New Gear - Travel Stick Clip

Hey everyone...hoping a quick self-promotion is OK here. I designed essentially a very small stick clip, optimized for travel. It's called the GripClip and it lets you use your Superclip or Squid with any old stick you find at the crag as the pole. If that peaks your curiosity, you can check it out here:

www.gripclipclimbing.com

If you're in Brooklyn, definitely hit me up if you'd like to pick one up or just play with one in person at the gym. Thanks for taking a look! Appreciate it :-)

P.s its now sold at RockandSnow at the Gunks if you want to play with one in person!

-Alan

Do people not know how to improvise with a stick/some tape anymore?

Alex Fischer wrote:

Do people not know how to improvise with a stick/some tape anymore?

Hey Alex! I hear you. Stick and tape is still totally valid. This is really just a more convenient take on that option.
-attaches in a second.
-super secure grip.
-no consumable tape to apply or pack out.

It's convenient enough to use that I've seen people leave their painters pole in the car and just grab a stick at each new wall.

Thanks! Have a good one!

Alex Fischer wrote:

Do people not know how to improvise with a stick/some tape anymore?

I would take this over a stick and tape any day.

A design suggestion. When clamping one often wants a knurled or similar surface that bites into the material. Sticks are typically tapered so unless one tightens the clamp a lot, it could slide off when pulling the carabiner on to the hanger. Having a series of teeth around the circumference of the clamp that bite into would create a more secure clamp. Something the following:

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Allen Sanderson wrote:

A design suggestion. When clamping one often wants a knurled or similar surface that bites into the material. Sticks are typically tapered so unless one tightens the clamp a lot, it could slide off when pulling the carabiner on to the hanger. Having a series of teeth around the circumference of the clamp that bite into would create a more secure clamp. Something the following:

Hey Allen (hey look at that, we're both Alan's), Initially I prototyped the clamp with teeth milled into the stick-clamp interface as you suggested. Turned out to functionally not make a difference in resistance to rotation, so the feature wasn't worth the additional cost to machine in the end. Tried it out on sticks, hiking poles, and actually painters poles too (picture a darth maul lightsaber setup) and it grips super secure sans teeth. Really appreciate the suggestion though. Good thinking!

P.S I'm a mechanical engineer in the consumer product design space.

I can't vouch for the execution, but this is a surprisingly good idea.  

Alan, super cool idea. A simple and elegant solution. What is the smallest diameter this can be secured to? Curious if it could be used in tandem with an avy prob, my packable stick clip of choice.

Shelton Hatfield wrote:

Alan, super cool idea. A simple and elegant solution. What is the smallest diameter this can be secured to? Curious if it could be used in tandem with an avy prob, my packable stick clip of choice.

Hey Shelton. Super cool use case. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

The smallest the jaws close to is 12mm on the dot. So you'd want the smallest diameter of your probe to be 13mm I'd say. 

If that doesn't work for you It'd be an easy modification for me to slightly file the jaw ends, bringing the smallest diameter down to 9mm (green lines in diagram). Happy to do that for you if you're interested. Just shoot me a DM :)

Have a good one!

Alan Weiner wrote:

Hey Shelton. Super cool use case. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

The smallest the jaws close to is 12mm on the dot. So you'd want the smallest diameter of your probe to be 13mm I'd say. 

If that doesn't work for you It'd be an easy modification for me to slightly file the jaw ends, bringing the smallest diameter down to 9mm (green lines in diagram). Happy to do that for you if you're interested. Just shoot me a DM :)

Have a good one!

You could use found gaskets, such as twigs or other debris, to narrow the gap. Or wrap tape around the avy probe. 

Hey Alan, just wanted to update you (and everyone else I guess) on how much I'm liking this thing. I've had it for 6 months now and It's great! Definitely on the "essential gear list" now. I'm heading to EPC next week and I'm glad I have a small stickclip solution to bring along. Thanks dude good job.

Nice Idea, I'll order one.  

Dylan Keen wrote:

Hey Alan, just wanted to update you (and everyone else I guess) on how much I'm liking this thing. I've had it for 6 months now and It's great! Definitely on the "essential gear list" now. I'm heading to EPC next week and I'm glad I have a small stickclip solution to bring along. Thanks dude good job.

Awesome. Great to hear! Thanks for the follow up!

This is a great idea, I just placed an order!

Terry W wrote:

This is a great idea, I just placed an order!

Hey Terry, thanks for the order! It went out this morning. Have fun out there!

Order placed. 

I consider myself a very good improvised stick clipper. I can figure something out most times without even using tape, but this device makes the stick selection much faster.

I think that this device would be better as an all in one unit. It costs $25 plus another $25 for a superclip. The value would be great if for $25 it was a standalone product that can hold a quickdraw. It would be a pretty hard sell to someone that already owns a painters pole and superclip.

Max Hernandez wrote:

I consider myself a very good improvised stick clipper. I can figure something out most times without even using tape, but this device makes the stick selection much faster.

I think that this device would be better as an all in one unit. It costs $25 plus another $25 for a superclip. The value would be great if for $25 it was a standalone product that can hold a quickdraw. It would be a pretty hard sell to someone that already owns a painters pole and superclip.

For me it was about travel.  I have the skyhook, but if I"m on a plane I don't want to pack it.  With this I can just remove the superclip and use this device. 

Brad Johnson wrote:

For me it was about travel.  I have the skyhook, but if I"m on a plane I don't want to pack it.  With this I can just remove the superclip and use this device. 

I have found that alot of the sport climbing destinations in the U.S. don't actually have sticks around. I think this device would be a pretty good device for a new east coast climber that doesnt already have something.

Max Hernandez wrote:

 It would be a pretty hard sell to someone that already owns a painters pole and superclip.

I have both of these and bought one because my painters pole is annoying to carry around. I'm currently using sticks that I find at the crag and am on the lookout for a lightweight collapsible pole to replace the painters pole.

Max Hernandez wrote:

I consider myself a very good improvised stick clipper. I can figure something out most times without even using tape, but this device makes the stick selection much faster.

I think that this device would be better as an all in one unit. It costs $25 plus another $25 for a superclip. The value would be great if for $25 it was a standalone product that can hold a quickdraw. It would be a pretty hard sell to someone that already owns a painters pole and superclip.

Hey Max. I hear you, for sure it'd be a nice package set to include the Superclip with the GripClip and that is something I may actually do in the future. What I found is that most climbers I've met already own a Superclip outright and were basically interested in cutting out the price of the Superclip from the product cost. So, to kick this project off and see if there was actual interest out there I felt it was best to start out this way. So far I've sold about 40 in the last few months so that's pretty encouraging. I've done a good amount of flying to crags and the painters pole or even those collapsible ones never really pack that well so the big selling point, I think, is more convenient travel. That being said, with the people I've sold these to who climb at Rumney, I've been pleasantly surprised to see that often they elect to leave their painters pole in the car shearly because this thing is just that convenient to carry that it offsets the second it takes to find a stick. Also, funny enough it actually becomes fun to hunt for a stick on the walk, as ridiculous as that sounds. Thanks for the feedback Max, I genuinely appreciate it!