There are a few other methods of lowering where this can be avoided and are probably deemed “correct”, but it’s just not instinctive. Edelrid probably eliminated the thumb shield to keep the weight down and keep the design simple, but we feel a minimalist thumb shield would have gone a long way to making lowering more pleasant. The open thumb catch means that the rope slides against your thumb and forefinger – potentially exposing your skin to rope burn on thicker ropes (we both experienced this). Lowering was unpleasant and the device lost the most points here. This would certainly improve with practice, but the other devices definitely win here. When there was a need to use the thumb catch, it was tricky to find without looking down. The recommended way of using the device is with your thumb in the thumb catch but we found it wasn’t necessary most of the time, which allows one to use a traditional two-handed motion to reduce fatigue. Giving out a lot of slack felt smooth and instinctual. Belaying with it was fluid and did not hinder the climber at any point. This device is super light and can accommodate two ropes and is multi-pitch enabled. We felt like this was the closest feel to an ATC and it looks it too. But if you are lead climbing, it can be a hindrance. It’s fool proof, cheap and would excel on a top rope setup. Their product slogan says “It’s Catchy” – but perhaps too catchy for us and requires a lot more practice. The device has a very distinctive clicking noise when in use and can be heard from across the gym or crag, it’s not a big deal but can get a little annoying. The other devices allow one to feed the slack much more like a traditional tubular device, and only when you are really feeding quickly you do not need to use the thumb lever to prevent it auto-locking. There is nothing wrong with this, but if you are used to balancing the effort of feeding slack with two-handed motion then this feels limiting and tiring. Unlike the other two devices, you have to use the thumb lever at all times when feeding slack. If your rope is even a little twisted, this compounds the issue. The rope also slipped out of the sheath more easily than the other two devices. This can probably be fixed with gaining comfort with the device, but we feel there are better choices if lead climbing is your focus. The safety element comes with a trade-off – it doesn’t feed slack to the climber very well and when we pulled out slack quickly it had a tendency to lock-up, hindering the climbing process. Lowering a climber felt effortless and totally controlled – mainly due to the long thumb lever where one can really tweak the angle with precision. While safety is all about how you use it – it just felt almost impossible to drop a climber regardless of technique or experience. It also felt like the safest for beginners with a fairly aggressive assisted-lock. This is by far the cheapest of the three devices. Instead, we focused on the devices that followed the classic tubular style. We don’t have much experience with Gri-gri belaying as we controversially believe it isn’t intuitive, so we omitted the Birdie from our process. That being said, the Birdie is cheaper and performed really well. The Birdie seemed to be very similar to the classic auto-locking Gri-Gri which has been around for 30 years without much competition. We both have a Mammut 10mm rope, a classic workhorse.Ĭoming from using an ATC which we both feel is more intuitive, we were more interested in testing the Mega Jul, Smart and Pilot. We currently use a Black Diamond ATC Guide, so we are comfortable with tubular devices. We have been climbing for about 2 years so we are relative newbies – we are mainly focused on outdoor sport climbing. These devices were the Edelrid Mega Jul, Black Diamond ATC Pilot, Mammut Smart and we also tried the auto-locking Beal Birdie. Wanting to be as informed as possible we asked if we could try all the new devices that the CityRock gear shop sold. With the new Edelrid Mega Jul there are now three tubular assisted devices to choose from at the CityRock gear shop, so what better time could there be to do a roundup. Gambling Casinos tell us that “winners know when to stop”, and when you hit your mid-twenties, assisted braking devices start to look like a good idea. We have never “written up” anything before so don’t judge us too hard!Īh, the good old (bug, tube, etc) – it’s classic, dependable, and totally prone to error. We are relative novices and don’t have a mountaineering/trad background, so this is more geared at other newbies looking at getting an auto-lock device for the first time. Myself and buddy Andre were comparing some of the new devices, and saw others had the same questions – so we put together a little comparison to help out. Review by Fabian Humphry and Andrè le Roux CityROCK loved this review found in the forum, so we’ve posted it here for you to enjoy!
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