Rupe

Heres Germany's Ronnie Epple at the same event, comes second. [ame] [/ame]

There is often a bit of rope pullign involved, and that tree had a bit more than usual but it was the best tree on the site for that event IMO.

No. Its Jon the European champion.

Maybe we could all put up some videos if we have them, or as and when we take some this year. It would be good if we put who, what and where in before each video. I'll start off, but I can only find footlocking ones!! Jon T again France 2006. [ame] [/ame]

Steve, The Guildford comp two years ago had a good 90foot speedclimb! This year it is being held at the same place so might be the same tree. Our Alex stopped for coffee on the way up!!

A top tip, which 80% of the competitors forget is ............ Don't drink more than 6 pints the night before!!! Work climb is usually 5-7 minutes, thats all! You should be ok, and then there is always a wait till the next event.

I pay £6 pair for tw 4inch blades, a bit more of they are heavily damaged, The company I use colects them and returns them for a pound each way, so I tend to do three pairs at once. The delivery van comes my way once a week so I send them on a wednesday and get them back on the following wednesday.

No one can or will make you do all five, but yes, to complete the comp would require you to do all five. Problem is that a poor time (20 seconds slower than the fastest) will score you zero points on footlock and speedclimb, so some people would rather skip these events rather than struggle and wear themselves out for no points and minor embarassment! However it snot really in the spirit of things to miss an event, so you would be encouraged to do all of them, and completing the footlock/speedclimb is an achievement that is worthwhile.

Heres Jon T doing work climb in Ireland 2006. LIsten out for the voice of the Honey Monster!! [ame] [/ame]

If you turn up to watch, then yo might as well have a go, as most of the day is spent watching anyway. In fact if you add up the times for each event then you spend less than half an hour competing and the rest watching. You don't need chainsaw trousers, obviose maybe, but many can't imagine climbing without them! Jeans are fine, and if you have any fabric type walking boots then they are good and fun to climb in compared to chainsaw boots. Helemt and glasses, harness and rope thats about it really. When I started I had to borrow nearly everything! I've done nearly 30 comps now and am still learning stuff, its all good. It will be the best value tree climbing course you will ever go on! Gauranteed!

Sure yes, thats what I mean. An increase of cycles to failure decreases the cycles to failure that you have left. Takes you towards failure. Something like that.

There seems to be soem miss quoting going on above, but anyway you don't need a safety factor 20, 10 is plenty but if you want to use 20 then thats fine. Shabz, with your working you say that to rescue two of you needs krabs 0f 24kn. I see how you arrived at that figure, but your combined weight is 240kgs which is fractionally over the swl of the (22kn gear) but still well within the MBS. Continually going over the swl increases the "cycles to failure" and is not good, but theres is nothign wron gwith rescuing another guy your size in an emergency. Afterwards you may want get your gear lolerered again as it was subjected to a load above swl but the guy you rescued would still be alive. Chris has pointed out all the technical stuff better than anyone else can, the rest of us should relax and get on with our jobs becasue 22kn is plenty and guys like chris have done extensive testing of various situations. We don't need to get too bogged down with it all. HAvign said that, if I hired a 150kgs climber I might get him to use steel 30kn krabs!!!!

The reasoning works if you start with the climber, and say 1 climber = 100 kgs +10 for clothing/kit/saw 110 kgs. Then x2 for rescue purposes =220kg then factor 10 for safety 220x10 = 2200kgs =22Kn. That would be good logic!

Except american ones rated at 5000 pounds but then they wouldn't have a CE mark and most american stuff is way over 5000 pounds anyway (can't imagine why) so it only tends to be when they buy our gear that a problem can arise.

Nowt wrong with that. Weigh the guy that says it should be 10 times the weight of the climber then see what gear you can buy that is that low in rating!! I'm heavy-ish at max 90kgs, so I need gear with MBS 9kn? I don't think so.

Its 22kn. Its 5000 pounds in the states which is just under 22kn, so thats why they dont like some euro stuff!! 17kn was mentioned above, thats fine for prussike loops etc if tied in a loop method with both legs secured, single leg friction hitches (blakes and helical) should be tied with 22kn stuff although this generally is more than enough as only half your wight is on the hitch most of time. There is no way that you start with the weight of climber and go ten times up from that. Whoever is arguing that should be shot!! 22kn mbs= 220 kgs swl. (one tenth) one climber is (easy maths) 100kgs so 22kn is plenty and also its plenty for rescue purposes as wel..

I think most pulleys will take one size up in split tails. This is plenty to give the extra strength required at the anchor point. Squeezing a 19mm split tail into a 16mm pulley is not going to weaken it and certain not by more than you have gained in moving up from a 16mm anyway.

19mm or 20mm is rarely needed IMO. I have some 19mm thats been used twice for blocking down wellingtonia, never needed it on anything else and we like to drop big stuff on the GRCS no and then. !6mm will do for virtually everything. I recently got some 13mm and I love it but have manged up till now with just the 16mm. You'll need the ISC medium blocks, they are usually the blue ones, a couple of those and your sorted for eveything. ISC gold rescue pulleys will take 16mm so these are ideal for fairleads or redirects.

We use orange, long sleeve. Seperates us from builders!

I think if you use a vt then a hitchclimber is an improvement that you wouldn't want to go without, but you may decide to climb a tree one day using a prussik (conifers) and then you wouldn't miss the HC cos your climbing in a different way anyway. I like to climb using a helical sometimes and I don't use a HC for that, I don't think you need it, if its possible or if it would work very well. For VT's though I wouldn't go without it, and I had HUGE trouble with it at first due to the weird rope allignment (tail end of rope comes down ontop of the vt instead of left or right as per normal krab/pulley VT set up)

What did I do? If you use a hitch climber then oval krabs will be benificial. End of. FWIW (as I think I may have started the derail) the original thread was about getting excited about new karabiners, and that is worth derailing IMO! Anyway a thread about different uses for different Karabiners, and correct allignment and what goes well with what would be a good useful read to many and I would contribute more positively.

I watched "on her majesty's secret service" a few weeks ago. Am I right in thinking that Bond's family motto was said to be "The world is not enough" or was that my imagination??

No, they were old school rock climbing boots...

Its a symetrical biner, like Pete says you need at least one if you use the hitch climber pulley, two is best as pictured. Petzl make a symetrical biner called the "ok". Its plenty good enough and comes in all black ninja style!! Did anyone see James Bond "for your eyes only" on sunday? He climbed this rock face and used non locking symetrical Karabiners!! And boot laces for prussik loops!

Isn't there a "bought new gay truck" setting? that should sort it!