ShooterMike
Well-Known Member
(Edit: I was typing this, as you were posting your last response.)
I’m curious about the load on the rope. It could be as simple as a higher load requires more force to “Un-brake” the rope. The Mad Rock tends to be a little “on-off” until you get the hang of it. So I weigh 150lbs. Pulling the handle to “Un-brake” doesn’t take as much force as if I weighed 250lbs. The brake on these devices is purely mechanical. The working end of the rope is pulling the cam in to a position where it locks the tag end of the rope against a gate. The more force against the gate, the more force required to open it. The only difference between the Safeguard and Lifeguard is that the Safeguard has a spring to hold the cam back against “minor” tension, which buys you a fraction of a second in the event of a fall if you’re in a lead rope configuration (tending the belay from the ground, while a climber is above you).
Hopefully that makes sense.
What rope are you using? It may be advantageous to try a dynamic rope if you’re using static rope currently. The dynamic rope will “soften” the action of the belay device slightly. Slightly. In our short ascents and descents, I haven’t found any true benefit of using one rope type over the other. Even if you DRT with a Blake’s hitch configuration, you won’t find tremendous benefit of static over dynamic. I thought it would be super spongy, it’s not, really.
Just my nickels worth. Hope you figure it out.
Semper Fi,
Mike
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I’m curious about the load on the rope. It could be as simple as a higher load requires more force to “Un-brake” the rope. The Mad Rock tends to be a little “on-off” until you get the hang of it. So I weigh 150lbs. Pulling the handle to “Un-brake” doesn’t take as much force as if I weighed 250lbs. The brake on these devices is purely mechanical. The working end of the rope is pulling the cam in to a position where it locks the tag end of the rope against a gate. The more force against the gate, the more force required to open it. The only difference between the Safeguard and Lifeguard is that the Safeguard has a spring to hold the cam back against “minor” tension, which buys you a fraction of a second in the event of a fall if you’re in a lead rope configuration (tending the belay from the ground, while a climber is above you).
Hopefully that makes sense.
What rope are you using? It may be advantageous to try a dynamic rope if you’re using static rope currently. The dynamic rope will “soften” the action of the belay device slightly. Slightly. In our short ascents and descents, I haven’t found any true benefit of using one rope type over the other. Even if you DRT with a Blake’s hitch configuration, you won’t find tremendous benefit of static over dynamic. I thought it would be super spongy, it’s not, really.
Just my nickels worth. Hope you figure it out.
Semper Fi,
Mike
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk