Extremely unscientific rope sharp edge testing on extremely sharp quartzite: normal rope vs. Edelrid 8.9 protect pro vs. static rope

While putting up a new trad route with a buddy, my buddy's brand new Mammut Alpine Core Protect rope got its sheath cut while I was on follow.

There was some interest about doing testing of different ropes on this edge, so I went out and did some extremely unscientific (N=1) testing yesterday. This edge is SHARP, and although I didn't get as high as this edge when I climbed it that day, it was really easy to find as it still had lots of rope fuzz on it and all around it. My testing procedure was that I was on a fixed line, then I would have several feet of rope to test attached to a jumar on the fixed line. Another jumar with a foot loop on the bottom of the test rope allowed me to stand in it and load it over the edge. I slowly weighted it fully and used one of those ticker counter thingies to track how many times I loaded the rope. I am currently a chonky boi from not climbing or doing much last year and probably weigh in around 230 lbs. Here are the results for three different rope types:

First up is a typical dynamic rope, the IonR 9.4mm Xeros.

After five loads over the edge it had significant sheath damage:

After ten loads on the edge the core was showing: 

After 12 the sheath got cut: 

It took significantly more to get to core damage. After 25 loads we start seeing significant core fraying:

After 32 loads two of the core strands popped:

Let's compare the Edelrid 8.9 Swift Protect Pro. Sheath took way more of a beating, and is fucked up but no core exposed at 15 cycles:

At 25 cycles it's starting to peek some core out, but there's still a lot of sheath coverage:

Finally at 35 cycles the core is fully exposed:

I stopped testing here, as I figured once the core is exposed I reckon the core will pop similarly to the previous rope.

Lastly, for shits and giggles I tested a static rope. This is the Bluewater Haul Line 9.5mm rope. This is specifically designed to be a haul line and it has a 50% sheath percentage which is the highest of any rope I know of, so this test is not necessarily representative of all static ropes as this is not a typical static rope.

At 5 loads there was some fuzz on the rock, but the rope was looking astonishingly good:

At 15 it was clear this thing is a beast:

For the next ten loads for some reason it started spinning and so was spreading the wear out over multiple sides of the rope:

So I played with it a bunch over a few more cycles, trying to figure out how to get it to not rotate on me. I didn't get a picture of 35, but that's where I figured out how to get it to stop spinning on me. After then finding the way to load it so that it would stop spinning on me I then proceeded to load it FIFTY times.

At this point my foot was hurting and I was shredding my foot loop and I decided to go home.

Unfortunately my buddy sent that Mammut rope back to Mammut so I do not know how well it would have held up relative to the yellow dynamic rope or the Edelrid 8.9 Protect rope. I do have to say I am skeptical that the Edelrid rope would have completely desheathed the way the Mammut did, but if anyone has a bit of that Mammut rope and wants to send me a few meters of it I could verify whether or not the Edelrid is more durable.

The only thing I think I can say I really learned from this is that 1) core strands take longer to cut than I expected, and 2) the Edelrid Protect rope and the Bluewater Haul Line ropes are BAD. ASS.

Ricky doing the lord's work once again. Appreciate the report and the thoroughness dude

Sorry y'all, I'm not the brightest tool in the shed and should have put this in the climbing gear forum. I have moved the thread over there and locked this one.