UKC

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/2016-the-future-of-your-climbing-gear-outdoor-frie...

In reply to CurlyStevo:

The thing I'm most interested in is the new Wild Country cams and no-one seems to mention them!

In reply to galpinos:

Yeah there is just a tiny piece on the article about them

In reply to CurlyStevo:
They hadn't advertised in Summit so didn't get a spot in the article/. Hoepfully UKC will have a decent write up in their reports (hint hint).

Edit: I'd read the BMC article last night and there was no mention the the WC cams, having clicked on it again I see they've amended it to at least get a mention. It's a start!

In reply to CurlyStevo:

I'm not excited about most of what's mentioned in the article however I'm loving the look of the Montane Ultra Alpine and the new tibloc.

In reply to galpinos:

Yeah the Montane Ultra Alpine looks interesting. I like the piece about the new light camalots and the dyneema steam.

In reply to galpinos:


I had a play with a set at Outside yesterday - they certainly are incredibly light, but look very much like a Black Diamond Camelot clone,


Chris

In reply to CurlyStevo:

I like the krab for holding ice screws. It's a bit pricey but having lost a couple in the past due to them popping off those flimsy plastic jobs made by BD and Petzl they may be worth it.

Al

In reply to Chris Craggs:


But with an extendable sling? The best of a Camalot and Dragon combined?

In reply to GridNorth:

yeah they look like well made kit..... I'm a bit of a DMM fanboy if the truth be known.......

In reply to galpinos:


Some like the sling and some don't. Depends greatly on the routes you climb and how you place the protection.

While I do have a full set of Dragons, a very, very rarely end up extending them slings. And quite often end up placing a QD or alpine sling anyway after extending them.

So for me, the double sling is not a thing to look for. In fact, the old thick C4 slings are quite often less fiddly.

Then again, most of the stuff I climb is either rather straight cracks or by some miracle I've gotten good enough to think about ropelines to negate unnecessary drag even without using extenders... 'cause it certainly ain't because I'm not placing any gear.

So for me, the new lighter BD has more appeal.

In reply to GridNorth:

They look great, I've not had a problem with the petzl ones but they could definitely be better and dmms look lush.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

I was told by the guy in outside that wild country didnt want too much publicity about the new cams as they had so much stock of the old style they didnt want people waiting for the new ones.

In reply to Sharp:

The plastic ice screw holders can twist allowing the gate to open and then your ice screws to fall off. Its happened to me a couple of times after bucket seat belays.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Blimey. That stuff makes my old steel War Department stamped carabiners look, er, antiquated.

In reply to HeMa:

I've got a set of the current generation of Camalots and really like them. The extendable slings on the Dragons i find faffy and I don't find them as nice to use/comfortable in my hand. However, I did like the extendable slings on the old 4CUs and the new WC cams look to have a similar sling. I reckon 40% of the time I extend cams so not an essential but a nice to have.

It'll be interesting to see how light the "ultralight" Camalots are compared to the new WC cams which are rumored to be pretty light too.

Having said all that, I live in the UK so don't need any more cams, one set if enough!

In reply to galpinos:

Hasn't the future happened already with the totem cams anyways?

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Yep. Lost a highly prized 10cm screw and an unloved warthog to the flipping BD ice clipper last winter

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Yep, but I like getting excited about new gear and I feel WC need a renaissance.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

I had a play with the new TiBloc. Flippin awesome. The old tibloc but without the rubbish action. It's super smooth and positive, not like the old ones...

I also had a play with the BD cams. Now I know I'm biased seeing as I did a lot of the design work on the WC cams, but the BD's have super skinny cams, on the large size (read silver) they have a plastic washer instead of a fully supportive termination which helps prevents the axles folding in on themselves (which IS a problem in all placements under high load but especially so in sub optimal sideways placements) and they are IMHO a bit clunky. Effectively what they've done is stuck a dyneema sling through a wide plastic tube, and because of the orientation of that tube and the plastic used it makes them stiff in the wrong direction. I also wonder how the plastic PU airtube which sheaths the dyneema will stand up to abrasion - having conducted tests on thermoplastic PU, PA and PE air tubes as used by most manufacturers, they don't stand up that well. If you're using them for aid, I would be slightly twitchy about that. If you're using a steel cable it really doesn't matter, but dyneema over a sharp edge? Yuck. The other aspect is that the tubes are basically slid together, i.e. it is not a hermetically sealed unit. Grit ingress could be a serious concern. Yes Dyneema is a very abrasion resistant fibre, but the fact that the tube is black means you can't inspect for damage. I'm not convinced they've spent enough time thinking all the aspects through... yeah sure... I'm biased but then I'm my own harshest critic...

In reply to beardy mike:
Was lucky enough to be out at the show (work) so saw quite a bit of this stuff
Mike, there is something very pleasing about the WC cams. The wide contact surface and bare metal on the arcs is reassuring.
Bruce

In reply to Hay:

We went to great pains to make sure that the trigger position is the best on the market, that the lengths feel right in the hand, that the range of each is absolutely consistent - when you look at the figures WC's deviate ever so slightly around the red/gold/silver to make sure that each cam overlaps the next in the same way as well as the retraction being consistent, that the dyneema will be right for the purpose, that we absolutely optimised the cam lobes in terms of weight and strength and that we did not miss any details. Yes they are light - we could possibly have gone lighter but we feel that we made as many compromises as we could without sacrificing usability. Is it a direct copy of a camalot? On the surface, if you just picked one up, then yes. In reality no - it has distinct advantages which I detailed above but there are others, like the single cable stem being easily flexible in all directions (BD's crunch when you pull them laterally) and the width of the lobe surface and spring tension, even the position we pull the cam lobe is adjusted so you get a really smooth pull. We've taken a good design and in our opinion incorporated everything the market demands. And whilst the DMM's are also superb and in many ways very similar, the thumbloop design is preferred by most. It means we've had to sacrifice the strength rating slightly, but it's not much and really anything above 10kN is more than enough in all but an utterly extreme fall.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

I've known it to happen with the black diamond ones for sure, always felt the petzl ones we're quite solid though, especially the larger ones but maybe not. Either way the DMM ones are definitely an improvement and like he says if you've got £100s worth of screws on something it may as well be bomb proof.

In reply to beardy mike:

Mike, when I did the Dragon v Camalot review, I remember DMM saying they used their thumb piece design so they could use the skinny slings, and on the thumb loop design BD have their very fat double layer of tape to stop the thumb loop being deformed and kinked by the load that skinny sling would create. But you've gone for what looks like a DMM style sling and BD style loop - so is this kinking of the wire not a problem in your design somehow?

In reply to TobyA: the webbing used is much wider than used for the DMM cams which does help spread the load more effectively. To be honest I was mainly involved with the lobe and head design and wasn't really party to the testing on the slings so much, so can't really comment on that bit. But it is what the lower rating is about. I seem to remember the system minus the sling is much stronger than rated...

In reply to beardy mike:

Mike

i know the thumbloops isnt your bag but might as well ask ...

if you clip a quik draw krab into the thumb loop (instead of using an extendable sling) like i sometimes do on my camelots, how does that alter the ratings ?

In reply to lithos: theoretically with a wet thumb in the air and a following breeze it shouldn't change it at all, most likely it would be a stronger system. Having said that under load the pu tube will crush. Basically the kinking occurs when the radius which is bending the cable has a small diameter, hence the wide sling mitigating the problem somewhat. Bear in mind that even 7kN is a pretty heavy fall, so I think they took a decision based on the probability of Damage through normal use... But again, I was not party to that decision or the numbers involved.

In reply to lithos:
"http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/review.php?id=3213"

It is interesting to note that in the BD instructions it states that clipping a karabiner directly into the thumb loop can reduce the overall rated strength by 2kN,

In reply to beardy mike:

What are the new WC cams actually rated to?

In reply to Sharp:


Having lost a brand new Petzl Laser Speed Light on Nevis this Winter, I can verify that they are not.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Again I'm not 100% what rating they decided to go with but I believe it's 12kN across the board. I was working to 14kN, and I believe the system went beyond this in tests. But as I say, I really only had a distant part to play in the testing and production phase. I can't say with certainty that the above is correct. You'd need to refer to a WC workbook for final figures.

In reply to galpinos:

The new WC cams are shown here: http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/news.php?id=7520

In reply to beardy mike:
Well 12kn is plenty strong enough for sure - if it is that.

7kn on the superlight offsets I'm less enthused with and I'm considering replacing my standard superlights with DMM offsets, as I marginally prefer them and 6kn is not worth the weight saving for me (on my standard rack). I weigh more than the average climber to start with.

In reply to CurlyStevo: it's an apples and oranges comparison tough isn't it. Super lights are exactly that. They are standard rocks with an offset placement, rather than full weight, full offset. You make your choices. If I were climbing in the Alps lots and was trying save weight, I'd choose super lights as it gives me more placement options for less weight. If I were cragging at home and carrying two sets, the DMM product is the right tool for the job. As I say, 7kN is a pretty hefty fall, so would I be massively concerned? Not really...

In reply to beardy mike:

I really appreciate yours and Toby's input on UKC forums!

Toby has lots of experience as a user and goes into detail quite a bit while Mike knows how stuff was designed! Perfect duo for a panel discussion, if that would ever happen

In reply to CurlyStevo:



As Mike above, it's about the radius of the stuff on the thumb loop. BD uses a wide sling on the C4s and X4s to get a good rating. Thin sling a'la DMM or a binder have a lot smaller radius -> higher pointload and the loop is more likely to deform lowering the rating.

In reply to PPP: haha, don't know about that. End of the day, its useful for me to get into barnies with people as it makes me question my own knowledge and thinking and influences the way I design. Any product is about getting the set of compromises you make to closely reflect what the end user wants, and feedback is always useful, even when the feedback isn't necessarily correct... At least that gives you an idea of peoples perceptions. At the end of the day, I get to work with some very knowledgable people and drive towards the best solution I can manage, hopefully from my perspective that will be the simplest, least gimmicky one. As saint exupery said :

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Pretty much nail on head... So onto the next one eh?