Belaying devices.
There are so many different belaying devices
nowadays on the market and in my hands.
And after this video you will be able
to pick any of them.
Not from my hands.
And you will know how it works and how to use it.
So first of all, a belaying device is simply a mechanism
which allows to control
the friction between your hand
and the climber.
Alright.
So here I hang and here I have almost
60 kilograms of force pulling on this strand of the rope.
However for me to hold that
I'm only using about 6 to 7 kilograms of force
on the brake side of the rope.
However if I would start raising
my brake hand up
the force needed to hold that
goes to 9 kilograms of force...
10...
12...
15...
So my max was around 25 kilograms of force
with two hands in this position.
That means that in this position at this angle
I can not even hold my own weight with two hands.
There is no even talking about one hand.
So now let's see how much assistance I will get
if my rope strands are completely parallel to each other.
So I will start pulling up
as hard as i can.
And so the answer is almost nothing.
Now to explain how that works
since there is so many different belaying devices
I'm gonna group all of them into different categories.
First one is tubular style devices.
That many mistakenly call them reverso.
Which is only this device - Petzl Reverso.
Or ATC which is this Black Diamond ATC.
While Mammut calls this Alpine Belaying Device. Simple.
So with tubes the more I move my brake hand down
the more it squeezes the rope between the carabiner and belaying device.
And also tubes have a little groove in front of them.
Which even further pinches on the rope.
Plus as I pull down on the rope it tilts the device
which creates extra angles and extra friction.
So as we saw in my previous experiment
if my hand is at the level of the belaying device or higher
the device creates very little friction.
So if the climber would fall
while my hand is in this position or higher
there is a high chance that my hand would simply
get sucked into the belaying device.
I got my hand pinched...
And then maybe i will hurt my hand
And let go off the rope.
So if you want to see how my hand is
getting sucked into belaying device
I already made a video about that.
Also worth mentioning is that rope thickness or diameter
has a huge effect on how easily
the rope will go through belaying device.
And every belaying device has a
recommended range of rope thicknesses
which you can find somewhere in the manuals
or sometimes on the device itself.
And this brings us to advantages
of tubular style devices.
First of all they work better with wider range of rope diameters.
All the way from super thick gym ropes
to ultra skinny twin ropes.
On contrast if you would take a GriGri
it says that it's optimized to work
from 8.9 to 10.5 millimeters ropes.
But from my experience
anything from 10 millimeters and above
doesn't work that well anymore.
Yeah, there is this older GriGri which works better with thicker ropes.
But that one doesn't work well with thin ropes.
Next, tubes are super lightweight.
And they allow you to belay with two ropes
either double ropes or twin ropes.
And if you don't know what's a double or twin rope
you should watch my master class on the ropes.
Also with tubes you can make a soft catch
without moving yourself.
By allowing the rope to slip through the device.
And in general tubes don't catch as hard
because there is always a little bit of slippage
which reduces the peak forces.
Which might be very beneficial for trad climbers.
Since it reduces the chance
that the pieces of the gear will fall out.
And finally tubes have this loop at the top.
And that allows you to set this device in a guide mode
in which you can even belay two following climbers
coming up on top rope simultaneously
simon... simultaneously.
and all of that are the reasons
why tubes are still very commonly used
in traditional or alpine or multi-pitch scenarios.
However none of that is really useful
if you're just doing single pitch sport climbing.
And the biggest disadvantage of tubes
is of course that they don't lock
meaning if you would let go the rope.
Which by the way brings us
to the main rule of belaying.
If you are in need of number two
and you have a choice to poop your pants
or to let go the brake side of the rope -
you poop your pants!
Meaning in no circumstances you're allowed to lose control
of the brake side of the rope.
And that's by the way also equally true
for assisted building devices but we are gonna talk next.
So assisted devices have an ability to lock
in case the climber falls.
Which obviously adds a lot of safety.
For example if you would knock a rock while you're climbing
and that rock would fall on your belayer's head...
And that's why we wear a helmet!
So first of all your belayer would really like to have a helmet.
But you as a climber would really love that
there would be one of these assisted devices down there.
And in fact my own skin was once saved by this guy.
When I did a little fall
and my belayer did not notice
that there was a rock next to her leg.
And while she was flying forward,
her leg got stuck, and she spun around,
and hit her back to the wall.
And let both of the hands go.
So this guy is basically a reason why I'm still here.
And making these videos.
Now super important that number two rule
is also applicable for these guys.
After all they are called assisted
so don't treat them as fully automatic.
Because there are cases where they will not lock.
Apart from safety this locking is also
super useful in long belays
If your climber is hanging on the rope a lot
and projecting some hard moves.
So if we compare this to the tube
even in the most mechanically advantaged position
you will still need to hold on the rope.
And in very long belays this will get tiring.
While with assisted devices it's pretty chill.
You are literally just sitting in your harness.
OK, so the first group of assisted belaying devices
is called assisted tubers.
That's because they look like tubes
and they work similarly to regular tubes
where we squeeze the rope
between the carabiner and the device.
Except that they have a shape
that shifts the carabiner in position
where it squeezes on the rope so hard
that it completely locks it off.
A little disadvantage of assisted tubes
is that once in locked position
you cannot quickly feed slack to the climber.
You need a special action to unlock the device
before you can feed the rope
For example with Click Up
it even clicks
and now I cannot do anything.
I literally need to unclick it.
And now I can continue belaying.
Now one really important thing
that not many know about assisted tubers
That they suffer from the same problem
as regular tubes
meaning that if your hand is in up position
the device will not lock.
As you can see it's not locking
And if the climber would take a fall
the rope would just slide from my hand
and burn it. Oh, it's already burning.
However unlike regular tubes
Where you can get your hands sucked
even at very big angles
most assisted tubers
will only fail at the angles
that are very extremely high up.
And some actually don't fail at all.
I'm actually gonna make a separate video
where I was experimenting
at which angles which devices lock.
So stay tuned for that.
I can't put everything into one video because
I need you to subscribe.
But independently of which belaying device you're using
just develop a habit of keeping your brake hand down.
Also good to know for people who climb with two ropes
is that there are assisted tubers
that work with two ropes.
In case you go on a multi-pitch
and you want extra safety you have some options.
All right let's move on to cam assisted devices.
I'm sure everybody knows GriGri.
But there are more devices like
Trango Vergo and Birdie and others.
And the way they work is
that they have a camming mechanism inside
which pinches on the rope.
Now in the case of GriGri
the cam is spring-loaded meaning that as soon as
there is no more load on the climber's end of the rope
the cam will disengage.
And you can belay normally.
While in the case of Vergo
it doesn't have a spring.
And you need to position the device
in a certain way
to be able to feed the slack.
All right back to GriGri.
If you press on GriGri's cam
but you ignore the rule number two
and you don't hold the break side of the rope
this can happen...
Also if you ignore rule number two
and your GriGri gets trapped in the first piece of gear
this can happen
Many of you asked
if this problem of trapping in the first bolt
where it disengages the cam
is also applicable for assisted tubers.
So with most assisted devices
the answer is unlikely.
Since there is no cam that i could press
to disengage this locking.
Only if i would press on this end
it kind of slips a bit but still
stays locked.
This Click Up
doesn't even lock if i don't hold the rope.
Amazing. Number two rule. Hold the rope.
Yeah.
There's no way I can unlock this
in this manner.
So no assisted tubers don't have this risk.
Now this is a little future me
after I was editing this part that you just seen.
And I saw this I realized that
I was using a wrong carabiner.
Turns out Click Ups need their own specific carabiners
And that's a reason why you should read the manual.
So that's the carabiner you should use for a Click Up.
Let's see if it locks.
No difference.
So number two rule.
And read the manual
because some of the assisted delaying devices
require you a specific belaying carabiner.
I don't know if it's just marketing
or the shape of the carabiner is slightly different.
Just use what the manufacturers recommend.
And finally there is this guy.
It's a Revo from Wild Country.
It's an inertia based mechanism.
Which will lock once the climber starts
falling faster than 4 meters per second.
So if i pull slowly it doesn't lock.
I need to pull really fast in order for it to lock.
So my goal of this video
is not to compare all of the delaying devices
on the market and tell you which one to buy.
Sorry for that.
Every device have its own pros and cons, haters and lovers.
Full internet of that.
However if you would want such comparison
let me know in the comments and maybe
I will make a separate video on that.
OK now I have a tip for you
that will make your life a little bit easier
and maybe will even save your ass
on a multi-pitch one day.
Humans,
we have two hands normally
and handling more than two objects in two hands
is not ideal.
What I often see that people take their belaying device,
their carabiner, the rope...
That's already three objects by the way.
And they try to connect everything
in space
like so...
Ready to belay.
So doing this
will greatly increase the chance
that one day you will drop something.
You will be trying to connect something
and then suddenly whoops...
Your belaying device flies down.
If you're not on a multi-pitch
if you're standing on the ground
that's not a big deal.
However if you drop your belaying device
on a multi-pitch
you are in big trouble.
So this is what you do to avoid that.
Normally your belaying device
will live with your carabiner
somewhere on the harness.
So step one.
You take both of them together as one unit.
So I'm carrying only one unit.
And you immediately connect it to belaying loop.
So you cannot drop anything right now,
everything is safe.
Step two. You take a bite of rope
and you insert into your belaying device.
Keep in mind of the orientation of the rope
which end has to go to the climber
which end is your break hand.
If you're not sure
every belaying device has an image
on the side of it.
Which will remind you that.
And next. Open your carabiner
and hook your rope together
with the belaying device.
So at no point there was a chance for me
to drop anything.
And once you're done belaying
you simply reverse the process.
Where you open the carabiner,
you unhook the rope.
But you hook the belaying device.
And then you simply can just pull out the rope.
And your belaying device stays on your harness with the carabiner.
If you want to put it somewhere else you put it somewhere else.
And the same works with assisted tubers.
So step one.
Connect your belaying device to your harness,
take a bite of rope,
put that bite of rope into belaying device,
open the carabiner and hook the rope and belaying device together.
Now in case of the GriGri it's slightly different.
So as always step one clip
your blank device to your belay loop so
you cannot drop anything now if you're
not on a multi-pitch and dropping your
grigri is not a big deal you simply take
off your grigri open it in this cool way
insert the rope and flip it back simple
now if you are on a multi-pitch
there is a technique so this is what you
do you open your carabiner
and hook only half of the degree
together then you can open the grigri
and it's connected to your carabiner you
cannot drop it you insert the rope you
close it
and then you open your carabiner again
and hook the grigri back
so this is as safe as you can do with
the grigri on a multi page and obviously
once you're done it's just simply
reversing the process of
doing
this and doing that
okay so i hope that by now i gave you
enough examples how not to use belaying
devices and now i'm gonna show you
proper techniques the good part is that
no matter what blank device you use good
belaying techniques don't change there
are slight differences that i'm gonna
mention but for majority it's the same
all right
so i hope that by now number two rule is
strongly embedded into you however if
for some reason you really need to go
hands-free you can tie a backup knot
at your brake and like so
and this is totally fine
in case something happens and the rope
would slip all the way
the grigri will lock
however in the case of tube it's
slightly different if you would just
simply
tie a knot here
and the climber would fall there is a
chance that this knot will get
jammed in your blank device so hard that
you will have trouble to
unjam it let's use a slightly different
carabiner so it's easier for you to see
what's happening so
in the case of tube you take a bite of
rope and then you take another bite of
rope and put through the first one
and you make it tight
and make sure that this loop is long
enough
like so
this will hold but this is not enough to
make it
extra safe you tie in
back up knot here so now i can go
hands-free and in case my climber takes
a fall this will hold him and if i want
to release all of that
hold the brake side of the rope
and tie the top
back up knot
and start pulling the rope
until you have a little loop left
at this point inform your climber that
he might
feel a little bump
and tug
fast
like so if you do this correctly your
climber will not go down at all now if
you're not familiar with slip slap slap
this
technique
good you can safely ignore my next
sentence however if you're using that
technique i would strongly advise you to
reconsider because in the case of the
fall your hand might get sucked into the
bellying device faster than you might
think so as a good rule of thumb keep
your break hand always down and do any
hand swapping or sliding there so now a
little disclaimer i'm gonna show you
three different techniques of taking
slack and depending on where you are on
the planet some of them might be not
considered as acceptable so stick with
me i'm gonna explain because i went
really deep in this rabbit hole so all
the techniques start the same your left
hand reaches up and pulls down on the
rope while at the same time your break
hand pushes forward and locks it down
and now at this point you need to bring
your right hand
up the rope and there are three
different ways to do so the first one
it's more popular in europe and it's
called hand over hand or v to the knee
so you simply take your left hand and go
over
your right hand and then right hand goes
over your left hand that's why it's
called hand over hand so you take
hand over hand you take
hand over hand so i find myself using
this technique when the climber wants me
to take really hard as he's moving up
the rope because you're always pulling
down on the rope you can
it kind of feels like climbing up the
rope
very comfortable
so the problem with this technique is
that when people get really good and can
do it really fast
they start letting go the brig and
before the left hand goes into the
locking position so we do this we take
this let go already
and then go into locking position if the
climber would fall in the moment where
you let go this and you don't lock the
hand down you probably know what would
happen so obviously a simple solution
lock
and then in the locking position do any
hand swapping and another thing you need
to be aware of that sometimes if the
climber drops a bunch of slack your
blank device falls down and here you
need to be careful to not take your left
hand over the belaying device otherwise
if you do so and the climber falls your
hand
gets into this awkward position so
instead you reach under your blank
device and you grab the rope and now if
the climber would fall everything would
be fine all right next technique is
called p-bus which is more commonly used
in america which means pull break so
basically the same stuff as before
but now instead of taking over the hand
you take under
and slide so pull brake under slide
pull brake
under slide so the benefit of this
technique is your strong hand never
leaves the rope a little drawback of
this technique is when you have weight
on the rope and you're trying to take
hard
now sliding up this hand
is not as comfortable as in
hand over hand technique
so at some point as you will be
practicing your p-bus technique you will
realize that you don't actually need to
bring your left hand down there in order
to bring your big hand up you can simply
slide it up
and this is a third technique which is
called a tunnel technique and since your
left hand never leaves this rope
it's the most efficient technique
because you can always switch between
taking slack and giving slack instantly
so no matter in which moment of taking
slack i am i can always give slack
and contrary any other technique where
my left hand leaves
now it needs to go back in order for me
to give slack so it's an extra action
also tunnel technique is the best for
taking small amounts of slack
if i would try to take a small amount of
slack continuously with any other
technique it's
a lot of hand
movements
while the tunnel technique it's very
relaxed
and that's why it's the most efficient
technique however you might know or
maybe you don't this technique is
actually not considered acceptable in
some parts of the planet
with the argument that during the moment
where you slide the hand up
you don't have a firm grip on the brake
hand and during the fall maybe you will
not be able to catch the fall to which
here is my arguments
first of all if you use any assisted
belaying device you don't even need any
hard grip on the brake side of the rope
any light tug will make the device lock
so this is not an issue immediately now
if you are using a tube i actually went
out and did an experiment on this where
i asked inexperienced belayers to keep
moving the hand up and down while i was
distracting them and the climber was
taking unexpected falls for them
so stay tuned for that it's gonna be
really crazy and really interesting
episode but in general when sliding the
hand up don't make a big tunnel i don't
like that this technique is actually
called a tunnel method
it shouldn't be a tunnel you're barely
opening the hand just barely enough for
it to slide up the rope and if you are a
beginner it's really good idea to start
practicing with pbus technique because
you will be sliding your hand up the
rope a lot
with the backup of your other hand
and you will learn the feeling of the
rope going through your hand so start
with this and once you get really
comfortable with this
not bringing the left hand down and just
doing this will feel very natural by
that point
and just to make sure that i'm not
missing something in regards of safety
of these three techniques i wrote an
email to about 25 different climbing
safety related organizations and
associations and asked them to comment
on these techniques not all of them
replied unfortunately however out of
those who replied none of them said
anything against of any particular
technique so as long as you follow the
basic guidelines of proper belaying you
will be fine maybe with an exception if
you're in the united states and you need
to take a delaying exam then you might
be forced to use the pibas and few more
mistakes that people do when they're
taking slack first of all they take the
slack like this or like this
so unless you are using a assisted
building device and you're guaranteed
that that device will lock at this angle
which i will make a separate video on
that you might be in trouble second
mistake is people hold
both strands of the rope with the left
hand they do something like this
the reason why they do this is to
prevent the belaying device from falling
down there however to fix that you don't
need to hold both strands of the rope
you can just simply hold one strand of
the rope and you will have
exactly the same result
okay that's a lot of talking about
taking slack i just felt that that's the
most important part and the rest will be
much more simple so to give slack you
simply reverse the tunneling technique
where your left hand pulls up while your
right hand assists then the left hand
goes down and you slide the break hand
down and you repeat
and the same technique works with most
of assisted delaying devices while with
some of assisted devices you will need a
special action with assisted tubers it's
common to push them up while you're
giving slack
now in case of the grigri you can either
use that standard way of giving slack or
you can press and greek this cam and
pull the rope
just don't forget the rule number two
the rope stays in the hand all the time
now in case you need to give a lot of
slack quickly like if the climber is
about to clip you take your left hand
close to the laying device and your
break hand far from the laying device
this is important only then you can give
a lot of slack quickly
if your left hand is somewhere up you
will be limited by it how far up you can
raise this hand equally if your brick
hand is close you will be limited by
that hand how fast you can give slack
and then you will need to
do more actions so left hand close right
hand far anticipate and you can give a
lot of slack quickly and if things go
wrong you can take all of that slack
quickly back now when you need to lower
the climber you take both of the hands
on the brake side of the rope and you
use one hand to feed the rope to the
other hand
that's one way or if you're comfortable
you can let the rope slide through both
of your hands
the risk here is however if you go too
fast the rope will go so fast through
both of your hands that it can burn both
of them and then you will probably drop
your climber so simply don't go fast
there is absolutely no point of lowering
a climber fast there is nothing cool
about that it heats your equipment way
more wears down your equipment it's
expensive and go in a controlled manner
and if you're not sure you can always
feed the rope like so and in case your
climber takes a fall
just hold on the brake side of the rope
even if you have number two in your
pants hold it never let go and as soon
as your climber will regain the ground
and unload the rope most of the blank
devices will unlock themselves and
you're ready to continue delaying while
with some devices like click up
once it locks you need a special action
to unlock it to continue blaming so as i
already said it's a good idea to look
into the manual of your blank device to
know all these little nuances that there
might be now if you are teaching
beginners or you are a beginner yourself
practice using belaying device on the
ground without a climber and only once
you're completely comfortable and you're
ready to go and actually play somebody
then make sure to have somebody
experienced backing up holding on the
break side of the rope and giving you
guidance assistance on your technique
this is really important i actually once
saved a climber when inexperienced
belayer was using a grigri i was backing
up the rope
and actually i was the one who caught
the fall and the full story if you're
interested is in this video about grigri
and of course don't take this video as a
complete guide into delaying there is
way more things you need to know from
proper slack management to soft catches
to belayer movement to good
communication with your climber and all
of that is coming in the future episodes
of belay master class
that's a lot of effort to make these
videos to be honest and this video was
brought to you by mamut
and by all the people who are supporting
me by visiting my website so huge thank
you for everyone and see you in the next
episode