Gear you wish you never bought

What are your biggest gear regrets? Was the product objectively bad or just a bad fit for you?

I'll go first:

• A non guide ATC.
• A Mad Rock Aviator ATC. It's at least twice as hard to take in slack when it's guide mode compared to a DMM Pivot.
• DMM Demon single axle cam. The double axle (Dragon) ditto is much more stable.
• La Sportiva TC Pro shoes. I thought that flat shoes were the way to go for long climbs, but my feet have high arches and mid sole support is more important to me for comfort.
• Powdery chalk. Does anyone like this stuff?
• Non-keylock carabiners. When in a quickdraw they're much harder to clean when on steep terrain. When in a slingdraw the sling tends to get stuck when extending.
• An old Wild Country harness. It had several aspects that might have suited other people but made it an ill fit for me
  • Floppy gear loops. Sure it packs down small but molded loops that curve out hold gear so much better.
  • It's too small. While it fits me well, the small size places the rear gear loops on my back, making them hard to see and grab gear from.
  • It's padded. It's comfy to hang in but when climbing it's just too sweaty!

So far I only have a few regrets in my gear purchases. 

• Mammut Crag Duodess 70m dry rope: I bought this to replace my old Mammut eternity classic 60m non dry rope and decided on it almost entirely by how much I loved my old rope. I've only used it once so far, but it has this weird sticky feeling to it that makes it feed like crap, and even as a brand new rope, without even taking any falls, it nearly turned into a twisted mess after climbing about 4 single pitch routes with it.
• Grivel Asxender Descender: this was the first ascender I bought and I got it becausd it was cheep. Turns out, it was cheep because its heavy and clunky. I really should've just spent the extra 20 or 30$ to get a petzl ascender instead. 
• BD alpine draws: I bought these because in a pinch I needed another 6 draws, but they suck. Not having color coded biners is a pretty big draw back and the biners on them are really small and a bit hard to operate.
• This one is more of a quantity thing, but I wish I only bought a single rack of C4s. I currently have doubles of c4s from 0.5-4, but I should've waited on the doubles and just gotten doubles of totems (in the sizes they come) instead. Still went for the double rack of totems, so now I have a quad rack and I'm almost never going to use 1/4 of it and will probably end up selling some of my C4s eventually. 

• Trying to save money was my main mistake it forced me to only consider purchasing stuff in sale and ignoring the full possibility. I bought many cheap biners, cams and nuts on sale, thinking I made the right decision. Then I get rid of the gear quickly and had to spend one more time for the right stuff. 
• Not grabbing a full set of Totem is I think the typical mistake most climbers did. I did it. Then waiting to buy a second set, saying (try to convinced myself) diversity is good, was my another mistake. 
• For winter gear, buying original BD or Cassin pick instead of Krukonogi. 

Elaine Gilstrom wrote:

So far I only have a few regrets in my gear purchases. 

• Mammut Crag Duodess 70m dry rope: I bought this to replace my old Mammut eternity classic 60m non dry rope and decided on it almost entirely by how much I loved my old rope. I've only used it once so far, but it has this weird sticky feeling to it that makes it feed like crap, and even as a brand new rope, without even taking any falls, it nearly turned into a twisted mess after climbing about 4 single pitch routes with it.

I find this surprising. I’ve lost count of how many Mammut dry ropes I’ve owned. I’ve never noticed a weird sticky feeling. Can you take it back to where you bought it and have someone assess it?

And kinking is pretty much always because of the way the rope has been coiled/uncoiled out of the factory coil, and, if you are being lowered from an anchor on single pitch, what kind of anchor you are lowering from. 

Marc-Olivier Chabot wrote:

• Trying to save money was my main mistake it forced me to only consider purchasing stuff in sale and ignoring the full possibility. I bought many cheap biners, cams and nuts on sale, thinking I made the right decision. Then I get rid of the gear quickly and had to spend one more time for the right stuff. 
• Not grabbing a full set of Totem is I think the typical mistake most climbers did. I did it. Then waiting to buy a second set, saying (try to convinced myself) diversity is good, was my another mistake. 
• For winter gear, buying original BD or Cassin pick instead of Krukonogi. 

LOL

No much, I really think it through before I buy gear.
I did bought a Petzl icetool clipper Evo to have a third one on my harness, this thing wiggle so much that it is more annoying than anything else.
Also my first pair of approach shoes was Scarpa Zen, unconfortable AF, put it away after 3 painful scrambles.

Marc-Olivier Chabot wrote:

Not grabbing a full set of Totem is I think the typical mistake most climbers did. I did it. Then waiting to buy a second set, saying (try to convinced myself) diversity is good, was my another mistake. 

Do you know if there’s anyone around here that sells these?

• cheap quickdraws-- noobs, buy Petzl or DMM from the beginning!
• Petzl picks-- Kuznia all the way, better quality, more choices, half price
• Patagonia Ascensionist original version-- no good way to carry a rope on top
• Petzl helmets-- size large is not large enough, leading to not wearing helmet as much 
• Patagonia everyday capilene sun hoody-- doesn't fit well, hood doesn't provide good coverage, weird material
• mountaineering style ice axe-- just buy a pair of Gullys
• G12 crampons-- turns out you can climb steep snow in technical pons, but steep ice/mixed is pretty hard in crampons only designed for snow hiking

Marc H wrote:

Do you know if you there’s anyone around here that sells these?

So you think it's an ads. You think I lie and I had never bought BD, DMM and Metolius cam spending thousand of dollars and regrets it. You think, like Elaine above, who don't buy Totem first, it can't happened to me. Because I sell gear and I have a climbing store that sell also the Totem competitors, I have to censure myself and I can't participate to the forum. 

-Ropeman for top rope solo. Feeds like crap.
-A bunch of Spirit carabiners for racking cams. They’re great biners but I’ve switched to the color matched lite wires and I just don’t need a bunch of extras.
- Half dome helmet. Just doesn’t fit my head well

Marc-Olivier Chabot wrote:

So you think it's an ads. You think I lie and I had never bought BD, DMM and Metolius cam spending thousand of dollars and regrets it. You think, like Elaine above, who don't buy Totem first, it can't happened to me. Because I sell gear and I have a climbing store that sell also the Totem competitors, I have to censure myself and I can't participate to the forum. 

Woah buddy. Didn’t mean to trigger you.

Metolius Anchor Equalette: sounded like such a good idea at the time, but better off using slings.

Metolius Super Cams and Trango Max Cams. I was trying to avoid BD C4’s for some reason and try some new ideas, ended up replacing with Dragons. I do think that   a Metolius UL Master cam with the asymmetric lobes of the Super Cams would be a great idea.

Overall though I appreciate that Trango and Metolius are always releasing new items. I have far more items I regret losing and selling than regrets buying in the first place. 

Marc H wrote:

Woah buddy. Didn’t mean to trigger you.

Sorry. There are some that thinks I should not talk about Totem because I am selling Totem Cam.  At the end, I am not trying to turn that into some sort of advertising, I am just giving my honest opinion about mistake I have done. 

phylp phylp wrote:

I find this surprising. I’ve lost count of how many Mammut dry ropes I’ve owned. I’ve never noticed a weird sticky feeling. Can you take it back to where you bought it and have someone assess it?

And kinking is pretty much always because of the way the rope has been coiled/uncoiled out of the factory coil, and, if you are being lowered from an anchor on single pitch, what kind of anchor you are lowering from. 

Unfortunately I bought it online, so I am effectively stuck with it. I looked up reviews after the fact and found out that many other people had noticed the same or similar dips in quality, so I am unfortunately not alone. I was just too hastey in my decision.

The twists definitely weren't from how I uncoiled it. I was pretty careful when I uncoiled it because of the mess I created with my first rope. I also flaked it out several times before the first use just to make sure it was tangle free.

I could maybe see the twistiness coming from the lowering system as I was using 2 sport draws to lower and my partner was threading the rap rings to clean, but I've been using this system for a while with my old rope and never had the same issues.

J C wrote: Patagonia everyday capilene sun hoody-- doesn't fit well, hood doesn't provide good coverage, weird material 

Damn.. I LOVE mine. The material is thin and soft that I’m not sweating to death when I climb or hike in it.

A stick clip.

All my ice climbing gear was stupid.  Almost rendered my rock gear obsolete. Now I just sit around all summer waiting for it to freeze up again.

Crash pad. Became obsolete as soon as I got a rope. 
  

Cordalette

Crash Pad,   never gets used.  My dog likes it.

Trango Flex cams, got a really good deal on the but just never use them.

Daisy chains for walls, never use them.  If I am going to use a daisy I use an adjustable but 99% of the time I go daisy less 

True off set cams, I don't really regret them but once Totems came out it kinda made them my secondary piece for flared placements, hardly ever get used now.

Single Portaledge, even if soloing a double is so much more comfy.  Anyone want to buy an old Gramicic single ledge??

Off set aiders, ladder aiders are the only way to go

Marc, be nice to Marc.

Not adjustable daisies

Those smaller fat metolious lockers

My first rack…cause it got stolen

Marc-Olivier Chabot wrote:

So you think it's an ads. You think I lie and I had never bought BD, DMM and Metolius cam spending thousand of dollars and regrets it. You think, like Elaine above, who don't buy Totem first, it can't happened to me. Because I sell gear and I have a climbing store that sell also the Totem competitors, I have to censure myself and I can't participate to the forum. 

Forget the haters in this victim mentality society we live in.