The Edelrid Jay (men's) and Jayne (women's) are versatile, do-it-all harnesses aimed at climbers who want one setup for everything from indoor sessions to days out on trad crags. With a focus on comfort, adjustability, and value, they strike a nice balance between performance and affordability. We've put them through their paces across a mix of climbing styles to see how they hold up in real world use.

In Use

The Edelrid Jay and Jayne are excellent all-round harnesses, offering comfort and adjustability across a wide range of climbing styles. We've tested them indoors and outdoors — sport climbing (both when sitting on the rope while working a route and while redpointing or onsighting), as well as on UK mountain days and at trad crags.

Its attractive price makes this a great entry-level option for climbers who want a single harness to cover multiple disciplines without needing a specialist model for any one scenario. Of all the types of climbing we used it for, we'd say it's best suited to indoor climbing, sport, and trad cragging.

The harness is made with polyamide as the main fabric, with foam padding on the inside. This gives it a solid feel and a level of build quality you'd expect from Edelrid. Unlike more specialised harnesses — designed for lightweight mountaineering or hard redpointing — the Jay and Jayne trade high-end materials and minimalist design for a fair price and practical weight.

While they are a bit heavier (354g in Elle's XS and 392g in John's M) and bulkier when packed than a lightweight harness, this is rarely an issue for the types of climbing we're talking about, and it's still compact enough for the occasional mountain trad route.

Fit and Comfort

The Jay and Jayne use a butterfly-shaped waist belt design that provides a comfortable and supportive seat, especially when sitting on the rope to work routes. While they're perfectly fine for short periods of hanging, prolonged hanging belays wouldn't be ideal.

Adjustability is a real strong point here. With three buckles — one on the waist and one on each leg loop — the harness offers a wide range of fit options for different body types. This is especially useful for women, where leg loop adjustability helps accommodate a broader variety of shapes. It also makes the harness a practical choice across seasons, as it can be easily adjusted to fit over thicker winter layers.

If there's one area where the fit could be improved, it's in the leg loops. Both John and Elle have noticed a slightly baggy section of material at the front of the leg loops. While this doesn't restrict movement or performance, it does make the fit feel a little less refined compared to the more tailored designs you might expect in pricier models.

Features

The Jay and Jayne each come with five gear loops, offering plenty of space for a full sport rack or a standard trad rack. For mountain trad objectives, the harness is still perfectly usable, but the smaller rear gear loops can feel a bit limiting if you're carrying a large rack. On long multipitch routes — where you may also want to clip shoes or spare clothing to your harness — gear space can start to feel cramped.

The harness uses Edelrid's sliding waist belt system, allowing the padding to shift across the webbing. This means you can centre the gear loops and achieve an even fit around the hips, regardless of your waist size. This works well in practice, although it does make buckling up slightly more fiddly than with a fixed design.

The tie-in points are large and easy to use, with no hassle when threading the rope. They're reinforced with high-modulus polyethylene (HMPE) to boost abrasion resistance and ensure long-term durability. If these do start to wear through, a red indicator thread is exposed to signal that it's time to retire the harness — a useful safety touch for regular climbers.

There are also attachment points for ice screw clippers, if ice climbing. This is a discipline we'd be happy to use the Jay or Jayne in, although for other forms of winter mountaineering the small rear gear loops may not be quite as suitable.

Verdict

The Edelrid Jay and Jayne offer solid comfort, adjustability, and practical features at an attractive price, making them a great all-round option for indoor, sport climbing, and trad cragging. While their gear racking options may begn to feel a bit limited on big mountain trad days, their dependable design and ease of use make them ideal for climbers looking for one harness to cover a range of disciplines. And a big selling point is that you get a very decent harness here, without breaking the bank.