UKC

We picked up a rope a couple of years back for a trip to Chorro, it's an 80 meter 'Edelweiss Rocklight ii' it has always felt like cable and kinked quite badly during use. Admittedly we got it as it was cheap and weren't expecting a premium rope, on long sport pitches and multipitch due to the twisting nature it's bordering on unusable at times. Can anyone suggest a quick fix short of buying a better rope? Any way to make ot more supple?

Cheers!

Anything stiff and kinky generally responds to gentle rubbing along its length. You’ll find after a few minutes, sometimes even seconds, it will eventually relax.

If you can find a spot where you can hang it up at full length that might help a bit. Could be tricky to find a 80 metre clear drop though.

Soak it overnight in clean water in a clean recepticle. Air dry it, then hang it down a drop as Alan suggests, a few times.

I sense I'm about to get some strange looks hanging it down the side of the multi storey car park in the town center!

Take it for a walk, literally, heathery moorland is ideal. Take one end of the rope and walk so as to pull it along behind you for abot 200m, repeat, pulling the other end of the rope.

I use a local playing field, where I can drag it through the grass and bend it round the round goal posts. This seems to resurrect ropes which have been destroyed by too much indoor climbing. I don't use my good ropes indoors, but my indoor ropes seem to get stiff, twisted, kinky and dirty and taking them for a walk certainly helps. Pulling it round the goalposts seems to alleviate some of the fattening due to a small amount of sheath slippage where the rope stops at the belay device at the end of lowering off!

I'll give it a go thanks, my main concern is that it's been like it since day one. when you look at the rope whilst belaying it's always got slight bends in it leading up the climber. When pulled through the lower of a route it constantly forms loops / kinks (And all Hell breaks loose if it so much looks at a Gri-Gri). TBH I think the sheath may be quite twisted on the Core. Failing that can anyone recommend a 80 meter rope in the 9.5mm - 10mm range for £100 - £150? I was looking at the Mammut Eternity Protect 9.8 as an option.

Cheers

Take it to local climbing wall and pass it through the top krabs on the tallest route, then pull through multiple times? Did this with my Beal 35m rope and it sorted it out

Hang it and or pull along the ground to remove kinks. Machine wash with detergent and fabric conditioner to alleviate stiffness. 

Although this isn't going to be of much use to you now your rope is already kinked, it sounds to me like it arrived factory rolled and when you unpacked it you put a load of tension and twist in it (which is why it feels so taught and kinks up so much).  However to avoid this happening in future there's a technique to use  youtube.com/watch?v=8nSutmoV0-s& 

You may know all this already and have unpacked it correctly, so please forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know, but it's worth posting for everyone's benefit, as we learnt the hard way and ended up getting a new rope! 

Yea incorrect unpacking on my behalf is the prime suspect, I'll try the drag it across a field technique but im not too sure about fabric conditioner??

Washing removes dirt chalk etc, conditioner provides lubrication between the strands of the rope. The conditioner forms an inert film on the surface of the fibres, there is no chemical interaction between the nylon and the conditioner. Use of conditioner improves handling and life of your rope, it also smells of summer meadows or whatever it says on the label.