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quick draws or extenders is it an age thing

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ashaw 30 Oct 2013
Quick draws or extenders. Being old and having climbed for what seems like forever I have always and probably always will call them extenders. I always thought of quick draws as either being on an internal wall or bieng worn by someone whos services you were paying for or very drunk
allan
 GridNorth 30 Oct 2013
In reply to ashaw: I think it seems more appropriate for sport than trad and to the best of my knowledge they were extenders until the advent of sport.
ashaw 30 Oct 2013
In reply to GridNorth: yer thats what I thought too
 Michael Gordon 30 Oct 2013
In reply to ashaw:

I guess all quickdraws are extenders but I tend to mainly refer to the extendable 60cm slings as such.
andyathome 30 Oct 2013
In reply to ashaw:
Its a WORD thing: not an age thing.
 Fraser 30 Oct 2013
In reply to ashaw:

I'm older than you and never use the term extenders. So it's not "an age thing" I'm afraid.
 johncook 30 Oct 2013
In reply to ashaw: As a (very) oldie I was under the impression that extenders were normal slings, of different length equipped with two carabiners and a quickdraw was a sewn flat dogbone (sling) with two carabiners, one of which, the rope end, is usually captive via some form of rubber attachment. (See thread on Traversi accident and BMC article re problems with rubber bands on slings)
If I am wrong in my assumption I am sure that someone on here will put me right.
 Jonny2vests 30 Oct 2013
In reply to johncook:

Yes. A quickdraw is an extender that is manufactured as such.
 Ciderslider 31 Oct 2013
In reply to ashaw: Slingamejigs surely ?
 cbonner 31 Oct 2013
In reply to ashaw:

I've always called them runners. Each to their own I guess.
 GridNorth 31 Oct 2013
In reply to cbonner: I've always thought of the runner as being the whole thing, nut and all. We used to say "get a runner in" which would have been difficult with just a quickdraw.
 Ramblin dave 31 Oct 2013
In reply to Jonny2vests:
> (In reply to johncook)
>
> Yes. A quickdraw is an extender that is manufactured as such.

That's how I'd use it, too. Something becomes an extender when you clip one end of it to a piece of gear and one end to the rope.

And to me a sling-draw (or sometimes a trad-draw, although that makes no sense so I'm trying to say it less) is a 60cm sling tripled-over through a couple of crabs.

As an aside, I've never understood people who carry loads of slings around their neck with screwgates on rather than slingdraws...
 Andy Hemsted 31 Oct 2013
In reply to ashaw:

Sorry folks, but 'quickdraw' is going the same way as perambulator and omnibus .... on Kalymnos they seem to use draws.
 Ramblin dave 31 Oct 2013
In reply to Andy Hemsted:
> (In reply to ashaw)
>
> Sorry folks, but 'quickdraw' is going the same way as perambulator and omnibus .... on Kalymnos they seem to use draws.

I thought those were elasticated?
 Ciderslider 31 Oct 2013
In reply to Andy Hemsted: Draws, yep that seems like the cool way of referring to quickdraws. I've noticed as well (on a few hardcore trad and bouldering vids) that they say "effort" rather than "good effort" - so my mate and I do it all the time now - oh how we laugh
 JLS 31 Oct 2013
In reply to Andy Hemsted:

Surely we are still at the apostrophe 'draw stage and haven't moved on to full blown draw just yet.
 Jonny2vests 31 Oct 2013
In reply to Andy Hemsted:

If you're super cool, they're just 'aaws'. Which is confusing for climbers that like rowing too.
 Robert Durran 31 Oct 2013
In reply to Fraser:
> (In reply to ashaw)
>
> I'm older than you and never use the term extenders. So it's not "an age thing" I'm afraid.

Maybe not exactly an age thing; more to do with whether you were climbing trad before sport began to take off (perhaps around late eighties), so you do probably need to be mid forties or so to potentially call them extenders.

 Michael Gordon 31 Oct 2013
In reply to Ramblin dave:
> (In reply to Jonny2vests)
> [...]
>
> As an aside, I've never understood people who carry loads of slings around their neck with screwgates on rather than slingdraws...

Probably 120cm slings for belays. 60cm slings I find tend to be a bit short for that (but make good extenders).
In reply to ashaw:

When I started climbing they were known as tie-offs or extenders, in the group I climbed with, and quick draw was never heard. Anybody else ever used tie-off to describe extenders?
 Rob Naylor 01 Nov 2013
In reply to ashaw:

For me, a quickdraw can be an extender, but an extender wouldn't be a quickdraw...ie I'd use sport QDs as extenders for trad runners on some placements but if sport climbing (very rarely!) I'd only use QDs.

I do see a lot of people (of all ages) exclusively using sport QDs to extend trad placements, often inappropriately, increasing rope drag or causing gear to pull out.
In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:
> Anybody else ever used tie-off to describe extenders?

Until you mentioned it, I had forgotten that I used to call them tie-offs as well.

Before sewn slings were the norm we used to extend using just two single crabs.

If you have run out of ‘draws’ and still have some single crabs, it is still an option today although it may be deemed inappropriate by certain observers.

 GridNorth 01 Nov 2013
In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:
> (In reply to ashaw)
>
> Anybody else ever used tie-off to describe extenders?

Only when used to "tie-off" a peg but then that would be a sling with only one krab.
 sparra 01 Nov 2013
In reply to ashaw:

"Extenders are the short loops of tape used to join two karabiners together to make a quickdraw" (Needlesports website)
 Ramblin dave 01 Nov 2013
In reply to Michael Gordon:
> (In reply to Ramblin dave)
> [...]
>
> Probably 120cm slings for belays. 60cm slings I find tend to be a bit short for that (but make good extenders).

I normally carry a couple of slings for belays (and the occasional thread), but some people I climb with are clearly carrying extra ones with the intention of using them to extend runners (as they have loads of slings round their shoulders but no other long extenders), but then carrying them in a really inefficient way by sticking them over their head with a single screwgate, so you have a bit of extra weight but still have to try to find a krab for the other end when you want to use it.
 GridNorth 01 Nov 2013
In reply to sparra:
> (In reply to ashaw)
>
> "Extenders are the short loops of tape used to join two karabiners together to make a quickdraw" (Needlesports website)

The original use of the term "extender" was used in the context of extending runners. Sometimes this did not involve a sling joined by two krabs so this definition is only one of several.
 Dan Arkle 01 Nov 2013
I have heard the cool kids call them "quicky-Ds"

This is an abomination, and should be dealt with severely.
 GridNorth 01 Nov 2013
In reply to Dan Arkle: Chill dude they use them to send their routes.
 Ciderslider 01 Nov 2013
In reply to Dan Arkle: Quicky Ds - i love it
 Howard J 01 Nov 2013
In reply to Ramblin dave:
> (In reply to Michael Gordon)
> [...]
>
carrying them in a really inefficient way by sticking them over their head with a single screwgate, so you have a bit of extra weight but still have to try to find a krab for the other end when you want to use it.

Wouldn't it be even more inefficient to put two krabs on each sling, or none?

I carry extra slings for all sorts of purposes, including threads, spike runners, and for extending runners. Only the last of these needs an extra krab.

 Michael Gordon 01 Nov 2013
In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

Isn't it a tie-off if the screw/peg/warthog doesn't go in far enough?
 Jonny2vests 01 Nov 2013
In reply to Dan Arkle:
> I have heard the cool kids call them "quicky-Ds"
>
> This is an abomination, and should be dealt with severely.

respec 2 th arkster
 rgold 02 Nov 2013
In reply to ashaw:
In the U.S., the term "extender" never happened, and quickdraws happened before sport climbing, I think in the late sixties. The term was coined by Yosemite climbers and refers to the old West gunslinger's ability to unholster his pistol fast. The original quickdraws were made with tied 9/16" webbing and were as short as modern sport draws. People also carried two-foot slings over the shoulder for extending placements, but those slings were called (wait for it) "slings," not "extenders."
 Jonny2vests 02 Nov 2013
In reply to rgold:

Well I certainly remember Quick Draw McGraw from my youth.
In reply to Michael Gordon:
> (In reply to DubyaJamesDubya)
>
> Isn't it a tie-off if the screw/peg/warthog doesn't go in far enough?

Well you 'tie them off' which may be where it came from but, possibly, not the same thing.
In reply to GridNorth:
> (In reply to DubyaJamesDubya)
> [...]
>
> Only when used to "tie-off" a peg but then that would be a sling with only one krab.

Makes sense.
It seems to me that calling short extenders 'quick draws' has no particularly obvious logic to it.
 rgold 07 Nov 2013
In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:
I think it came from a frequent desire in Yosemite to have short extensions rather than full-length ones. Folks were clipping a carabiner to a piton (the concept began before nuts were in use in the U.S.), clipping in a shoulder-length sling, doubling it so it wasn't so long, clipping in a second carabiner, and clipping the rope. The quickdraw made the process a lot quicker and explains the "quick" part. As for the gunslinger allusion, the draws were snatched off the gear sling and clipped in a motion at least reminiscent of the cowboy action.

But logic or not, that's where the name and the concept came from as far as I know.
In reply to rgold:
> (In reply to DubyaJamesDubya)
> I think it came from a frequent desire in Yosemite to have short extensions rather than full-length ones. Folks were clipping a carabiner to a piton (the concept began before nuts were in use in the U.S.), clipping in a shoulder-length sling, doubling it so it wasn't so long, clipping in a second carabiner, and clipping the rope. The quickdraw made the process a lot quicker and explains the "quick" part. As for the gunslinger allusion, the draws were snatched off the gear sling and clipped in a motion at least reminiscent of the cowboy action.
>
> But logic or not, that's where the name and the concept came from as far as I know.

Well actually it does seem more logical when you put it like that. I suppose they could have been called 'quick-clips' or 'quickdraw-clips' and it just settles into what people like or find easiest.
 rgold 08 Nov 2013
In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

There's been a long U.S. tradition of inventing evocative, rather than merely descriptive, names associated to climbing gear and practices. Thus, for example, whereas the short slings used to tie of tipped-in pitons seem to be called "tie-offs" in the U.K., everyone in the U.S. went with the Chouinard term "hero loops." Chouinard's wired nuts were called "stoppers" and the larger chock "hexentrics," fanciful at the time although now standard nomenclature. I'm sure we could put together a long list.

Add to that base the emerging California slang-style (e.g. valley-girl speak), and the powerful effect of black culture on American slang and usage, and you have an environment in which utilitarian considerations in the naming of gear are of low priority and logic, although fully present, may not be easy to discern or follow.
 John Ww 08 Nov 2013
In reply to GridNorth:

Word, innit.

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