ClimbX with an interesting new product...

Just got this via email from ClimbX this AM,, but can't find it anywhere listed online. Guess we need to email or call them for an order! Looks nice, price sure is great!

Yeah, but who the heck is rocking a beefy 9.8 these days anyway?

Me? I'm glad to still be hauling a 10.2 or 10.5 all the time. No 9'ers for me yet.

I'm on a 10.7 most of the time, due to a wicked online deal.

I'm interested in more specs for this thing.

I'm calling for one, as soon as they wake up in Vegas and get to work.

You should write a review once you've played around with it a little.

I'm fairly certain that any aluminum additions they've made won't make it any safer. The feeding and weight would be interesting to hear about.

I, for one, am very skeptical. The sentence "more Aircraft Grade Aluminum than plastic" means nothing to me - more than what? It's not like the Grigri is made of mostly plastic.

Exactly my point, Ming. The handle and the bottom of the GriGri are plastic. Neither of those things bear any weight in the event of a fall, and if either of them broke, the GriGri would still work.

The only "improvements" I can see from this ad are the "ergonomic handle" and some spiel about feeding better than smaller models (I assume that means the GriGri 2). I've heard of people having trouble feeding the 2 with thicker ropes, but I haven't experienced this myself.

3 reasons not to buy from ClimbX/Madrock:

1. They have no quality control and make crap products
2. Reward the innovator
3. They have no quality control and make crap products

Josh

Looks like Climb X has stepped up from ripping off the junkiest shit on the market to ripping off the best.

Josh'es 3 reasons... spot on... Ray is also right on..

"You will find that the X-dream jams less than comparable smaller models out there."

Isn't that what everyone with a grigri wished for - bigger and heavier?

Get a Mammut Smart - a bit awkward for lowering at first, handles well when used to it and provides that extra bit of safety.

Still no voice mail set up, or any response to calls yet at 9AM Vegas time. Guess they are not interested?

On their website they have a picture of a Edelrid Eddy belay device linking to the "Belays and Descenders" page. Oddly enough, you can't seem to buy the Eddy, and there's no sign of the GriGri knockoff anywhere, either.

So the worst sin here isn't that ClimbX has capitalized on an expired patent. That happens all the time and after the patent holder has had an exclusive right to the design for 20 years you would think that a new version would make significant improvements. Only time will tell if this is the case with the X-dream.

The sin here is that ClimbX has called this an auto-belay device. It's not. The climbing gear manufacturers, through the UIAA Safety Commission, all decided to eliminate the term auto in anything related to belaying. There's just too much baggage associated with that word and their have been way too many accidents due to disfunctional "auto" features on these devices.

The proper term is locking-assist (Trango Cinch) or assisted braking (Petzl Grigri 2).

Please delete the word "auto" from your climbing gear vocabulary.

Climb safe.
Malcolm

Malcolm Daly wrote:So the worst sin here isn't that ClimbX has capitalized on an expired patent. That happens all the time and after the patent holder has had an exclusive right to the design for 20 years you would think that a new version would make significant improvements. Only time will tell if this is the case with the X-dream. The sin here is that ClimbX has called this an auto-belay device. It's not. The climbing gear manufacturers, through the UIAA Safety Commission, all decided to eliminate the term auto in anything related to belaying. There's just too much baggage associated with that word and their have been way too many accidents due to disfunctional "auto" features on these devices. The proper term is locking-assist (Trango Cinch) or assisted braking (Petzl Grigri 2). Please delete the word "auto" from your climbing gear vocabulary. Climb safe. Malcolm

I was gonna post something about the history of ClimbX, but I just don't care enough. If you really want to find out why they are a sleazy company you can look it up yourself. Suffice it to say that they are guilty of more than simply manufacturing products based on recently expired patents.

Taylor Ogden wrote:I was gonna post something about the history of ClimbX, but I just don't care enough. If you really want to find out why they are a sleazy company you can look it up yourself. Suffice it to say that they are guilty of more than simply manufacturing products based on recently expired patents.

I find it very interesting that they explicitly say "the climbing community gets to benefit from a patent's expiration".

It's not even like $60 is cheap...I'm pretty sure that's what I paid for my Grigri when I bought it on sale somewhere...

Malcolm Daly wrote:The climbing gear manufacturers, through the UIAA Safety Commission, all decided to eliminate the term auto in anything related to belaying. ... Please delete the word "auto" from your climbing gear vocabulary. Climb safe. Malcolm