UKC

i have seen many ropes where the company have stated the number of falls the rope can take, this number is usually very low and as i would like to start practicing falling to improve my confidence it is impractical to have to purchase a new rope after so few falls, is this number just the company covering their backs against being sued or should it be taken seriously

In reply to web10steelj:

The falls they refer to in those ratings are nearly factor 2 falls I think -the kind of huge whipper that you will be glad to survive.
"Standard" falls are fine, ropes can take loads of those.

Look up "fall factor" if you don't know what I mean.

In reply to web10steelj:

As blue straggler says the UIAA tests are very harsh and the number of falls figure does not correspond to the majority of falls taken day to day.

You can read about fall factors here, it's always useful to know: http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=647

For singles ropes the test is a minimum of 5 falls at fall factor 1.77 and a load of 80kg. It's worth noting that all sorts of things effect the absorption of climbing forces (knots tightening, flailing, sliding, added friction over carabiners etc) so these tests are not directly representative of real world forces.

I hope after reading about fall factors you feel much more confident about the strength of your climbing rope!

In reply to web10steelj:

It's really not worth worrying about. All ropes for climbing have to pass the minimum before they are passed according to the uiaa tests. I wouldnt dis count one rope over another purely on the fall rating. For me its more about how the rope handles and of course colour.

In reply to web10steelj:

Most folks would pack up and go home after a single UIAA standard fall and you certainly wouldn't want to practice them.

As pointed out above it isn't really representative of the kind of falls you'd take practicing lead falls.

This tells you all about them: http://www.alpineexposures.com/pages/faq-climbing-ropes-explained-test-uiaa

There is also some suggestion that the 5min rest time between falls doesn't fully allow the rope to recover.

In reply to web10steelj:
All of the above really. 'falls' are a measurement of the ropes' absolute strength, it's a arbitrary figure that bares no resemblance to how many falls that you can actually take on it. There are ropes that have taken hundreds of falls, there are ropes that have been dug out after 30 years and survived the standard for tests.

There are no hard and fast rules, read some of the material offered to you on this thread, and you will start to understand. This rating does cause this confusion a lot and I would guess that most climbers do not really know what a UIAA fall is.

In reply to web10steelj:

thanks that really helps

In reply to FreshSlate:

In practice ropes don't break unless cut/heavily abraded or damaged by chemicals. So yeah in a way the max falls figure is somewhat arbitrary. That said I reckon in many cases there is probably some correlation between positive characteristics of the rope and the max falls, such as how dynamic the rope will remain with repeated use and how well the rope will stay in tact in sub optimal conditions (like the sheath abrading or being cut by a sharp edge).

In reply to CurlyStevo:
...and it should be noted that the ropes always fail at the knot in these tests.

In reply to web10steelj:

I think its more likely that you would break yourself rather than a rope if you took a factor 2 fall or whatever the test fall is. So you certainly wouldn't be taking 5 in a row!

In reply to web10steelj:

I think the main thing to watch out for is if you do fall, check for any obvious damage to the rope. Either visible fraying of the sheath or if any bit of it feels different when you run it through your hands. Particularly if the core feels different from that of the rest of the rope. It's quite easy for ropes to get damaged during falls when they pass over sharp/jagged features in the rock, particularly if there is swing involved.
If in any doubt, replace the rope.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Yes I agree, I almost said 'there is no relation' but decided not to fall into that trap, using 'resemblance' instead. I agree, there is a positive correlation with the fall rating and positive qualities of the rope.