UKC

Can anyone give me any advice about these pieces of equipment. I currently use a Rock Exotica Silent Partner, and am considering switching to a Petzl ASAPLock. Does anyone have any experience with this kit? Apart from a weight difference of about 200g, are there any other advantages/disadvantages I should know about?

Thanks very much for your help guys.

In reply to BlueTotem:

Silent Partner is designed to be used as a self belay device for climbing... and if I recall correctly it can also be used for solo lead climbing.

Petzl ASAP is designed to be used as a backup when doing rope access work and the primary line breaks or something. AFAIK Petzl does not advice on solely relaying on the ASAP...

In fact, if you only do top-rope soloing, generally speakin' you should always use 2 independent systems... like micro traxion on a rope, and then add ASAP to another rope (as no fuzz backup, you don't need to do anything with it while going up or coming down).

In reply to BlueTotem:

ASAP is indead made as a backup device for rope access. Also if you where looking for weight reduction, the ASAP is made to work with the ABSORBICA and ASAP’SORBER. So add that weight to you calculations. Without them you can damage your rope. Once deployed, you also need to replace the shock absorbers.

In reply to BlueTotem:

Rope soloing means a lot of extra weight. So the 200 grams difference doesn’t make much sense, I think. You have to carry all the climbing gear your self instead spreading it over two or three talking partners. I don’t know if you need for the ASAP extra backup stuff? For the SP is a Ropeman or the like do as backup sufficient and good enough to keep the tension off your rope.
Just curious what rope are you using? Diameter?

In reply to tjin:

Yeah, that's a good point, I think the trailers do show people using it with some sort of shock absorber attached. I got the impression initially that the extra bits were only being used when an arborist was doing an actual rope ascent, but perhaps not.

Thanks for your help.

In reply to HeMa:

Yeah, you're right. I know Petzl aren't really marketing it for that purpose, I was just wondering if it had a place there. There isn't a huge variety of equipment for this specific purpose, largely because of lack of market I guess. Rock Exotica are planning to can the Silent Partner according to their website. I've even seen people resorting to drilling holes in a Grigri trying to roll their own.

I am using a back-up system alongside the Silent Partner most of the time.

Thanks very much for the advice - much appreciated.

In reply to RR:
Good point about the weight, but I do try to shave grams off wherever I can, for that reason. Also going through an unfortunate phase in my climbing where I don't want to be on a wall at all without every bit of gear I could conceivably use, which really isn't helping.

In theory I'm using either:
a) 2 x 8mm half-rope, one on the Silent Partner, one clove hitched to a screwgate on the harness. Stop every two metres and pull more slack through clove hitch; or
b) a 10.5mm single rope going up through the SP, looping back down again for a couple of metres then coming back up to a clove hitch by the harness.

In practice I'd be lying if I said I'd never used an 8mm half rope on its own, or that I always bothered with the backup clove hitch, particularly on short/easy routes.

Thanks very much for the advice.

In reply to BlueTotem:

I have good experience with Mammut Infinity, which is 9.5 mm, which runs sort of quite smooth. I take loops on crabs what is always inconvenient to release, never on the right spot/momentum, what ever I plan, but haven’t discovered a good alternative. So I keep it that way, I am familiar with it now.

Your 8 mm will run super, I think, how does it perform as you fall? Does it stop direct as with a single rope?

I will not deny that I skip sometimes the extra backup up to French 5a/b. But when harder it is too much doing for me climbing with a SP.

In reply to BlueTotem:
I'm still not clear on whether you're talking about top-rope solo, or leading.

I'd be happy enough to use an ASAP (whichever flavour) for TR solo (on a 10-11mm semi-static/LSK). It'd be a bold choice to lead on it though, way too rich for my blood, and I *definitely* wouldn't want one on a half-rope.


The 'death-mod' Grigri is not a recent innovation, for good or ill it's been around a long time.

In reply to BlueTotem:


It is *already* canned, unfortunately.

Edit: the long-promised Wild Country Revo ( http://www.wildcountry.com/revo/ ) looks - on paper, anyway - to be a possible contender.

In reply to deepsoup:


I was talking about solo lead climbing. Sounds like I'm better off sticking with the Silent Partner for now. Thanks for the advice.

In reply to Rob Parsons:



Wow, that looks amazing Thanks for pointing it out - looks like a good bit of kit, on the face of it. Can't wait to try one out.