UKC

So there are a lot of new auto locking belay devices out now.
I am looking at upgrading my original Grigri to something easy to use and fool proof
Any ideas which one to opt for

In reply to PaulHermes:

Grigri2 would be my choice. It's both easy to use and fool proof and I guess you're already used to it, so why change that?

In reply to Removed UserZebdi:

Hi,
Forgot to mention that I would like to use it for trad too. Ideal would be able to use twin half ropes and a single for sports climbs.

In reply to PaulHermes:

Alpine Up is the only device that fits all the requirements. And it's excellent.

In reply to BnB:


Don't Mammut do a double version of their thingy? And I would say that the Megajul is as much of a autolocking device as a grigri, although for safety reasons Edelrid won't claim that.

In reply to TobyA:
the problem with the megajul as far as I can see is paying out. It seems you have to in effect hold it off break to do that by holding the belay device open with your thumb, also with worn ropes this method alone isn't very slick (if you keep the brake ropes cupped). I did some tests with a friend and the ropes seemed to carry on slipping through when held up with a thumb loop, perhaps in a fall they'd lock but only after a reasonable amount of slack had gone through the device IMO (I was testing hard yanking one of a pair of half ropes)

Can you effectively pay out without holding up the thumb loop once you become well adapted to the device? How did you solve the issues with the drag paying out quickly on older ropes?

The Alpine Up looks like more of a true auto locking device to me.

In reply to TobyA:

The mammut smart you also need to hold open / off brake to pay out.

With a normal belay device I have a system of paying out and taking in on two ropes where at least one hand is always grasping both brake lines fully (never splitting between the fingers) and my hand holding the brake is always below the belay device at all times. For me this feels at least as safe as any device you have to hold off break to pay out.

In reply to BnB:

If the Alpine Up was half the weight I'd buy it now Looks nice and well designed from a functional perspective.

In reply to CurlyStevo:


I'm fairly new to double ropes - could you try to explain? I split between the fingers to be able to pay out/take in independently.

In reply to CurlyStevo:


Not that I can think of, maybe with a single newish rope. But I kind of figure its much like a grigri, you can't just yank rope through a grigri either, you need a thumb on the cam or whatever the approved method is. You need to be alert with a megajul otherwise you'll have an annoyed leader if they try to pull in slack without telling you, it will lock. But that is what makes it safe as well. Swings and roundabouts really. I used it for all my winter climbing year and even covered in snow and wearing gloves I seemed to work fine but I was using it again recently to compare it to the Pivot and my mate was getting annoyed that I wasn't giving him slack quick enough! I think he was used to just pulling the rope he wanted and his second being able to let some slip through their normal device, but the megajul won't work like that.

In reply to climbwhenready:
What I do do to take one rope in is to hold them both on brake as per normal the guide hand comes down and literally pulls the slack in by pulling the rope up from the brake end of the belay device until there is a loop of rope hanging down. My brake hand hasn't moved at this time so from the brake hand one rope is quite tight to the belay device and one has a loop of rope. The guide hand than grabs both ropes under the belay device and I do the standard hand swap move you do belaying and the extra loop of rope drops to the floor.

Paying out is obviously easier on just one rope of two, you lift both with the brake hand but only pull the one you want to pay out on with the guide hand, your brake hand then slips down both ropes in exactly the same way you would with one rope.

I often try to avoid situations where I need to pay out on one rope and take in on the other by paying out a little bit before I need to on that rope, this can also allow you to take in to a high runner if you leave enough slack on the other rope. Of course it would be a longer fall if the top runner pops but a smaller fall if it holds.

In reply to PaulHermes:
Realistically the idea of a perfect belay device for everything is a no-go. The Grigri is still as good as it gets for sport climbing and for twin ropes you need to look for something else. The Alpine Up is the only semi-automatic device with good braking performance but it has it´s downsides as well (lowering can be virtually impossible and it´s about the size of a lunch box to mention a few). Of all the locking assisted devices it´s the only one I would consider using for my personal climbing but I don´t and I´ve a rather large collection to choose from. For simple, versatile performance and good handling with any realistic ropes the ATC XP/GriGri combination is still the way to go.
Incidentally there are very few devices certified such as the GriGri as "manual assisted locking" as it is termed, things like the MegaJul, Smart, Ergo etc are only certified as manual braking devices.

In reply to TobyA and CurlyStevo:

The Alpine Up has a dynamic mode for soft catches on poor gear. And lock mode abseils are a breeze. I'm not sure the Mammut Smart can be so flexible.

But it is heavy.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Depends on the ropes; on my worn old 10.2mm single and my new(ish) 8.5mm halves I don't (usually) have to use the thumb loop. However, I did the other day on a fat old half and 8.3mm combination (I don't know if it was the fat rope, the thin rope or the combination).


On my ropes locking seems to be completely reliable, but somewhat embarrassingly on a self-rescue course just after I had declared it to be so it then failed to work on a skinny single the instructors had (it will creep through the device on abseil; might hold bodyweight after a fall since there is more friction).

I tend to think of the MegaJul as safer (because it locks faster and probably more reliably than me) than a standard bug, but a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. It does guide more, it locks, it does two ropes, it does giving slack, it abseils, but it can be a bit of a pain sometimes in every mode. Giving slack takes practice, guide mode is different to normal mode so you can't just remove and clip to belay loop when alternating leads, the device is very small so gets hot abseiling... Lowering is particularly iffy at first if you are not careful (like a grigri) - doing it smoothly takes practice.

For me the benefits outweigh the disadvantages compared to the only two other devices I have used (a Bug and Reverso I threw in the sea).

It DEFINITELY is not a grigri - it is only autolocking while you are holding the brake rope. It won't lock if the geometry is wrong (i.e. you are holding the rope above the device). It assists even when you are paying attention, and it does work when abseiling (as gravity holds the brake rope down), but it still requires a belayer. I used to put a single rope in the right hand slot, with the gate of the crab on the left, but I found the wire could end up sat on the screwgate collar, twisting the device a bit and hampering the autolocking. Now I put the rope in the left slot. I am told if the crab flips it may not autolock. For this and many other reasons, it is an aid but not to be trusted! (I know this is technically true for a grigri as well but from the climbing videos I've seen continental European climbers would be dropping like flies if the grigri wasn't bombproof...)

In reply to PaulHermes:

If you are going to belay with half ropes a lot, I think the Alpine Up is the best assisted locking device. It in size and weight it is about the same as a Gri Gri 2, which many people have deemed not too big to carry on multipitch routes (such as El Cap...).

Competent half-rope belaying has repeated instances when the belayer should be paying out one strand and taking in the other. In these situations, having to commit the brake hand to levering out the device makes the handling of both the Megajul and the Smart Alpine distinctly inferior to the Alpine Up, which leaves both hands free for rope handling. One of the things I like about having both hands free and assisted braking is that I can safely and effectively use my brake hand palm-up rather than palm-down as you do with a tube. I find managing two ropes without locking the device easier with the palm-up position. This is not an option with the Megajul or Smart, which requires the brake hand to be palm down in order to operate their release mechanisms.

It is possible to lock up the UP accidentally, although I find this happens quite rarely. The cure is to place the heels of both hands against the device and shove it away from the body.

I've tried the Smart Alpine and the Megajul and have several years of experience with the Alpine Up. (For a tube device my current favorite is the DMM Pivot.) Most of my experience is with 8.5mm Mammut Genesis half ropes. With those ropes, lowering is not much of a problem. I've also used the UP, just for test purposes, on fairly new 10mm gym ropes and had no lowering trouble with them. But if the ropes are any bigger than 10mm and are fuzzy, the UP is not going to perform well and something else should be chosen. For top rope situations with the 8.5's, I use the ``non-locking'' configuration most of the time, which has no lowering issues.

Top-rope set-ups have lots of friction and the non-locking UP configuration is fine. But I don't think that configuration supplies adequate friction for trad belaying of big falls, so using it for more dynamic belays on poor gear strikes me as a potentially bad idea---the belay may be a lot more dynamic than anyone would want.

Similar considerations apply to rappelling. The UP is fine as an auto-backup rap device with 8.5's. On absolutely free-hanging rappels with full 60m rope weight hanging on the device, I find I have to manually feed rope into the device for the first twenty feet or so, after which I can slide down in the ordinary way. This doesn't happen for me on shorter rappels or ones with foot contact. Climbing Technology gives a special trick, using an extra carabiner, for rappels with a lot of rope weight. I've tried this and find that the system to twists my ropes badly, and so I prefer the twenty feet of manual feeding when those situations arise. By the way, my subjective impression is that the UP twists ropes more than a tube device when used in locking mode even without the extra carabiner, but the twisting isn't as bad as with the extra carabiner and has been manageable with my ropes.

The locking feature of the UP makes it especially easy to ascend rappel lines. After taking some photos on rappel, I've been able to ascend twenty feet or so on just less than vertical rock by simply walking up the rock while hauling in the rappel strands.

Unlocking the UP at the base of a rappel can be annoying, because you have to reduce rope tension in order to unlock the device. If the stance allows it, I'll rappel to a kneeling position and then stand up to release the device. At hanging stations, I'll clip in with my tether and rappel until it is fully weighted. I can then push an little bit of slack into the device and unlock it.

All of these observation apply to using the UP with 8.5mm half ropes. I think rappels get a lot worse with ropes in the 10mm range.

The performance of both the Megajul and Alpine Smart depends significantly on what carabiner you use with them. This may well be true with the UP, but CT has eliminated the problem by forcing you to buy their carabiner with the device; a good idea in light of what I've read about the performance variations of the other gadgets.

The UP is not particularly good at belaying one or two seconds directly off the belay anchor---the pull-through resistance seems to me to be subjectively greater than many of the other devices. If this ability is very important, you probably want a DMM Pivot or, in the assisted braking category, the Alpine Smart.

In reply to PaulHermes:

Conclusion to this thread: the only way to get a completely reliable locking belay device that works with a range of rope sizes and double ropes and can do guide mode is to duct tape two grigri2s together...

In reply to andrewmcleod:

... would make it almost impossible to operate the lever on the right hand one, thus making at least one of the ropes immune to the prime cause of grigri misuse accidents. We have a winner.

In reply to rgold:

Can you actually pay out one rope whilst taking in another on the Alpine up? It looks to me if you don't feed up with your brake hand when paying out the device auto locks (which is the whole point of it right?) Also I'm guessing here but its not officially a hands off device anyway is it?

In reply to CurlyStevo:


Absolutely. You pay out with your non-brake hand while taking in with the brake hand. You can't do this with the Megajul or the Alpine Smart without removing the brake hand from the release handle, which then risks locking up the device. The The brake hand has to be in a non-locking position to take in, as is true with every device. I've watched numerous people using either a Megajul or an Alpine Smart with half ropes continually short-roping the leader while trying to deal with these issues, though presumably practice eventually makes perfect. The UP requires no practice.

If a fall happens while your brake hand is above the device, you have to bring it down, just as you do with every device. But you don't need to grip hard and in fact the locking action engages well before the brake strand is at a 90 degree angle to the load strand. I've caught a few falls this way---i.e. with the brake hand in the theoretically worst possible position---and in fact what happens is that the UP locks before you can even think of dropping the brake hand. The reason is that the load pulls the device up relative to the brake hand and that produces enough of an brake strand angle to initiate locking.

The UP is not officially a hands-off device; no device is. But have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFn4xzVQTgs&feature=youtu.be .

In reply to rgold:
When you are doing this are you actually holding both brake lines with the brake hand?

Personally I don't see this as too much of an issue with a normal device if you are good at double rope belaying. yes there will be a bit more slack to one anchor or the other or both but hey its minimal in the grand scheme of things and trad climbers aren't normally that fast at climbing anyways.

In reply to CurlyStevo:


Sure, the bit that makes the Up good is that it works just like a normal plate and doesn´t generally tend to lock if you pay out rope. The spring loaded plastic parts that prevent it inavertantly locking are on the other hand the reason feeding is a bit heavier than a normal plate and as rgold notes makes use as a guide plate a bit unpleasant as it´s like pulling the ropes through treacle. On the other hand the ergonomics mean it is the best for lowering in guide mode with two ropes.
The hassle rgold talks about when finishing abseiling is the same problem we´ve encountered with lowering, if there isn´t enough weight on the rope or too much friction through the gear and on the rock then it is a real problem to release the rope to lower,at least in away that feels safe and controlled. When we took them sport climbing both the UP and the Alpine Up had this problem which is why we reverted to the GriGri.

In reply to rgold:


Interesting, the weight that is!
When one starts testing the current breed of devices with guide mode with a single rope and add up the weight of all the extra karabiners one need to actually use the things (and lower someone) one discovers that claims of "light weight" start to look a bit stupid, From a weight and performance standpoint the GriGri is clearly better

In reply to PaulHermes:
As I'm sure someone else has said/warned don't think of a grigri has an auto locking device. It is most definitely not! It is an assisted braking device.

In reply to Neil Morrison:

Could be, but if you hold the dead end of rope (which you obviously should), it will lock.

In reply to Neil Morrison:

I agree, but it is a world apart from something like a MegaJul (which I use). It will hold a FF2 fall without a belayer and therefore falls into a different category of device to everything else (UIAA 'Locking assisted' belay device instead of 'Manual'). Yes, it can slip in certain circumstances (very light climbers, very gentle slumps, probably icy/skinny ropes?) but it is reliable enough that people use it for example as a backup when jumaring. I would never think about using any of the other assisted belay devices for that!

But yes, don't get lazy - hold the brake rope!

In reply to PaulHermes:


there ain't, even Grigri is not autolocking (by certification).