Broken Cam thread

Locker wrote:Dude, like you KNOW so much more than others. How long does one need to use gear before they understand? Longer than 36yrs do? How old are you again? Oh yeah! You climb 5.12 and I don't, never have, never will. That in and of itself is THE difference. I now realize all of my gear knowledge has been negated by your super rad coolness.

I didn't read nicelegs mention number of years you've climbed or how hard you can pull, merely the amount of falls you've taken on gear. So...what is it?

Based on my experience, I wouldn't pay for any metolius cams either. Of course, I've climbed 1 year longer than last April and have in this 12 months not whipped on gear once (since I've done maybe 2 pitches on gear). I guess I should have more to say on the subject than last year?

Locker, I didn't mean to hurt your butt.

Tell me though, unemotionally, what you going up routes and not falling on them has to do with the type of damage this topic is about?

You've been climbing 36 years. In those 36 years, you've taken what? 100 good long solid whips?

I've been climbing 20 years, from year 3 to 3 years (I've gotten rather bolted lately) ago, I was taking good solid long falls on every outing. We might be talking 100 decent whips plus all the dogging every year.

Years does not equal experience. It's what is done in those years. I think just maybe in this case I might have something worth saying on the durability of gear.

I've resoled 7 pairs of shoes in my life. The first was in 1997. If I ever say I've been resoling shoes for 19 years and I know what I'm talking about, feel free to tell me where to stick it.

FWIW, I have a single gray hair on my balls now. Am I cool enough for you?

Oh snap!

When did this become a penis-measuring contest?

Mine's 3!

Locker wrote:What's the matter nicelegs? You don't dig being disagreed with so you instantly go all Baby Huey and shit?

Were you going for delicious irony with the histrionically defensive rebuttal following this part? If so... HILARIOUS!

Adam Burch wrote:Oh snap! When did this become a penis-measuring contest? Mine's 3!

Braggart!

It's good we weren't discussing rigid stems.

Adam Burch wrote:Oh snap! When did this become a penis-measuring contest? Mine's 3!

Some girls like them that wide.

#tunacan4lyfe

#00metoliusNmyurethra

Adam Burch wrote:#00metoliusNmyurethra

Our resident nurse Elena could put a nice wide catheter in that for you. Just think, no more pee bottles on cold nights.

Locker wrote:Too funny dude! You're the best of the best no doubt about that. Can't handle the heat at all. I simply agreed with Tim and Tim was correct. Now continue crying like only you can.

Oh the ironing.

Locker wrote:Unless one falls on their gear, they can't possibly know if it will break or not (Each and every piece, each and every climb). Yep! No argument from me on that one. Fall away! Thanks for explaining this to me.

You're making logical jumps that end up being illogical. You're arguing a position nobody is taking. That's called a straw man.

Anyway, lets talk about Honda Civics and the inexplicable "Furious" franchise.

Person A, lets call him Calvin Lockeus, has a 1992 Honda Civic that is still running with 320K miles on it and he's only ever had to change the oil and buy new tires. He's never seen the Furious series and wears his ballcap straight.

Person B, lets call his Douchey McVinDouche, has 12 Honda Civics from 1997-2009, all with blown engines, slipping transmissions, and wrecked suspensions. Douchey spends every moment he isn't getting tattoo's racing his Civics and has since the first Furious movie came out.

Douchey and Calvin run into each other in line to buy wallet chains at Hot Topic. They start talking about cars. Douchey mentions that he doesn't think Honda Civics are reliable at all. Calvin says he thinks they are.

Who is right? (Hint, they both are in the proper context).

Rob T wrote: maybe you just suck at cleaning?

Maybe. Word on the street is I'm not the only one finding this, however. And it's strange that I clean my aliens, zeroes, mastercams, DMMs, C3s (I have a veritable frankenrack of small gear) in identical-looking placements without incident. But, yeah, it's pretty easy to dismiss me and hard to prove I'm an expert cleaner. If I had a rack of these expensive pieces, I might find myself invested enough to argue user error too.

Between these units breaking in situ and getting fixed, maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. Soon all our favorite crack climbs will only require a rack of draws and a willingness to whip on fixed pieces. Sorry, Locker, you can't play.

Colonel Mustard wrote: Maybe. Word on the street is I'm not the only one finding this, however. And it's strange that I clean my aliens, zeroes, mastercams, DMMs, C3s (I have a veritable frankenrack of small gear) in identical-looking placements without incident. But, yeah, it's pretty easy to dismiss me and hard to prove I'm an expert cleaner. If I had a rack of these expensive pieces, I might find myself invested enough to argue user error too.

Probably worthy of a new thread here but for name brand stuck cams I see Metolius the most followed by Wild Country (rigid). I do see stuck camalots and aliens, but not nearly as often.

I see a lot of that off brand stuff that used to be really available stuck too.

nicelegs wrote:I see a lot of that off brand stuff that used to be really available stuck too.

Are we talking link cams? True that.

BD and Metolius head up my stuck cam survey. But, then again, they're pretty much Brand A and Brand B.

Locker wrote:"Douchey and Calvin run into each other" Can I be Douchey?

How dark is the tint on your lowered Mitsubishi Eclipse?

Colonel Mustard wrote: Are we talking link cams? True that. BD and Metolius head up my stuck cam survey. But, then again, they're pretty much Brand A and Brand B.

You used to be able to get these cams, sometimes trango, or salewa, or rock empire, they were all kind of the same. The two inner lobes were super close to each other and when fully compressed the cam lobe was almost square.

They got stuck all the time. I haven't seen anything that bad on the market for over 10 years. That's a good thing.

Wow. I started a MP thread that started off with facts, slipped into stat spewing, became argumentative, morphed into berating my intelligence, and ultimately dwindled into complete nonsense.

*Sheds tear*

I'm so proud.

Love,
OP

KrisFiore wrote:Wow. I started a MP thread that started off with facts, slipped into stat spewing, became argumentative, morphed into berating my intelligence, and ultimately dwindled into complete nonsense. *Sheds tear* I'm so proud. Love, OP

its MP .... u cant expect anything less

at least you werent the person who "broke" 3 X4s and ended up in the hospital ... he got the the "special" MP treatment !!!

as to the X4s being "hard to clean" ... the grey and up may be in some cases as some of the cams had a shietty glue job on the kevlar wires ... basically the cam wouldnt retract fully even when the trigger was pulled all the way ...

lately they dont seem to have that issue, so they may have fixed their QC process on it ...

;)

Rob T wrote: Funny to have a gear whore suggesting I'm overly invested in my rack.

A piece-mealed fingers selection makes me a gear whore? What? I don't own a full rack of each cam brand, if that's your interpretation. You're overly invested in something alright, hurr hurr.

Myself, I won't be recommending these cams to anybody. That's all.

I'd love to know BD's sales numbers for the X4. I bet BD makes more X4's in one year than CCH made in 10. Statistically and demographically you're more likely to hear about X4 failures than other units. Personally, I'd be more concerned about the failure rate of cams from smaller companies like Fixe.

Every photo of a so called cam failure has been a placement failure. I can't remember the last real cam failure I've seen. CCH?

nicelegs wrote: You used to be able to get these cams, sometimes trango, or salewa, or rock empire, they were all kind of the same. The two inner lobes were super close to each other and when fully compressed the cam lobe was almost square. They got stuck all the time. I haven't seen anything that bad on the market for over 10 years. That's a good thing.

Well, I can't do any more damage to this thread than has already been done, so let me drift and ask--

What's the issue with narrow inner lobe gap? More walky?

What do you mean by almost square? (Can't picture it.) Is the camming angle different (from 13.5 degrees or whatever that conventional angle is)?

My first-string rack is BDs and Mastercams, but I have a pile of some of those cheap ones that I drag out for the occasional Indian Creek trip.

It's nice to know that by the time I need to replace the Mastercams, this x4 maybe-issue will have sorted itself out one way or another. Interesting stuff--thanks OP.