Complete Guide into Belay Devices - Differences and Efficient Usage | Ep.6

belaying devices there are so many

different believing 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 blank 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 seven

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

nine

kilograms of fours ten

twelve

fifteen

so my max was around 25 kilogram of

force with two hands in this position

that means that in this position at this

angle i cannot 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 blank 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 mammoth calls this alpine blank

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 delaying 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

i got my hands

and then maybe i will hurt my hand and

let go of 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 and a half

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 believe 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 tread

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 delay 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

role of bling 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 player would really like to

have a helmet but you as a climber would

really love it 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 blur

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 hid 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 delays 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 blades this will get

tiring while with assisted devices it's

pretty chill you are literally just

sitting in your harness okay 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 below 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 bray 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 virgo

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 delay normally while in the

case of virgo it doesn't have a spring

and you need to position the device in a

certain way

to be able to feed the slag all right

back to grigri if you press on grigri

scam 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

doesn't even lock if i don't hold the

rope

amazing number two rule all 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 rivo

from wild country

it's an inertia based mechanism which

will lock once the climber starts

falling faster than four 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 okay 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 playing 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 delay 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 billing 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 billing device

on a multi-pitch

you are in big trouble so this is what

you do to avoid that normally your blade

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 the laying

loop

so you cannot drop anything right now

everything is safe step two you take a

bite of rope and you insert into your

blank 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 blank 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 of for

me to drop anything and once you're done

playing 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

blank device to your harness take a bite

of rope put that bite of rope into the

laying device

open the carabiner and hook the rope and

playing 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