Begin Climbing on the cheap.....

hi jack in the green hope all is well and peachy
For work I wear a wonderful weaver scrotum sqeezer not the most comfortable harness.For rec climbing I wear a New tribe which is comfortable, light and well priced.

My New Tribe work saddle is excellent for both work and play. Definitely the most comfortable leg strap saddle available, hands down, and also set up very well for tree work. You can even get them to do a custom one for you, with the gear loops and the sizing set up just how you want it.

Only one saddle could top a New Tribe for me: a New Tribe with a floating bridge...the perfect saddle!

Greetings leon, Your mention of the floating bridge on that harness , whats it made of ? .The ones i've seen were webbing or carbon fibre which is ok on a non work harness, but this is about climbing on the cheap , so my work harness is also my sunday go to meeting harness. I thought about backing the bridge up with a eyed wire cable and two small shackles , what do you think ?. And also a confession, Im not sure about how kosher my use of a piece of equipment is i welcome comment , . I get a lot of mobility in my harness by the use of a figure of 8 , . I learnt my tree climbing by watching and picking the brain of an ex royal marine turned civvy tree surgeon , I fasten my harness with a delta maillon rapide which holds the figure of 8 by the small eye to which i clip my biners (i always climb text book twin prussik loop) ive always climbed this way with out incident , and wouldnt change now old dogs new tricks ect . It moves the biners away from your body so when you want to throw on with one rope end its all there in front of you easy acess . ive never seen any uk climbers use an 8 like this

Interesting way to use a figure eight. A slightly more expensive option is to substitute a Petzl Swivel for the figure eight. Makes it really nice when you want to pivot your position in the tree.

The down side of using the figure eight between your rope and saddle attachment is that you're moving your hitch farther away. If you use a large pear shaped mallion rapide you can toss the figure eight, fit a few biners as needed for double crotching and keep the biners out of your face.

A wire bridge sounds overkill and a good place to jab your hands if you don't have everything taped up etc. Very creative though It just occured to me that a wire bridge wouldn't be flexible enough to work properly. Webbing or rope is going to be more optimal.

Originally posted by moss
Interesting way to use a figure eight. A slightly more expensive option is to substitute a Petzl Swivel for the figure eight. Makes it really nice when you want to pivot your position in the tree.

The down side of using the figure eight between your rope and saddle attachment is that you're moving your hitch farther away. If you use a large pear shaped mallion rapide you can toss the figure eight, fit a few biners as needed for double crotching and keep the biners out of your face.

A wire bridge sounds overkill and a good place to jab your hands if you don't have everything taped up etc. Very creative though It just occured to me that a wire bridge wouldn't be flexible enough to work properly. Webbing or rope is going to be more optimal.

Hello Moss. Yes ive seen the petzl swivel and would love to try it but it's to expensive ! and honestly there is no down side as i tie my own prusik loops at a length to suit , with twin fisherman's knot's and then tape down the ends . I even colour co-ordinate my rope end's ,2 of my 3 way biners have different coloured gate's rope end's have matching coloured tape's and prusik loops are taped up to match that way it's easier to avoid the possibility of inadvertantly un- clipping the wrong rope end , Resulting in a fall . Sounds silly that you might un-clip your self but believe me it has happened and cost more than one climber his life. The wire cable i envisioned would be armoured so as to avoid any snags and and would pass through the ring to which you anchor your biners / biner & fig 8 , and be secured at each end by a small shackle .Its purely for back up on a working harness in the event you should touch it with the saw you could remove it for rec climbing via the shackles , as you can see im a belt and braces man ! .And just touching on my original point of the inclusion of the fig 8 it "makes it really nice when you want to pivot your position in the tree" . maybe try it moss and let me know your finding's best regards

Hey all,
Lots of good stuff on here. I am about to embark on buying my first pieces of climbing gear. I am trying to start with the bare minumum to get me in the air and start practicing. I know I will add more stuff soon enough. I can improvise alot of it as some of you have suggested. (I don't want my wife to have a miocardial infarction when she sees how much I've spent on my hobby.)
I want to make sure I buy what I need but not what I will have to rebuy/upgrade later, if possible (IE: saddle). Anywho..I've combed through every RTC site I could find and have done some "stare and compare" with the
gear at Sherrils and New Tribe. I think I know what I need but I have a few questions before I leap.

Friction Savers - wouldn't it be cheaper to just make one from a piece of flex conduit from a hardware store?

Carbiners - which is best, considering safety and usability: Screw Link or Auto-Lock?

Saddles - I hear alot of you mention the New Tribe Ultralight ($162) but I also see the New Tribe Basic Saddle alot ( I like the one with the D ring). What would you folks recommend considering price, comfort, longevity & usabilty? Any input is greatly Appreciated! thanks.

-- Orion

Hello Orion,
I don't recommend making your own conduit friction saver. You won't be able to find the extra flexible liquid tight flex steel conduit at a local supplier or at the big box suppliers (Home Dept, Lowes etc.) The savers that New Tribe sells have a smaller minimum bend radius. You can order the good stuff from an electrical supplier but the minimum order is typically 100 ft. The price of the New Tribe savers is very good, barely marked up from materials and labor cost, and they are well made.

The good thing about the triple action double lockers is that as long as the gate is closed the biner is secure. I'd go with the autolocks unless you have a really good reason to use the screwgates. With the screwgate all it takes is one time to forget to manually lock the gate and you are in trouble.

Any gate has the potential to be opened by the rope during climbing. You need to keep on eye on your biner whether it's an auto or manual locker.
-moss

I actually prefer screw gates over single twist autolockers. It does require the presence of mine to remember to always lock the screwgate, but the autolocker will accidentally open WAY easier.

Of course, it's best to forget all that and just get some triple lockers!