Looking for the ideal rope.

[CutHighnLetFly]

The rope flattening does cause a bit of loss of grip, because in essence the diameter is becoming smaller through one cross section of the rope, and the wider cross section isn't helping with grip the orientation, of [the now oval] rope, can be, not were it's best to get a good grip. Also, think about it's almost as if the rope becomes a ratchet strap, which we know is not grippy to climb.
I was thinking about getting the Imori, but decided against it because it, was more stretchy than I would want, and it bunches up - too loose of a braid for self tending in tight pruning areas.
I don't believe the rope I'm hoping to find exists, that's why I hope to get a local manufacturer to make it, and hopefully they listen, because if such a rope doesn't exists, people(climbing customers) may realize this rope is ideal, so I shouldn't need to preorder tens of thousand of dollars worth of this new rope, it may catch on.

One thing that baffles me, is there are so many similar ropes in the market today, for instance Poison Ivy and Blue Moon, Edelrid Direction Up and Vortex, Adrenaline and Xstatic, (yea I know Xstatic is a bit more static, but they're just not purposely different enough), it seems these rope companies are just playing the imitation game, trying to fit in to a fad, that doesn't really have a utilitarian ideology, to create a well thought out rope.

And, quite baffling, is no other climber I've talked to sees the need for such a rope, though I think it would catch on if the average climber gave it at least a hard thought, if not, certainly a climb.

You're shopping for a rope to solve a problem that only exists because of how your trying to use your components. If you're going to hand over hand your ass into trees, a firm handed rope for sure seems important. But if you're going to climb using a zigzag on a doubled rope system, you don't want super static, high cover strand count ropes. Those are smooth and hard the hand, and when ascending hand over hand if you're ending up with slack in your ropes often and took a little.bit of a fall into the slack, you definitely don't want a super static line.
Do you use a friction saver when you're getting into and work the trees?
I know you dismissed it in an earlier post, but teufelberger Xstatic will meet the needs you have. Don't dismiss it just because you didn't create it or because it sounds similar to other ropes. From my understanding you plan to use it in trees so I wouldn't ignore the arborist ropes in the market. The more types you try and the more you learn better / different climbing techniques, the more you will understand the options

 

[moss]

What I am getting at here @Willber is try getting a chicane and using ascenders for initial ascent. Then switch over to DRT with just the Zigzag and ditch the ascenders with chicane. You will save your shoulders and arms a lot of wear and tear as your career rolls on. As for rope I cannot advise there. I think you are overthinking things. I use no gloves and never have problems with grip because of minimal flattening. Wish you all the best figuring things out. We all have that journey. Welcome to the BUZZ.

Wisdom

 

[ATH]

.... You will save your shoulders and arms a lot of wear and tear as your career rolls on. ...

And hands. Read up on ergonomics. Read here about how many have carpel tunnel issues or the like.

If you are going to hand over hand, honestly, the best bet would be send up a climbing line for tie in, then pull a 1.5"+ rope parallel to that for climbing with hands. It will go a long way to preserve the longevity of your grip strength.

 

[Serf Life]

The nylon poly stretches more than the all poly. Need some stretch in case of failure. I find it to be a bit bouncy only on the 1st 15 to 20ft of a 50 plus ascent.
If you remember a few yrs ago I had two failures. a bridge in combo with a limb i was lanyard-ed into. Softer drop for slightly dislocated middle finger tip. thank god for back ups.
I would love to climb on something more static but the nature of trees here/hidden ice storm damage being the big one is something we need to be always prepared for.

Could you refresh us with the story? Or link to “awakening”? Thanks

 

[moss]

Was just handling a well-used 150' hank of a Yale 11.7mm double-braid, the stuff is is hard as nails, not going to go out of round under load too easily. The cover is in decent shape, passes inspection for broken strands etc, but terrible hand, work hardened to the max. Not going to be climbing on it anymore.
-AJ

 

[islandarb]

Was just handling a well-used 150' hank of a Yale 11.7mm double-braid, the stuff is is hard as nails, not going to go out of round under load too easily. The cover is in decent shape, passes inspection for broken strands etc, but terrible hand, work hardened to the max. Not going to be climbing on it anymore.
-AJ

That is when it is time. Becomes cable like. Have had so many die that death.

 

[Serf Life]

@Willber

 

[moss]

What a great vid!
-AJ

 

[islandarb]

What a great vid!
-AJ

I endorse this 100%

 

[RopeShield]

Could you refresh us with the story? Or link to “awakening”? Thanks

Web bridge and Limb fail

Just finished the gear work a few days ago and collected my 2% bonus. It's about time to start knocking out some tree work. When are we going to climb some giants? Our GIS guy says he has several big ones that are about 300' based on the LIDAR data. If you want to run up here and help measure...

www.treebuzz.com

 

[Chris Schultz]

I endorse this 100%

That vid was the nudge I needed awhile back to embrace SRT/SRS etc…..

 

[Dan Cobb]

What a great vid!
-AJ

Maybe a great message, but not a great video in my opinion. If the video had a better setting, decent lighting and was reduced to 3 minutes, it would be much better IMHO. Reg appears to have superlative tree skills, but this video could be much better. Making videos is a completely different skill set than tree work.

 

[Chris Schultz]

Maybe a great message, but not a great video in my opinion. If the video had a better setting, decent lighting and was reduced to 3 minutes, it would be much better IMHO. Reg appears to have superlative tree skills, but this video could be much better. Making videos is a completely different skill set than tree work.

Reg puts up some of the best content on YouTube. Maybe his delivery is lost on some viewers, but he does create lots of great content.

 

[moss]

Maybe a great message, but not a great video in my opinion. If the video had a better setting, decent lighting and was reduced to 3 minutes, it would be much better IMHO. Reg appears to have superlative tree skills, but this video could be much better. Making videos is a completely different skill set than tree work.

I love the funk myself. Then again I've always loved Delta blues and punk rock ;-)

The message is what counts and he gets it across quite well. Mr. Coates is doing just fine talking in his shed.

When a person of his experience speaks from their personal experience, it has high credibility, very effective as far as I see it.
-AJ

 

[islandarb]

Maybe a great message, but not a great video in my opinion. If the video had a better setting, decent lighting and was reduced to 3 minutes, it would be much better IMHO. Reg appears to have superlative tree skills, but this video could be much better. Making videos is a completely different skill set than tree work.

Hmmmm. Hell no. That vid is spot on. What folks need to hear. Sweat and graft allows him to speak from his shed. He is a legend because of his work. His vids are epic. This man is solid. F*#k lighting. This is not hollywood. Just saying.

 

[Dan Cobb]

...F*#k lighting. This is not hollywood. Just saying.

I'm not "dissing" Reg's message, tree skills or experience. It's precisely the "Hollywood" aspects that I believe could be much improved. For example, due to the backlighting, his face is in deep shadow and the top of his head is way over lit. The only way the lighting could be much worse is to not have any.

I made videos professionally for several years, amongst other duties. Starting out, I knew enough to know I was pretty ignorant of how to make good videos, so I took classes and learned quite a bit, yet only scratched the surface of that field of expertise. That experience makes technical errors jump out at me. Probably similar to how you easily spot technical errors made in tree work.

 

[Willber]

You're shopping for a rope to solve a problem that only exists because of how your trying to use your components. If you're going to hand over hand your ass into trees, a firm handed rope for sure seems important. But if you're going to climb using a zigzag on a doubled rope system, you don't want super static, high cover strand count ropes. Those are smooth and hard the hand, and when ascending hand over hand if you're ending up with slack in your ropes often and took a little.bit of a fall into the slack, you definitely don't want a super static line.
Do you use a friction saver when you're getting into and work the trees?
I know you dismissed it in an earlier post, but teufelberger Xstatic will meet the needs you have. Don't dismiss it just because you didn't create it or because it sounds similar to other ropes. From my understanding you plan to use it in trees so I wouldn't ignore the arborist ropes in the market. The more types you try and the more you learn better / different climbing techniques, the more you will understand the options

Yes, maybe I have an unusual approach to tree climbing with a rope, but I think it's good to start climbing from the lowest access point so one is more likely get familiar and asses the tree, as they go up.
Is it not true that many climbers pruning dead wood out of high far reaching limbs of the crown, in this area, only use DRT because it allows for quick reattaching to a new nearby area without have to change your location, to reattach?
I'm not not saying I won't or don't plan on using ascenders to quickly more efficiently ascend to where I need to prune.
It's just I think a tight cover rope like the Beal, will flow even better through ascenders, and the grip will be more consistent in one's hands given that it will never flatten even under great pressure.

The Beal has both a nylon core and cover, I notice the Beal has great grip, maybe it's partly because nylon is more porous than polyester. Also, the good balance of stiffness to flexibility may be partly because the nylon sheath.
It also has held up very well to abrasion, because I used it with DRT over many rough branches, and shows no unusual wear.

I never have slack on my DRT line. At this time I'm only using a leather sleeve.
My reservations about Xstatic is that it can be compressed between the fingers (will flatten more than the Beal), it doesn't have a 48 strand or high carrier count.

I just wish Yale made the Scandere with a much tighter cover, keeping it at 11.8 to 12mm. I'm guessing they didn't make the cover tighter(stiffer rope) because it is already innately stiff being a 48strand. Maybe they could make it with a nylon sheath.
One thing about the Beal is when it was new it couldn't be easily put into a rope bucket it was very stiff, but I think that's a trade off of a stiff rope that needs to be broken-in to reach a point of a good balance between stiffness and flexibility. The Beal after it was broken ties great knots, but could not be compressed between your index finger and thumb.

 

[Crimsonking]

So you’ve only pinched xstatic? It’s my most used rope right now because it works so well with the rope runner pro, a device that will flatten any rope. I don’t like it in the zigzag, though, because it doesn’t self tend easily- because it’s stiff. I’ve never flattened a rope with the zigzag, so I’m not sure why flattening is still being discussed, but I think that’s already been said.

Xstatic offers a good diameter, retains its shape better than most, and is easy on the hands. I don’t like it for everything, but it always comes out to play with the runner.

 

[CutHighnLetFly]

Yes, maybe I have an unusual approach to tree climbing with a rope, but I think it's good to start climbing from the lowest access point so one is more likely get familiar and asses the tree, as they go up.
Is it not true that many climbers pruning dead wood out of high far reaching limbs of the crown, in this area, only use DRT because it allows for quick reattaching to a new nearby area without have to change your location, to reattach?
I'm not not saying I won't or don't plan on using ascenders to quickly more efficiently ascend to where I need to prune.
It's just I think a tight cover rope like the Beal, will flow even better through ascenders, and the grip will be more consistent in one's hands given that it will never flatten even under great pressure.

The Beal has both a nylon core and cover, I notice the Beal has great grip, maybe it's partly because nylon is more porous than polyester. Also, the good balance of stiffness to flexibility may be partly because the nylon sheath.
It also has held up very well to abrasion, because I used it with DRT over many rough branches, and shows no unusual wear.

I never have slack on my DRT line. At this time I'm only using a leather sleeve.
My reservations about Xstatic is that it can be compressed between the fingers (will flatten more than the Beal), it doesn't have a 48 strand or high carrier count.

I just wish Yale made the Scandere with a much tighter cover, keeping it at 11.8 to 12mm. I'm guessing they didn't make the cover tighter(stiffer rope) because it is already innately stiff being a 48strand. Maybe they could make it with a nylon sheath.
One thing about the Beal is when it was new it couldn't be easily put into a rope bucket it was very stiff, but I think that's a trade off of a stiff rope that needs to be broken-in to reach a point of a good balance between stiffness and flexibility. The Beal after it was broken ties great knots, but could not be compressed between your index finger and thumb.

I can tell by every thing you're saying you just need to spend more time around well versed arborists. No reason one can't assess a tree while easily rope walking up a rope woth ascenders. Dare I say it's easier to do a better assessment because I can focus on the tree as I go, not attaching and reattaching systems. Also, you will learn that attaining one main tie in point to work the whole tree is preferable and quicker than continuously.resetting your ddrt set up over and over, if im understanding how you're climbing. When yoi hand over hand your way up a rope with your zig zag, outside of someone being below you tending your slack while you go, I can't see how you wouldn't have slack above your system from time to time. Not saying that's even a big deal, it's what happens when. I hand over hand using ddrt, I get it.
Those higher cover count ropes knot like shit. The bends of the rope compress the high cover count on one side and stretch them excessively on the back side of the bend.
Like I said, you're super observant and this is great, but spend some time observing people who have been doing this a long time and what they are using and why.

 

[islandarb]

Andre now that is a great post. Was thinking of how to reply to him without breaking his spirit. You did it perfectly. He will be fine. Just needs a Yale 11.7 poly/poly. Lol. The light will go on and a wrench, footie and a SAKA....even better.