Just make the carabiner opening face the opposite direction of where you climb. Alternate if it’s straight up. Problem solved and this is how it is actually taught by every climbing school. I am very much into safety but padlocks in every quickdraw is just not necessary and an unbearable hassle. I would always use biners with padlock at the Top, though.
Me too, I was always taught to face gates away from the direction of travel. Seems like such a fundamental rule but I can see how it might get overlooked.
@@SOUND_PROVIDERnot just overlooked. If you don’t know which way you will go after clipping, or, you start out in one direction, then curve to end up on the other side. I too learned and try to clip like this, but there are plenty of times you end up that way any way. That one reason for locking draws.
Many times? really? Did this ever result in an injury? I find this so surprising. I've been climbing 20+ years and I don't think I've ever seen this even once in a real climbing situation, except in a forced demo like the video shows.
Loved this style of video! Sometimes, it feels like we lose your personality and "air of expertise" when things get edited for brevity and to cover as much info/data as possible... this was concise AND had that Ryan Factor™ P.S glad it was just a little welt on your arm and not something worse
Just ran across this channel. Very Interesting. I climbed a lot in the 70's and 80's. Big Wall, Alpine, and vertical ice. In the intervening years I spent a lot of time working with heavy rigging. When using any fiber rope or sling (steel, nylon, hemp, sisal, whatever) one of the major factors in strength is fiber bend radius. A carabiner when used with typical climbing ropes and slings has a suitable bend radius to allow the rope or sling to achieve the rated strength. Most fibers lose strength with age (no matter the material), which exacerbates the problem. I think the issue with the sling breaking on the wire gate is due to the reduced bend radius. The gate deformed and the bend was over one wire (greatly reduced radius from the carabiner itself). This is also why knots cause a problem. The bend radius within a knot under load is less than a rope over a carabiner. Some knots are worse than others. In your video where you were pull testing a triple anchor with a sling that contained a figure eight knot, you asserted that the multiple legs counteracted (cancelled out) the "50%" strength loss. As I remember in a multi anchor situation, we set it up so the sling always equalized (no knots). The "redundancy" was the shared load amongst the multiple anchors. I would like to see the knot on multiple legs theory tested, as I do not believe it is so cut-and-dried as 2 legs times 50% is equal to 100% of 1 leg. I really like that your testing methods/conditions as they are attempting to get as close to real world conditions as possible. I am afraid that a lot of strength testing is too laboratory perfect. In other words those wire gate carabiners were never tested with the sling cinched around the gate itself. In a long lead, particularly with direction changes and changes in tension, maybe even a fall, the carabiners move or bounce around. It is pretty easy to imagine the sling getting caught on the gate (particularly the narrow sling you were testing). I have never used wire gate carabiners, but I have always been skeptical of them. I think I prefer the extra weight. Keep up the good work !
2:46 Bro-ham-sef, if you already think eye prop is warranted, just go for the additional face shield too. It really sucks to put on eye pro and then still get smacked in the mouth and chipping a tooth...
Watching both the dogbone and hanger snag on notch contributing to the probability of this failure mode, my first thought was "and this is why I use notchless carabiners." My sport draws are keylocks (Spirits) and my alpines are shielded notches (Hoodwires)... things can still go wrong, but some risk mitigation is better than no mitigation.
@@CanyoneeringUSAwiregate won’t open when the QuickDraw is hit hard enough. That’s the big upside. (And weight) Personally I still prefer good quality QuickDraws without wiregates like the Spirits or Alphas.
I feel like that would be very hard to predict/replicate. If you fall wrong, you can break your ankle from a couple feet up. If you fall right, you can fall 10+ feet and walk away with as little as a bruise even without a pad. Plus there's the condition of the landing, whether the pad is over a rock or soft dirt.
0:10 would note this is why I prefer mixed draws but the solid gate should be bolt side and with the loose part of the dogbone while the wire is rope side and affixed into place. Loose dogbone will make turning the carabiner less likely as you travel, minimizing the unclipping risk, and the tight side with a keeper makes clipping easier as well as helps with orientation. As to clipping direction, should just become habit to set a draw against the direction of travel, but the likelihood is vanishingly minimal that I would never unclip and reclip the draw.
I have been climbing for over 20 years,😊 and I've spent more than 1000 days climbing. In that time I have had a draw unclip on me on 2 occasions: once due to a back clip, and I believe the other was the unclip you demonstrated. A friend broke a biner over a corner, and I do not trust badly located bolts as a result
Long time subscriber to the AAC “Accidents in North America” fascinating faces of death reading of “How Not To” before the internet and this channel… It’s about time the two of you met…
While I'll never be in anything remotely like good enough shape for climbing, I'm still fascinated by your testing. I have a bunch of the tiny S-carabiners, mostly from Nite-Ize, which I use for things like keys and USB sticks. Not remotely as strong as the ones you work with, but very handy things nonetheless. Watching these tests, I feel like I have a better understanding of what happens to climbers.
Awesome videos!!! Been getting into climbing. My partner uses slings as personal anchors when doing set ups for top ropes or abseils. I personally think they leave way too much slack and will get very hurt if they do fall. I’ve brought a rock empire PIP Adjustable Lanyard for them. Was wondering the difference in forces between that and a sling in a factor 1 fall. Is it worth having if they don’t keep it tight vs having a sling? Or is it’s utility is being able to quickly have a small line so you aren’t falling very far?
The rotation unclip is not just theory. Have had a friend on lead unclip her draw like that at third bolt right after crux, I was mortified because she was clearly at ground fall factor but going back was not feasible so I just shut my trap and watched with hope and terror while she was clipping her next piece. So it's a real thing, pay attention to how you clip and what happens with your rope.
Always informative vids, remember out there,the same could happen when trad climbing and extending a wire. As the vid says, spine of the draw towards direction of travel. Simples.
I bet you could anchor a bit of plywood at the top of the drop tree with no real damage to the tree and make it removeable but at least you would have some more shrapnel protection than just the tree.
I use a homemade pulley and caribener system system in my home gym, for things like tricep press downs and overhead tricep extensions. I have had the type of break happen there. Things get shifted as the wire is repeatedly put under tension, then released. I have had two breaks like this. Not life threatening, but def a shock to have 80lbs drop off all at once 😅
Yeah this seemed strange to me. I'm in Blue Mountains Australia where we often have solid gate on top to fit well with bolt plates and wire gate on bottom to reduce weight. I don't understand why if you have wire gate on top anyway that you wouldn't have it on both ends
The dogbone catching on the gate like that seems like a relatively easy fix for manufacturers, just a few strategic bumps on the carabiner body would let the dogbone slide on/off the gate even under load.
I thought that in general we clip the rope to the wire gate and not the solid gate? It seems like the biners in your first example were backwards. Happy for someone to correct me.
Love how the conclusions for most of these is simply “Oh no, they broke less than they’re rated in this weird situation. Still rated higher than what you probably need, but scary.”
I got more out of it than that, tbh… - Pay attention to the draws beneath you. - this can happen - put the spine in the direction that you are climbing - Just because he measured a 7/8 kN here (sample size of 2), doesn’t mean that’s what you’re going to get on an older draw or a subtly compromised draw.
Thinking of a dual gate carabiner, each end with it's own gate, which would be difficult to cross load even deliberately without putting both connections in the same gate.
Excellent testing. More excellent trolling with the sample size comment. *Pointer: In a mixed draw, the wire gate is rope side anyway so this should be even more rare.
Noooo, I'm not scared to climb now....... I'm just going to switch all my carabiners over to steel quick links. Not really worried about the extra weight but I'm need to remind the people I climb with to bring adjustable spanners with them to undo those quick links 😁😂 Seriously, it's always good to remind people about the reasons for installing pro in the correct orientation. Happy Christmas, Ryan and team. Hope you have a great one 👍
Oh geez. Definitely more gear fear now after seeing that caribiner unclip from a hanger. I thought the directional quickdraw placement was an old-timer myth, forever lost in the sands of time, until now. It's reared it's zombie head! Do we need to worry about the direction of the quickdraw or not?!? What's AMGA say?
3:28 the opening was 1/2 on the dogbone as a result the part sticking up ripped a hole in the middle then the part at the right (in the video) ripped, then it slid down and the other half ripped completely disconnecting.
Hm.. I would assume this could be a potential failure mode of the carabineer. I would love if this issue could be followed by some more tests on how hard it is to replicate this with a rope or even change in design to mitigate it.
Did you test other brands? I ask because you mentioned seeing if it was a problem with a specific design but all I saw was Black Diamond. The nose is honestly the biggest difference between the CAMP, BD, and Metolius small wiregates so I'm not sure it would surprise me if some brands are worse than others in this particular failure mode. (Honestly not that I would change my buying decisions even if it were. This is too low a risk factor)
If you ship only 6 days a week, and also ship on the day that I order, who's doing the shipping on the 7th day? or am I blocked from ordering 1 day a week? or everyone is unknowingly synchronized to only order 6 days of the week, and you get 1 for resting? how are you controlling us? The answer to those, and many more questions, on the next episode of HowNot2
- ha ha.... Pretty sure you can order any day - the postal corps may not do collections on that one day - guess which one?? - probably not Monday. Synch however you like.
@@kadmow really? I thought USA postal system worked 24/7, with total disregard for the basic human need of resting... Thats kind of a socialist behavior, to give employees a sunday to rest, wtf america
Because the quick draw needs to flex as the climber climbs above it. If it was held in both places it would move the top biner into a compromised position.
If understanding how accidents occur makes you afraid, then you probably shouldn't be climbing. It is better to know so you can avoid than to be ignorant and increase your likelihood of error.
