Kinky rope

I've had this rope for two seasons now. It has seen fairly heavy use, more tr than lead. It's a 10.1 sterling marathon pro. Do many of you guys expierence waviness in ropes after a while? I tried searching the web for info but didn't come across much of anything. I'm sure it's still fine, I just find it odd. I'm curious to hear other peoples thoughts and opinions.

Kinky rope

often caused by the rope traveling horizontally under weight, like when lowering off of a two point anchor that are placed side by side. The farther apart, the worse.

I have had the same thing happen with my Sterling 10.1 a few weeks ago. I attributed mine to getting caught in a crack at Vedauwoo when I was pulling it. It jammed up tight, and I tried many things trying to getting it out, ended up climbing the route again on the other end of the rope and getting it out. We went home after that, never noticing anything with it until climbing in the Uintas a couple of weeks later. I ended up pulling the entire rope through the anchors of a climb, with my wife putting a little tension on the far end, and that got rid of it.

asdrubal wrote:often caused by the rope traveling horizontally under weight, like when lowering off of a two point anchor that are placed side by side. The farther apart, the worse.

This. Make sure you're NOT TRing off anchors with just rap rings or un-even anchors. Just rappel down your rope and it should fix it

Hmmmmm, I think lowering off mussys could be the issue. A few I've come across have left a span between the two hooks. Lowering off cold shuts as well

All I can say/contribute is that I have the exact same rope and it's been a real "work horse" for me. I think your assumption is correct.

The most likely suspect is the rope being weighted while running over a biner(s) that is (are) otherwise not allowed to hang freely.

Worst case I have seen to date was a rope running through lockers which were oddly hanging from anchor chains (no slings involved).

Another case was a redirect for a belay from above where the biner of the redirect was kept from orienting naturally with respect to the rope and the follower wanted to be kept tight.

A loaded rope through a munter will also do it (e.g., rappelling).

In a little more detail, it happens when the rope is forced to run in a spiral around something - even just a short spiral.

A friend recently had a similar experience. The rope was pulled through small quick links at an odd angle after rapping - so unweighted. We got a lot of the pig tail coiling out by pulling the whole rope though a Munter hitch several times, in the same direction each time. The rope is still a bit kinky but much better.

JoeLars experience is consistent with the spiral issue.

If pig tails have already been introduced, reversing the spiral will remove them up until they are gone. Continuing will then add them in the opposite direction.

Even the weight of the rope can be enough although not as aggressive as, say, body weight.

Edit to add: In my view, the munter, while relatively complex, still has a net spiral effect.

Bill Lawry wrote:JoeLars experience is consistent with the spiral issue. If pig tails have already been introduced, reversing the spiral will remove them up until they are gone. Continuing will then add them in the opposite direction. Even the weight of the rope can be enough although not as aggressive as, say, body weight. Edit to add: In my view, the munter, while relatively complex, still has a net spiral effect.

There is a net coil effect with a Munter, which is why we started at the same end of the rope each time. We hoped to use the Munter effect to push the offending kinks/coils off one end. It worked pretty well.

JoeLars41 wrote: There is a net coil effect with a Munter, which is why we started at the same end of the rope each time. We hoped to use the Munter effect to push the offending kinks/coils off one end. It worked pretty well.

I can imagine that it worked well.

I've seen coils spilling off the rope ends while rapping on a munter. This was with a rope that did not originally have coils.

In my example, for every coil that spilt off an end, a counter-twist was added above the munter ... albeit stretched fairly straight by body weight.

In your example, for every coil that spilt off the end, the counter-twist negated a pre-existing twist leaving the rope a little less twisted.

The trick for your removal method is two-fold:
1) Tying the munter so it will reverse the pre-existing coils rather than adding to them (50-50 chance of blindly getting it right);
2) Stopping when the pre-existing coils are removed.

Bill Lawry wrote: I can imagine that it worked well. I've seen coils spilling off the rope ends while rapping on a munter. This was with a rope that did not originally have coils. In my example, for every coil that spilt off an end, a counter-twist was added above the munter ... albeit stretched fairly straight by body weight. In your example, for every coil that spilt off the end, the counter-twist negated a pre-existing twist leaving the rope a little less twisted. The trick for your removal method is two-fold: 1) Tying the munter so it will reverse the pre-existing coils rather than adding to them (50-50 chance of blindly getting it right); 2) Stopping when the pre-existing coils are removed.

Spot on. We knew we had the right direction when after the first pass through the Munter we had fewer coils, not more.

We also considered using a double Munter to avoid adding coils altogether, but there was so much friction we went with the single.

Two munter's in series? Can imagine lots of friction. Maybe feasible with higher loads like assisted raps?

Bill Lawry wrote:Two munter's in series? Can imagine lots of friction. Maybe feasible with higher loads like assisted raps?

It isn't two Munters in series, it's a Munter with an extra loop. Some call it monster Munter.

This guide describes it as two Munters over top of each other.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=6ulTT…

Monster munter - yes, thank you. Good for an assisted / tandem rap.

Edit to add: Nice video. I didn't know about the double flip when reversing the direction of the monster munter ... or the tendency to be twist neutral - cool.

The twists are often caused by improper anchor installation whereby the last link is parallel with the rock. For example, one quicklink on a standard bolt hanger. The last link in an anchor must be perpendicular with the rock or it will twist the shit out of the rope. That is why you always have to place an even number of quicklinks on standard bolt hangers if you intend to leave only quicklinks on the anchor without using chain. I have also seen this happen where the last link might be perpendicular, but there is no flexibility in the anchor. For example, if the anchor was only two Fixe rap ring hangers and nothing else, and the bolts were spaced far apart.

Seems like punishment for lowering on fixed gear. Just rap out of the anchors and you don't have an issue. Even worse are those who run TR laps on the fixed gear....

Kevin Pula wrote:Seems like punishment for lowering on fixed gear. Just rap out of the anchors and you don't have an issue. Even worse are those who run TR laps on the fixed gear....

Also happens when pulling the rope after rapping. See above.

eli poss wrote:I saw this title and thought of something totally different. What a disappointment

I've been waiting for this

Perhaps the kinking happens when the core is stretched to a longer length than the sheath. When the rope rests, the sheath gets bunched up as the core returns to the original length (close to the original length, mind you).

My sterling is getting pretty dated and kinks quite a bit too. I've had good results by hanging a QuickDraw and running the rope all the way through ten times or so. It probably won't take out the waves, but it will aid in keeping those annoying loops out of the rope.