UKC

Just looked at the video for the Edelrid Pinch. It locks onto your belay loop by bringing the side plate down to slot over a pin with an open slot. I can’t see anyway this locks into position and looks like it can be knocked undone with your right thumb. Am I missing something?

I don’t expect there’s many people to answer this yet. I’m hoping to get one to test in due course.

I've only seen the video too but I don't think Edelrid would have missed something quite soon obvious. We shall see when they are released!

From video comments:

"I tested it and without a carabiner you can easily open de pinch while lead belaying. It doesn’t open when the rope is under tension. But when lead belaying there is no tension on the rope so someone who mishandles the pinch while paying out slack can easily unclip the entire device from the harness."

Obviously take this youtube comment with much salt.

We’re getting one for review later this month, I’ll post some thoughts once I’ve seen it. At the moment I’m in the same boat as everyone else, as I’ve only seen the video. I’m intrigued though…

Robbie Phillips has had one for a few weeks and was singing its praises over on his Facebook page, I haven't looked at it in detail though.

Have used one for a couple of days.

The no carabiner attachment feels weird to start with but you rapidly get used to it, including racking it on your harness. The swinging plate clicks into place reassuringly and you have to push down a button that’s flush with the plate to release it. It seems it would be very hard to release accidentally. Still, you want this to be impossible even in the strangest circumstance.  After two days use I was becoming more confident of it but still slightly suspicious.  

The no carabiner attachment doesn’t work with a beefy (>3/4”) belay loop as you might find on some Metolius harnesses. The edges of the attachment plates feel like they might cause wear to fabric belay loops. This might just be my imagination. It feels like it might work best with a Petzl ring or similar, perhaps betraying its roots as a device for rope access workers.

The panic feature is a pain but can be easily switched off. I have similar views about the GriGri+ and you may consider the feature a benefit. 

The close to the harness attachment means you can feed out a few more inches of slack at a time. Using a ~9.5mm rope, the feed was a little smoother than with any of the GriGris. These features would make it a strong contender if I was in the market for a new belay device.

I won’t be selling my GriGri 3 but I’d certainly consider a Pinch if I needed to replace it.  

I've only had a few brief belay tries so far, but as Duncan says above I think you'd have to try pretty hard to release the plate when actively belaying - indeed if you're doing things properly your hands wouldn't be touching the release button at all.
Hopefully their wider release will back this up, as it seems a pretty good Grigri alternative (written as a left-hander who never uses Grigris, mind)

Heres Robbie on his Instagram page.

He did do another video about how you might accidentally open it whilst belaying but I think it was in his story page.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3hyqekMh27/?igsh=eDZqN3Zsa3EyMDd2

Ah, so there is a button to release the plate. From the video on this site it looked like you could knock it up with a stray thumb. 

Is that a good thing?

It seems to me that having a device that looks exactly like another device of the identical make and model but operates differently because some feature is "switched off" is simply bad design.

Appalling design for THE single-point-of-failure device that stands alone in a chain for life and death safety – which, if designed well, doesn't need "modes" or "settings".

… and I write that as a massive Edelrid fan. I'm disappointed.

Are you referring to the Edelrid Eddy? They don't look like the Pinch.

No... I was referring directly to the statement that the panic mode of this device can supposedly be "switched off" - which would make it operate differently to other devices of the kind.

Did I misunderstand something?

Grigris and Grigri IIs don't have a panic mode for lowering, so I'd probably find the Pinch with it on annoying. I don't think I've used a lever to lower device since I used my mate's Eddy quite a lot but that's well over ten years ago. I think only grigri + have a panic mode now, so lots of people will be used to using assisted belaying devices won't be used to a panic mode, hence why you can turn if off the Pinch presumably.

That's an argument for making it optional, I suppose. I still don't like it.

I didn't actually know you *could* turn off the panic mode of the GriGri+, to be honest. I've always assumed that the GriGri+ has the ID-esque panic mode, which I don't like, and that every GriGri+ would therefore have the same. (Which explains why I've never owned one.)

If someone handed me a GriGri+, I would expect the panic mode to be there and enabled and, if the Edelrid Pinch has a panic mode as a headline feature, that would hold true for it, too.

My argument is that it would be MUCH better for no panic mode to be present at all than to have one but allow it to be disabled by the user.

Based on playing about with a GriGri+ about a month ago I think it is possible to bypass the anti-panic feature by pulling back on it even further, however this would probably need you to really put some force into it with a porker like me on the end of a rope (we didn't try doing it with a climber dangling on the end of the rope for obvious reasons, it was just demonstrated as something which could be done).

I think it's probably best to look at the anti-panic as a pair of training wheels, something which is unlikely to cause an issue in the hands of an experienced belayer (who will probably turn it off anyway) but is useful when dealing with novices, it does however necessitate that the device is checked when setting it up. 

Yes, because for a large portion of people who use assisted belay devices the panic feature is a pain that actively makes using the device harder. I wouldn't buy a device that compelled use of the panic feature. 

I've never found it to be an inconvenience on my GriGri+. Occasionally it'll engage when I overdo it lowering someone off, but it's easy enough to override, and not really an issue. That said, I think for more experienced users its role is redundant, as it's been designed primarily with beginners in mind, who pull the lever back too quickly as a reaction to someone coming down to quickly. I've never had this happen to me once, as my own reaction would be to reduce pressure on the lever. 

Rambling aside, I guess what I'm saying is that for the vast majority of people who know what they're doing the panic function isn't one that they need, so the ability to turn it on/off on the Pinch seems like a positive development.

Just the minor detail of getting my hands on one now...

Yeah, exactly. I found the + really irritating when I've used it, it seemed to lock quite frequently and I'm not in the habit of speed lowering people! That was one of the early ones though, they might have refined it a bit since. 

I’ve not had any problems with any belay devices although the waist belay was a little painful on a long catch. 
If the Gri Gri+ locks up then you are pulling it back too far. It only needs two fingers on the bar to facilitate a quite speedy descent. I also feel a lot safer when letting relative beginners use it. When they complain that it keeps locking up that shows that they are not using it correctly but I’m more safe. 

If you are concerned about it opening, you can also attach it to your harness in a 3rd way not mention yet until you gain confidence in a couple of goes. 

See the photo below, so it is attached directly but you put an additional karabiner as a backup behind.

my only concern at this stage is that it doesn't look as mud friendly as a gri-gri with a visible spring but this may be just speculation.