ben kirkham
Reviewed: 11 February 2002
ITS LIGHT, STRONG, & A PIECE OF PISS TO USE
Where do I begin, well its lighter, which means, whether your on a sports route or trad, your going to have less weight round your waiste liable to swing and throw you off balance and make you the source of much hilarity in the pub after your fall. They are also thinner than most traditional clips, and as such you can carry more of them. The wire gate makes clipping those precious bolts, rope and pro extremely easy in summer and in winter with your mits on, rare though often demonstrated by retail gear men and women is the fact that these little babies dont suffer from gate bounce, confused, I was, apparently when these clips get knocked about by moving ropes etc, the gate is not prone to opening and closing a fraction as are some of the more traditional clips, although I havent experienced this phenomina before I can see what they are getting at, so another plus for peace of mind.
They are also available in two possibly three colours now, which makes gear organising, retrieval whilst climbing and colour co-ordination at the crag, very easy indeed.
To be honest the only one I could think of is that the gate strength will not be as strong as the a standard clip should the clip rotate during use and the rope carry along the wire gate, having said that, if it is placed properly in the first place and a castration ring or equivalent device is used on the runner sling, a karabina should'nt rotate, but it does happen from time to time, so bears thinking about.
Hang on a mo, I've just thought of a couple other things worth considering, you can get karabinas cheaper, however, if weight and ease of us is what your after these have it. The other thing is that after a a while more so on trad routes as you tend to bury gear in cracks etc, the finish does get a little damaged but not greatly, if however this is a problem to you, black diamond do a standard metal finish wire crab although not as light it wont look as used as soon as the wildwire.
Brilliant, and also available in a draw set with one blue and one red clip either side of 2 standard lengths of half stitched through dyneema slings.
They are light and easy to use without compromising on strength, and god damn it they look good.
As a final note, shop around when buying these fellas, prices tend to vary greatly, so far the best places I have found are outside, and that big place in Nottingham, both also sell finish seconds, so if looks arent a problem, save yourself a couple of quid and go for the seconds, they are going to look slightly less polished after a few years of use any how.
