UKC

Hi all

I'm thinking of buying a GriGri, what's everybodys thoughts? Are they safe ? Are they easy to use?

Thanks all

In reply to rob01: Excellent device, there are other versions on the market by other manufacturers..

However before anyone else puts forth there peneth worth, i will say this

If you are going to buy one.....the new one has just been launched....

Spend time on the petzl website and heed the warnings, They are NOT a hand off device, you must keep a hand or two on the tail end rope at all times..

Over time i have seen some really bad uses of them...

But over all they are really good, and make holding a fatty on a top rope a lot less effort..!!!!

In reply to rob01:

They are as safe as any other belay device, and probably a little safer (let go of the rope on your ATC and the climber will hit the floor, let go with a grigri and they probably won't hit the floor).

For belaying someone working a route, they are excellent. If you only climb things onsight, there's not really much point in spending £50+ on a belay device.

In reply to rob01: I use a Mammut Smart. It's cheaper, lighter and more intuitive to use i.e. more like a normal belay plate.

Al

In reply to rob01: excellent but do take some time to get used to especially if you are only used to non mechanical belay devices.
I don't use mine for anything other than indoor and sport climbing as they have less dynamic properties than the traditional devices (not ideal for Trad climbing)

In reply to Monk:

Monk, statistically they are not safer. They are invovled in a disproportionately high number of accidents. I would hazard a guess that the perception that they are safer plays a part in the high incident rate.

In reply to Monk:

Forgive me, I meant to say that this part of your post was spot on.

In reply to IainWhitehouse:

That seems to be a very commonly held belief, but I wonder whether or not it is based on fact. Is anyone able to supply a reference to statistics that support the statement?

In reply to rob01:

My thoughts: Great piece of kit if a bit pricey and specialised. Possibly now superseded by the new version?

Yes. Like any device they can be mis-used.

>Are they easy to use?
Yes, very. There's a definite knack needed to get the most from it though.

jk

In reply to rob01:

People who love them, love them. Then there are the rest of us.

I have two misgivings:

1) they have deffo been involved in some (don't know how many) 'unexplained' accidents.
2) they encourage a no-hands mentality which is a bad mindset to get into.


Chris

In reply to IainWhitehouse:

I dont think that adds up though does it, just because someone missuses a peice of equipment doesnt mean the kit is not safe?

In reply to Dr Sidehead: But if the device is inherently easy to misuse then it is the cause of the accidents.

In reply to rob01:

Really valuable when your partner is working routes and hanging off bolts as it locks and your brake hand is a back-up.

However, they can be hard to pay out with if the rope is damp or furry or has got a bit of mud etc on it in places: this is not good if someone is going for the redpoint or on sight or a dodgy clip. In those circumstances I find myself switching to my ATC.

In reply to remus:

I have to say that I am intrigued. Just what is it about a grigri that makes it "inherently easy to misuse" and what it is that causes all these accidents?

I firmly believe that a grigri, used as per the modern instructions is a safe and functional device. It is not the device that fails, it is the user. Belaying accidents happen with alarming frequency with normal belays too, but no-one ever claims that they are inherently dangerous.

In reply to Monk: I think this is a case of playing with words. Of course it is the user who misuses but I have seen more examples of misuse of a GriGri than any other device. From threading the rope the wrong way to not keeping hold of the dead rope. The latter was the reason I gave up using mine after being informed, after several years use, that I was holding it wrong. I still see people holding it this way despite the warnings so the phrase "inherently easy to misuse" is, I believe, fair.

Al

In reply to Monk: I dont know what it is that makes it more dangerous than other belay devices (if indeed it is, i'm just going on what was said above.) Id guess that it is because many people treat it as an auto locking device, despite the fact that it isn't meant to be used like that.

More generally, my point was that safety gear should be designed in such a way as to minimize the opportunities for users to misuse it. A device that is easily misused is a bad piece of design. Thus although someone has done something wrong if they drop their partner through misuse of a grigri it may have been facilitated by poor design.

This is all speculation though, as there hasnt been any evidence that grigris are the cause of more belaying accidents posted so far (and i cant be bothered looking for any.)

In reply to Monk:

1) when the leader/second is sat on the rope (i.e. the cam is locked) you can let go of the rope.
2) when the rope needs to be paid out sharpish is is often necessary to hold the cam down with your thumb.


The instructions specifically forbids both of these - but have a look round the wall next time you are there in a real world situation.

With a regular plate you hold the rope at all times as there is no fall-back(!) option.



Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Do you really hold the rope at all times Chris? If rope needs to be paid out fast, I tend to feed the rope with both hands then open the hand holding the rope and slide it back down before repeating the process. For a time it is running through my hand (or my hand is running over it) rather than being held by it. I've always assumed I could close my hand fast if the leader fell off and I always have done when it has happened. Nevertheless, I have been ticked off at a climbing wall for not holding the rope solidly at all times with one hand or the other. My response was that I couldn't see how rope could be paid out really fast in any other way.

In reply to John Gillott:

Of course I don't - but at least the ramifications are clear.


Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Which means that my original statement holds. WIth a grigri there is a good chance that you will not drop you leader if they fall at this point, even if you let go of the rope. With a traditional device, the chances of you holding the fall are a lot slimmer.

Also, Petzl have specific instructions on how to best push the cam down to pay out slack rapidly with a grigri, so your previous point was at least half wrong.

To be honest, I think a lot of the opinions on grigris are based on the fact that they are different to traditional devices that most climbers older than 20 started out with. If the standard was a grigri, then ATCs were introduced, I suspect that we would be having the same arguments in reverse.

A grigri is not hard to use, if you read the instructions and use it porperly it is safe. There are even instructions stamped on it. The device is not at fault for user idiocy.

In reply to remus:

No the idiot misusing it is the cause of the accidents.

In reply to Dr Sidehead: You'll always get idiots misusing equipment. If a device is easy to misuse it is indirectly responsible for the accident as it narrows the margin our idiot can safely operate in.

In reply to remus:

Yes but you infer that the device is somehow dangerous which it is NOT.
In fact it behaves exactly the way it was designed.

In reply to remus:

The responsibility to use the device correctly lies with the climber. Therefore they are at fault if they dont, not the equipment.

In reply to Dr Sidehead: So if a car is produced with the brake and accelerator reversed as long as the manufacturer tells you then it's not inherently dangerous?

Just playing devils advocate on the basis that a GRiGri is counter intuitive to use in a similar way to the above.

Al

In reply to Dr Sidehead:

If you look at the overall picture, if people using a grigri have more accidents than those using some alternative device then surely the grigri is by definition more dangerous than the alternative.

I agree that the final responsibility lies with the user, but the design of the device can play a big part in making it safe, and i think it is this which is in question (i.e. do people become more lax when belaying with a grigri and does this lead to a higher rate of accidents?)

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Thats not a good analogy why dont you try another one?

In reply to remus:

I dont know if there are any statistics showing more accidents involving a gri gri or not.
However I doubt if any statistic would show an accident caused by a gri gri. Just as I doubt you would find an acccident caused by an atc?

In reply to Dr Sidehead: thats why i said "This is all speculation though, as there hasnt been any evidence that grigris are the cause of more belaying accidents posted so far (and i cant be bothered looking for any.)"

In reply to remus:

Sorry, I am sometimes guilty of assuming people know what I do. I'm not going to publish accident stats but I you can safely assume that I am not guesstimating figures.

Lets be clear. Girgris are NOT more dangerous and categorically NOT more safe than other devices. People that think Grigris are more safe than other devices are the danger.

Iain Whitehouse, Assistant Manager, The Foundry CLimbing Centre

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

>
>

But that's the thing. I don't think that a gri-gri is counter intuitive. As with all devices, you need to keep a hand on the dead rope and thread it correctly. Do either of thos things wrong with any device and you are in trouble.

As I said earlier, I think that it is a conceptual problem. People who are used to traditional belay devices find the concept of a grigri a bit odd, and others think that the grigri is an automatic device. Those who take the time to learn how to use the device according to Petzl's instructions don't tend to have problems, and tend to be fans. I think this is similar to those arguments that cams are inherently dangerous and people should always use hexes in preference.

I regret now saying that the grigri is arguably safer and opening this can of worms. I only meant it as a light aside, meaning that the autolock mechanism meant that there was a possibility of a back-up should you muff it up, and wasn't meaning to imply that it was a much safer device. I should have just stuck with "a grigri is a great device for belaying on projects and is just as safe in use as anything else".

In reply to Monk:

All absolutely bob on (including the bits I truncated). I kinda regret on jumping your post. It just happened that I was discussing this yesterday with another wall manager in light of hearing about another accident.

In reply to IainWhitehouse: Cool, good to know someone is keeping track of these sorts of things.

In reply to rob01: So we are all in agreement really. GriGri's are safe when used correctly. I still like my Mammut Smart though.

Al

In reply to rob01: If you use a GriGri as I understand Petzl suggest you should, I really can't see the point of them, especially at £60 a time.

In reply to rob01: I got a grigri in a sale for £40 new and it took me 5mins to pick up how to use it and it's the best bit of gear I have got!

With it being auto locking it make it so safe, best thing to do is go to your indoor wall and see someone who's got one and see whatyou think see if thay will let you have a go of there and see if you like it, just a fort like.

In reply to wayno265:

I've been slagging the new Grigri off on another thread.

However!!!

My Old grigri is one of the most versatile and most used pieces of kit I have on my rack.

It's unbeatable when sport climbing at the top of your grade, especially belaying a mate when working a route.

It's also good for multi pitching sport climbs on single rope and you can even ab down with it.

I also use mine for roped soloing. On another thread it's being used instead of a lower jumar when cleaning a traversing aid pitch.

Amazing bit of kit.

E

In reply to Enty:
#

Exactly!! Thread Closed.

In reply to wayno265:

Im guessing that you dont red point? Because thats when a gri gri becomes really helpfull. Whilst working your route you can spend a lot of time hanging around on the rope, this becomes a real pain on the belayer. A gri gri takes the arm ache away.

In reply to rob01: Needle Sports were selling the old Gri Gri off fairly cheap the other day when I was on their website. At least £20 off the normal price.

In reply to Dr Sidehead: Presumably only if you let go of the dead rope.

In reply to higherclimbingwales: How many of those things are you able to do while following Petzl's instructions? Genuine question.

In reply to wayno265:

All except the aid climbing stuff.

In the new Petzle manual it even shows you the method of paying rope out fast with your thumb on the handle.

E

In reply to wayno265:
Not at all.
There's a big difference between keeping a (fairly relaxed) grip on the dead rope and maintaining tension on it to keep a traditional belay plate 'locked' - and no need to let go of the rope to appreciate the benefit of a Gri-Gri in that situation.

In reply to wayno265:

Nope. To hold the weight on a normal device you have to keep quite a bit of pressure on the deaad rope. With a grigri, you can keep a light hold of it as the grigri itself takes the strain.

Can I ask - do you actually use a grigri?

In reply to deepsoup: You say that, but I belay with a petzl verso, so traditional plate really, and have no issue with holding the dead rope for extended periods of time when my partner takes a rest/sits on the rope. Partner in question is about 11 stone.
I'm not disputing that a grigri will require even less effort than that, but it's hardly a massive challenge. And if they are going to be there a while, it takes sub 5-seconds to tie them off...

In reply to wayno265:


Or let it go slack while keeping hold of it.
jk

In reply to IainWhitehouse:

Iain, out of interest, does anyone (BMC?) keep such stats? I would be very interested.
At most walls I visit, it seems that gri-gri's seem more popular with those taking lots of falls than those who don't. Hence the number of real falls on a typical gri gri is possibly very high compared to the number of falls taken by most plates. Hence any analysis of the number of errors should be divided by the number of falls. i.e. cock-ups per 1,000 lobs.

I use both a plate and a gri-gri. My gri-gri must have taken 100's of falls; my plate far far fewer.

In reply to David Coley:

Accidents, yes, but not the number of incident-free falls. So your other point is valid to a degree.
BUT the ratio of accidents involving grigri users to tube or plate users is very high, at least in the limited part of the data that rests in my head. You also have to remember that many accidents occur in simple lowers, not falls.

Any climbing wall i've been to in america they make you use one so they must be pretty well trusted. That said i got one out there as they were cheap and ended up giving it away as i t never got used.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

This isn't quite true (at least with the new instruction manual).

In reply to wayno265:

No!

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Chris, they've changed their mind on this - probably because 99% of people found it impossible to pay rope out quickly without it locking. Check out the new manual or the video which is doing the rounds.

E

In reply to rob01: I have both GriGri and atc and only ever use GriGri at climbing wall now, took some getting used to at first to feed rope through fast enough but fine now Ive got the technique. use the atc for multi-pitch outdoors though.
Started off climbing with a pair of industrial rigger gloves and waist belay to belay with before I could afford a fancy new sticht plate so tried a few devices and find GriGri great.

In reply to remus:


I find Grigris pretty foolproof, especially when compared with other semiautomatic devices like the Trango cinch. You can feed rope much faster with the Cinch, but I would NEVER let my daughter belay me with one of these. Hold a Cinch at the wrong angle, and the cam mechanisms will not engage. Can´t really happen with a Grigri unless you use skinny ropes and don´t hold the braking end of the rope.

I believe to have read that the new Grigri also prevents the rope from running through if you pull the release lever all the way. Does anybody know details?

Thanks,

CB

In reply to Monk:

I've just bought one, so will be from now on. You lot have convinced me, mainly from the additional safety aspect.