard ovals, and I have two problems; the nose hook grabbing stray wires & webbing edges, and the gate getting pressed open by bumps in the rock. Oddly, I have zero problems with the carabiner changing orientation.

Eventually you are going to end up with your daisy chain accidentally on the gate-side of the biner instead of your aiders, then when you top step while leaning back on your fifi, the daisy is going to travel up the gate to the top of the biner, possibly coming unclipped. I have nearly had that happen before and it if were to happen I would be taking a really nasty part-way inverted fall. Really bad thing.

If you dont do some extreme top stepping, this is probably not as much of a concern, but I try to top step every placement (as one should) so it's a real concern for me.

Ideally, the correct solution is just to make sure the daisy chain is always along the spine of the biner so this issue doesent come up in the first place, but no ones perfect.

Ah 20kN, now I get it. You have a very good point about the upward sliding daisy. I don't actually use my daisies for anything more than keeping my aiders connected to me. My daisy is a 6mm cord/Kong adjustable fifi, which is to say it's never really hooked securely to anything unless it's weighted.

I very rarely top-step; it's too mind-bending, slow, and inefficient with the adjustable. To keep the daisy hooked, I have to unhook it from the bottom of the biner and re-hook it at the top in order to top step (that's the inefficiency). Given my reach, I'm getting pieces more than 5' apart with my knees at the piece I'm standing on, with my feet in the second step, and for now, I'm happy with that.

The potential for that weird semi inverted fall is part of the reason why I don't like top stepping. I've also found the SuperTopo method of both feet in the same etrier is extremely slow for me, and seems both riskier in & more likely to cause a fall, so I worked out a different system.

Quite a bit of thread drift... by the way, why do you prefer a straight gate?

caribouman1052 wrote:by the way, why do you prefer a straight gate?

To reduce the chance of the daisy coming unclipped if I end up with the daisy on the gate side. I dont really see any advantage to using a bent gate. The stuff I aid is really steep most of the time, so the biner doesent come into contact with the rock too much. Even if the rock completely opened the gate, I would really care as the aider is not going anywhere since it's weighted, and the daisy is on the spinde-side so there is no way for it to come unclipped.

I dont use the four aider method, and I dont really stand in my aiders with both feet. I stand in the aider with one foot most of the time, but I aid climb in approach shoes and not climbing shoes. I prefer lines that are either 100% free (with maybe some french free) or 100% aid, so I get to avoid having to use climbing shoes on most aid pitches.

I top step every placement as it's way faster than not doing it for me. I use the Yates adjustable daisies, and they are super easy to get into the top step with. It takes little extra time, and it removes maybe 10 or so extra placements along the length of a pitch. If I were using a different adjustable or a fifi, than top stepping would take more time and it might negate the advantages.

I try to avoid top stepping on overhanging stuff though (mild top step in rung #3 is okay, but not rung #2) as it is really easy to flip yourself upside down which, if the piece pulls, you can end up in a really shitty situation really fast.

...as a newbie with only 1 wall under my belt, I use the Petzl DJINN bent gate. They are key lock so they don't hang up easy, and seem to have a wider opening at the gate...and an extended back that is easier to fit your fingers into while wearing gloves.

Only problem I have is that I seem to go through them pretty fast. I have used these (pictured below) through the summer learning to aid and then on Moon Light Buttress...the gates seem to be slightly bent and tend to stick open and are pretty chewed up. Probably just the nature of Aiding...have retired them.

Only other comment is that beyond just bounce testing...you could end up taking a "daisy fall" at some point. I incorrectly hooked my fifi onto a yates ladder that had twisted...up several pitches...as I moved up to the second step and was placing a cam, while pulling against the fifi...it popped off the ladder...I went for a short ride but had the hardest fall ever climbing. The Yates adjustable caught me...but felt like a steed cable.

Petzl Djinn