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Skinny wee things made from stainless steel? You're being scared of the boogy man
The big dees are heavy and get in the way. Besides, they don't allow me to use the dee as a slack tender for the lanyard. When I climbed on the SM I cut off the large dees and replaced them with square Maillon Rapides so that I could use the ART lanyard adjuster and then moved onto the current version of a slack tender. Having the small dees makes for a more stream lined harness when I have to move through brushy trees.
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I know, I know, they are just as strong, but Komet better not make those side Ds any smaller or they will be 2mm thick! how scary would that be to climb on. Is this what we can expect in the future?
Making hardware small and compact like Japanese electronic gadgets is fine. But when you start to scale down the hardware on a harness, this leads to trying to scale down everything on the harness in order to make it more lighter and compact.
Webbing gets narrower across the width which leads to more weight being applied to a smaller area of the climber, leg loops get smaller and flimsy like the repugnant leg loops on the Komet Butterflies and similar harnesses. The New Tribe Harness Leg Loops look bizarre but there is infinitly better weight dissipation over the triangular shape, I am surprised that no other big harness makers have copied this design and refined it. The treemotion has made the legloops wider it would seem from photos. The hardware on the New Tribe needs some work to.
The smaller the leg loops the more likely you will suffer from hamstring and groin strain. This is why many people prefer the batten seat type harnesses. The batten seat harnesses Buck Trav, Komet Dragonfly/Evolution, Cresto SkyBelt and the big fat Petzl one easily provided better support to the upper leg of the climber. But there is a compromise in the ability to spread your legs wide between foot holds.
The weight issue of a harness is a non issue, a Komet Butterfly laden with extra metalware and gadgets is gonna be heavier than a bog standard Weaver. In fact I have worked with a climber who said he loved his Butterfly because it was so lightweight, but he used a GriGri attached to his side Ds, carried a figure 8 descender, Large Silky Sugoi and a set of Felcos and 2 spare biners as well as various other trivial nonsense. We weighed it against another climber's Weaver who did not carry a lot of extras and the Butterfly was much heavier.
So the weight issue is a folly.
Also when you have the harness on it becomes part of you. Its not like you are carrying it up the tree on your shoulder.
The bigger 'heavier?' harnesses like the Buck Trav, Sierra Moreno Backlite, Weaver, Cresto SkyBelt and fatty Petzl(sorry I forgot the name) provide better support all round to the climber.
From the photos it looks like the Treemotion is coming back to meet these harnesses with its wider legloops and wider back support, although the narrow webbing is concerning re weight dissipation when the back support and leg loops become soft through regular use, have to wait and see I suppose.
I think to carry on making harnesses smaller and lighter and more compact is a mistake, They end up looking like rock climbing harnessess, which were never designed for hanging around in for any length of time.
