Petzl said to NEVER do this 

We tested teeth on ropes with UNICORE ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jXb-L3iqvfM.html Check out our new store! hownot2.store/

I always get annoyed with "we're professionals, don't try this at home" but something hits different about "please don't try human testing at home, because I already did it for you" 😂

Love your statement “please don’t do this at home. Because I did it for you”. As a firefighter in rural America we don’t us ropes much but it is a tool we sometimes have to have. I have learned so much from your channel in the last couple of months watching your videos. Keep up the hard falls. Safely! And the hard work.

I've got heaps of respect for Petzl creating documentation about off testing use of their devices. It kind of reminds me of harm reduction for recreational drugs, where you decriminalise drugs and even offer free clean needles and advice on how not to OD and take care of your friends. Looking at how your devices are actually used is just a better way to deal with things if you actually care about people.

'one metre, six inches of slack' 🤯 I'm going to start throwing these sort of Frankenstein units into conversation

Love that you post in meters/SI units, makes its so much easier to understand for everyone outside of Usa! The "head conversion" is also a lot easier with meter, fallfactor and kN

Awesome video Ryan and a great edit. I love the pace and the amount of information you cramped in there while keeping it entertaining👍👍

Hi Ryan. Always a pleasure watching your stuff guys, included those gnarly falls on a microtrax... good on ya!! just to share some infos, that 4 kN you are mentioning comes from one of EN 567's requirements. This regulation is dedicated for ascenders or rope grabs (chest/hand ascenders). The pulleys on the other hand they fall within the scope of the EN 12278 but it specific for pulleys. Pulleys, as seen from this standard don't consider the fact that a load may be stopped or grabbed by the pulley itself or a mechanism of the pulley. That's why it's common practice to build more complicate devices such as a microtrax or protrax by meshing the requirements of multiple standards. For EN 567, manufacturers are obliged to build devices that perform 5 repeated locking tests on the same rope strand reaching a peak force of 4.0 kN feeding a bit of rope through the device after each test. There you go, here is your 4 kN magic! Cheers

This channel deserves soooooo many more subs. Thanks for providing so much useful information for rope and gear users

again i love the buying guides. it's super helpful to see the differences between the three similar products.

BOOTY BOOTY BOOTY! That cam was my longest project to date, an unusable yellow Rock Empire (~.75, single axle) with a lobe that had spun past the fully-retracted position. It was interesting watching the whips in between my frustrated prying, tugging, and funking. No booty left behind.

It occurs to me that one reason the 200lb weight is more effective at making the rope fail is the inherent flexibility in the human body and the lack of it in the weight during the catch part of the fall.

Creepy but great timing! 1hr before you posted this I was trying to look up tope rope solo fall numbers on the micro traction. Thanks!

Great video, Ryan! Thanks! Would be cool to see how Beal Unicore ropes do in similar tests!

Love your stuff Ryan! Thank you for all your efforts. I’m interested to see how a Unicore rope compares to a standard rope.

This is one of the best videos recently. Love the human testing haha, but don't worry, I also like the videos where you don't need to risk your sanity. Also the lighting in the new studio space is fantastic! Prime

This is so thorough and informative! Thanks Ryan

Seems like petzl was being cautious at 4 but wow I’d rather not fall on it at all.

I would love to see how Unicore ropes behaves with that test protocol. Thanks for those videos

This is soooooooooo satisfying when you slowly cut ropes with cissors. Thank you so much for this.

As an aborist I think it would be so beneficial if you were to break test and real world in a tree human weight drop test some work positioning devices. Like the rope runner pro, the akimbo, and the petzl zig zag I swing around trees with them but always refrain from shock loading them (factor 1 or 2 fall) I'm super curious to see how far i could fall on them before safety really becomes a concern. Like does the device fail before the rope, how does it fail, what impacts does it cause. Lile does it slow you down to the ground or does it become a free fall. Also curious to see what different tree species braches can hold and at different thicknesses. Also like how far our of a limb is safe to anchor or redirect from. Always try to stay on the trunk but just curious. I would and I know my company would pay money for content like that. It's really hard to get new guys to trust their gear and trust the trees (hell I dont trust the stuff half the time). I had a lot of fear and doubt in the beginning of my career but now I just trust things on experience because I havent dies yet. I've never actually seen concrete evidence that these things actually work 😂

as someone interested in toproping and treeclimbing this is particularly interesting and relevant for me! kinda wished you tried a unicore rope like beal's and see how it changes the desheathing force required

I'm curious about what the results would be if you tried these same tests with a unicore rope, or are the ropes you used in the video unicore? Either way, great video, I always love getting more insight into the gear I'm using.

I believe that "ventricular tachycardia" directly contributes uncontrolled sphincter spasm. The channel is awesome. I've been playing the climbing game for at least a couple of decades and wish that this kind of info was available when I was... well, more of a gumby than I am now.

I would be interested to see a video seeing how uni-core rope handles desheathing situations like this!

Amazing video! I would love to see this kind of test with a rescucender or other toothless devices (someone mentioned a roll'n'lock..)!

Dude I am learning so much about climbing gear. thank you.

Loved the ventricular tachycardia joke at 11:56 lol, I thought the same thing

Awesome Ryan! Thank you!

Hey Ryan I've heard a static should be used for TRS but your results make it sound like static and dynamic ropes desheath near the same force. Is a dynamic for TRS good enough or are there other reasons a static should be used? Thanks for the great vid.

Fantastic episode thank you! I use the micro as a back up device for my rope solo rig. Would you be willing to test the duck or the roll’n lock?

one of the best videos in a while, to my bias. i would LOVE to see a similar test with the RollNLock and Camp Lift, as these are favorites of mine that have no teeth

Super great video, i would love to see a comparison with some rope clamps like the Ropeman and the Roll n Lock

Incredible and very insightful video! I would love to see how the micro traxion compares with the new tiblock (which has a spring in it) THe Tiblock is currently debatably at the forefront of simulclimbing, because they create even less drag. Additionally, some say that it puts less force on the rope since the teeth are not on a hinge that (maybe) exponentially applies more force under the teeth! This is all speculation and things I have heard so I would love to hear a clear answer!!

Thanks! Your videos are always super good enough.

I TRS with an ascender and a microtrax pretty often. This helped a lot in learning the forces necessary to desheath. I feel pretty confident that as long as you keep slack out of the system with a chest harness (to keep the ascender pointed up so rope gets pulled through as you climb) it should be super good enough. But you really have to keep slack out which I don’t do as well for my backup (the microtrax); makes me wonder if there is a better way to manage slack there, since what is the point of a backup if it doesn’t effectively back up.

This was great Ryan, excellent information presented in a very engaging way. I do also like the scenery, that was index? I think your tight edit is almost to fast on this one though, a couple of times I had to pause it and search to read the numbers because they were on the screen for such a brief period and I was watching the image.

Omg thank you Ryan, I've been waiting for this.

As a big microtraxion fan, I really enjoyed this video. But I expected it to break higher. Usually the safety ratings give a larger margin of error. Those forces are unnervingly close to a real use case (for example, climbing above a TR solo anchor to clean it). Good stuff to keep in mind.

Have you ever done any videos on the small damage the teeth do over time? I have that petzl hand ascender and a petzl knee ascender and another boot ascender. Both petzls have teeth but the boot ascender has ribs on the cam. I've noticed the rope getting caught on the teeth a few times.

as always, great video!

Hi Ryan, When using a tube device in guide mode thinner ropes can squeeze past each other, so that the brake strand is not underneath the load strand any more but both strands squeezed side by side. This leaves the rope very hard to operate manually, but still slipping trough below bodyweight in both directions. This effect is of course dependant of device and rope. I would love to see a comparison of this videos results and the results of a similar case-study for guide-tube-devices. Thanks for reading to the end! I still absolutely love your content =)=)=)=)

would love some testing with cell tower climbing gear, a petzl grillon positioning lanyard test would be amazing!

Is this somewhere out of Darrington? I know you were up at Prusik in the Enchantments at some point, do you guys live around here?

Love this video - I use an Edelrid Spoc - it’s good to know I’m going to get at least 4KN before bad things happen. Thanks.

Falling on a fixed line even dynamic sounds unpleasant. Thanks for doing it!

3:17 "Too much teeth isn't fun y'know?" Undarrated moment

The bottom guy is one of my best friends Bobby. He's developing techniques to get stuck gear out of the rock. I love that man.

Well done on your MBS sheath tests!!

I may be watching on RU-vid and removed from the situation, but I still don’t get warm fuzzies. Thank you Ryan for doing this so I don’t have to!

Thanks Ryan! I will share this video often I believe. So many people think teeth will destroy their ropes on TRS. Myth busted! (Not that you should do a factor 1+ fall on it!!)

Fantastic video, thanks for making this content!

THANKS for all the amazing content. Have you compared these tooth devices to a stepped ladder device like the Roll N Lock by Climbing Technology? I use the Roll N Lock for simul climbing and haven't fallen on it but I use it as the ladders are purportedly gentler on the rope than teeth. Thanks again guys!!!

Would love to see similar tests with the Roll n lock it’s a bit less teethy

i’d watch grigri as a top rope solo self belay device test video👀!! did it once and did not fall but questioned the validity of the system (both with rope weighed down so the rope moves smoothly and one where you have to pull up slack as you climb)

Another big benefit to the protraxion is the ability to load it while it's clipped to the anchor.

We use the microtraxions a lot for simulclimbing big routes (>800m) never really use it for belaying seconds: enough gear in between and traxions on intermediate belays. Placing a extra piece of gear immediately after the belay to avoid lead falling (directly) on it, or in that case, at all. It's the seconds job to keep rope right, for which a grigri on the harness (or belayplate in guide mode) is very usefull to compendate for different climbing speeds in different sections (and first leading, placing gear and reading route). Works like a charm, but needs very good communication (microtrax on and off) and needs an attentive seconds. For first, doesn't change much to normal leading. Big fan! When I stop when out of gear, just belay on the plate.

@HowNOT2 Have you tested whether a device which clamps rather than bites (like a Roll N Lock) withstands bigger whips before snapping rope? Super keen to know which device is safer for simuling, even if simuling is inherently sketchy.

Hmm. Another equally common "improper (?)" usage of these guys is to place it on a piece of protection while simul-climbing, so if the second fell, it wouldn't rip the leader. I'd have to imagine that second falls in this scenario could generate forces roughly equivalent to your human testing section (3:00-5:30). Definitely makes me question that application more, seeing the fall forces you recorded there.

I have watched your video and a lot of your other videos! You do a really good job 😊 However I wondered just now, if it is safer to use the micro traxion and other similar devices with unicore-rope, that supposedly are safer than other ropes due to the way they are voven/made.

What's interesting to me isn't so much the de-sheathing but after. If I fall on an ascender and de-sheath a section of rope, do I have any chance of second chance if there's more rope under me, to hang my bodyweight on remaining strings of sheath (fouling my underwear) or am I guaranteed to be going-down fast. Your drop test was at the end of the rope so the sheath could just come off the end

Would be really interested to see the pull tests on different 6mm cord, like RAD line, Mammut Glacier cord and BD 6.0 Static. Especially how well 'non-rated' 6mm cords compare to one sold for twice the price in a fancy stuff sack.

Thanks!

Love to see this test with the CT Rollin Lock. No teeth but I've heard people say it will strip the sheath at potentially lower forces. Not sure if they are right or why that would be.

People are also using Ti-Blocks during Simu climging after hard sections so the second person would not pull down the leader in case of a fall. Would you expect similar numbers with a Ti-Block?

Have you ever tested the Roll N Lock? would be interested how the different style of teeth compare.

Your vids are getting way better.

Love the content!

Do they make ropes with dynema cores and jackets/sheaths?

I avoid using micro traxion for top roping or as a backup because it can be locked open. It is possible it gets rubbed/pushed by you or gear when climbing and it locks open. I tend to like non-toothed devices and something toothed only as a backup when needed and I select a device that cannot be locked open. Toothed devices make great backup devices if you use something like a fall arrest devices that does not work when falling head first. A toothed device is invariant to pulling direction and makes a good backup for setups like that.

Looooove HowNot2, Ryan and the crew. Quality everytime!! If a manufacturer sponsored this channel, in my opinion, it would be a positive branding strategy. Though it would need to be unbiased and unconstrained I would trust the manufacturer even more if they supplied the gear. Comming from a climber who does marketing for a living. Just a comment. Peace!

Hi, have you heard of harmonic induced gate flutter in the top quickdraw in a factor 2 fall? I know Petzl did some research and video of this pre internet but I cant find any info online. What happens is during the fall the rope as is drawn through the top draw and effect like a standing or pressure wave causes the rope to move throug the draw in very umprobably ways while some harmonic effect causes the non locking gate to flutter significantly. You would need to contrive a factor 2 or greater fall, higher the better so there is a lot of rope below to run out allowing time for harmonics to form.

Used petzl ascender & 10'5mm climbing rope for top rope soloing many times. I think it's safe. Wouldn't use any ascender or mini ascender for belaying. Thank u for the video. Very interesting. I like to see someone testing reality. I like to know when the ropes are gonna break and how. You do a very serious work here. For me one of the bottom lines of this video has been: Never, never, never, hang yourself on a rope thinner than 9mm. Those 6mm ripping at 3KN were scary.

1 meter and 6 inches has to be the world's worst metric system

This one was a bit surprising to me! Some questions that came to mind while I was watching it: 1. how does a device like the Climbing Technology Rollnlock compare? (I got one of these instead of a micro traxion because the tooth design is much less aggressive) 2. How does the rope sheath thickness affect the result? (i.e. ropes of the same diameter with different sheath %) 3. Does beal's unicore change the outcome? (i.e. if you de-sheath the rope on the drop town, does the unicore keep the test weight from decking any better than a normal rope) Maybe I should send you my chopped Beal Operas...

so could you use this in a top rope solo set up as a second device?

Have you tested the Amazon climbing ropes. Think it would be a great video. I know you have done the carabiners but haven’t seen the ropes.

so glad you made this video. I've gotten into a lot of instagram comment battles about this device. Before watching the video, I'm still not going to use it even if your rope doesn't fail. A cam is just better for your rope.

Did you do the outside stuff in Index?

Thank you

What’s difference when were falling into it on the rock face from 2m+ vs just 1m of weights on the test tower?

Can you test pro devices? Like pro traxion and ID?

Entertaining AND informative as always.

I was vibing with you on those falls 😆

Slight correction on super minor points. The EN standard for semi static ropes (EN1891) requires the information ribbon to be through the rope, with the info repeated every 1000mm. And the Micro Traction is back for 2023, and it's pretty sweet!

Every episode I think I I'm saturated by the puns, but then the puns go to the next level

Absolutely INSANE! and I LOVE IT!

3:17 amen brother 😅

It would be interesting to see the same test with a Duck or Ropeman. I sometimes belay with a Kong Duck on multi pitches when I need my hands for something else (puting on a belay jacket/gloves, drinking, eating, hauling, ect...). Would core shoot the rope? I tried looking it up a cuple of days ago but all I could find was info on the Traxions.

Great Video!

I did my own human testing on a microtrax a while back: ff1, a few feet, freefall from a beefy wood beam anchor, aggressive kip into tensed ball position, 150lbs, moderately used rope, repeated on the same spot on the rope... On 2 trials, it took me three repeats to get a core shot, I didn't test to sheath failure. I found it super good enough for TR solo'ing. Also, I suspect that if they weren't called teeth, maybe "comb" or "fids", people wouldn't hyperventilate so much.

Do you know why the EN standard for maximum allowed impact force in a fall arrest system is 6 KN? That's the force it takes to herniate a disk.I LOVE your channel, so Don't do repeated factor 1, eventualy you will F&^% up your back... also, how long did you let the rope rest between drops?

Does anyone test gears on industrial scenarios? (Construction/arborist etc.)

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Díky!

do you mind also maybe testing the new tibloc?

Were you wearing Depends when you made this video?

Great video! Could you try with a Camp Lift ascender? The Camp Lift doesn't have teeth. I use both the micro and camp devices and think t would be interesting to compare. If you want to try to compare and need help getting the device let me know, and maybe mail you one.

great video

Can you test products like Rock Exotica pulleys etc. and tests specific to commercial rope work?