Got to put mine to the test today with all of my final modifications made to the sticks. My review:
The Good:
Weight - The light weight is truly great. I hang them from a kydex clip attached to my saddle and the feel is amazing.
Noise - Once stealth stripped, there was no noise. Less than my Hawks. All of the whining I've heard here about that has been ridiculous.
Tree Attachment - The dynalite attachment method is dynamite. I'll see after time if the dyneema starts fraying. That's my only fear. But so far so good.
Space - I'm a size 10 shoe, and there was more than enough purchase for me feet on the tops. I angled my feet more than with the Hawks, but I liked the feel on my feet better than my Heliums. I can see how it might be a bit too little for guys with enormous feet, but it was great for me.
The Bad:
Stacking Attachment - Is improved now that I have the smaller orange pins in the top that Tethrd mailed me this week. Still very frustrating to get them apart without making noise or banging your hand against some sharp metal piece on some portion of the stick. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had to drill through the old stacking pins to get them out and swap them out because a punch and the world's strongest hammer wasn't working. No bueno.
Organizing ropes: no easy way to wind the dyneema around the sticks individually because it blocks the pin attachment in most lengthwise configurations. I ended up stacking them 2 by 2 and wrapping both ropes around the two stick bundle together. Tethrd: The sticks need a plastic component that encircles the tube of each stick that offers some way to hold and wrap the rope, like a vacuum cleaner.
Tube tops open - Technically, this could cause clanging echo noises, so if I hadn't fixed this, noise would have been in the Bad category as a whole. Tethrd needs to put rubber stoppers upon sale in the top.
For the tops and bottoms of the tubes, rather than spraying like others have done, I purchased solid rubber stoppers from Amazon and then sawed them to fit into the holes without too much overlap. Because the girth increases as the stopper gets longer, it's a snug fit. I didn't need to glue because they don't come out, even if you shake them upside down. Spraying foam is unnecessary.
Length of steps - 4 steps plus a 2 step aider on the bottom step only got me 18 feet up.
Notes: As I mentioned in a previous post, I simply "girth hitched" my spliced eye EWO two step aider onto the bottom step of my bottom stick. This method works excellent, and seems much better and safer than the method Tethrd recommends with a bungee holding the ends of the aider on the stick. See attached image. It's also unbelievably easy to put on/take off so you could move the aider with ease between steps.
All in all, I like them a lot. I wish I didn't have to do so much work on them out of the box, but I plan on using them this fall as my primary climbing method.
Will be practicing in the meantime and will let you all know if I experience any issues. If Tethrd didn't rush so much and got all of these issues addressed up front, these would be taking the saddle world by storm. They have great ideas. They should commit themselves to better testing and implementing recommendations before launch. Not having an aider for sale designed for the system to buy with the sticks is still mind blowing to me, considering the money that could be made and the convenience to the consumer.
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