UKC

I've been doing loads of training at my local wall over winter and have been using a stirling gym rope . I've recently taken alot of good leader falls on it. Quite alot are in the region of 10+ feet (yes I know they always feel alot bigger than they actually are!).
I've been told that this represents a really small fall factor and that I can carry on using the rope for a good while yet.
Just wondered what happens to it when its had enough (does it just lose its stretch ??)

In reply to Ciderslider: I'm about 12stone and the rope was new about a year ago. Use it about twice a week and now fall off on average 2-3 times a session (admit that most of these are little ones).

I replace my wall rope every year regardless of its condition. It gets used 2-3 times per week over the winter and see's a fair few 'whippers'. The only wear I've noticed with my ropes is on the section that always meets the clip, so I buy 50m ropes then I can cut them down a couple of times.

In reply to Ciderslider:

I've never heard of a rope breaking at an indoor wall. Well I once saw a demo where a rep sat on a rope and started cutting through the outer cover and pinging all the inner core until only one was left...it still didn't break, but he wasn't doing anything dynamic.

In reply to sam:

I replace mine when I lose it ...which tends to be about the same frequency as you

In reply to Ciderslider:

If you feel thin bits when you run it through it's time to think about changing it. Often they're near the ends, due to the knots I think, so sometimes you can just chop the end off.

3m fall high up the wall will do virtually nothing to it, 3m fall onto first bolt will have an effect as a much bigger shock (can probably still take a hundred of them though).

In reply to Ciderslider:

My ropes will probably take more like 20-30 falls in a typical gym session, and one or two of those will be pulling a whole bunch of slack and not clipping to get a big one. I'll usually cut the ends several times before I bin the rope... it'll have long since lost most of its elasticity, but I don't mind that as long as I've got a decent belayer.