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stupid question - gear slings


minx

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since all my gear gets to be replaced rolleyes.gif that includes a gear sling. have any of you used the metolius sling w/the gear loops? i've shyed away from this in the past but it seems like it might work nicely for keeping things a tad more organized. any opinions?

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I have one and I like it much better than a sling without the loops.

 

It helps me keep the gear organized, which is nice when you're gripped out and fumbling trying to get a piece off the sling. You can always use a runner for a sling if you're carrying a light rack and don't need the loops.

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i have one and i personally dont like it for general climbing. only when i need to seperate different types of gear, say pins, screw et al...

 

sometimes when using it i have found myself accidently clipping gear in between the loops and that creates somewhat of a cluster fuck. also it is kinda pain if you have to switch sides.

 

and since people tend to rack per size, i fund that it weighs towards the back(heavier pieces) and shifts then smaller ones higher into your chest.

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I have one of these that someone gave me for free when I bought his cams. I don't like it all that much. I mostly end up using my regular style one.

 

I like to be able to swing all the gear around behind me occasionally and that's hard to do with these. I'll also occasionally switch the rack to my opposite side mid-pitch and if you're using the second piece under the opposite arm it's impossible.

 

The padding is nicer (die cut) and if I won't be taking alot of gear up a pitch, or I know the order I want it racked (placement order rather than by size) I like it, otherwise it's like Erik says, if you're carrying doubles from TCU to #3 it shifts to a non-ideal position.

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i think the shipping from AK might be nearly as expensive as buying one wink.gif

 

my chest is configured a little differently than erik's and will's. i might not have the exact same type of problem w/the gear shifting up tongue.gif

 

yeah..it'll smell like a sweaty girl climber instead of sweaty guy climber which so much better yellaf.gif

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I've got one of those with the little "subloops" on it and I almost never use it because I find a regular one much easier to use. The separate loops would seem to help keep the gear organized, and I suppose that they do to some extent, but they make it harder to shove the whole mess out of the way for a move or pull it forward to rifle through the back stuff when you're looking for something.

 

By the way, I liked one of those double slings when my partner had one, but then I bought one and I could never get it adjusted to work well for me. Mine had stiffeners that kept it in a wide arc, making it more difficult to move the gear backwards and forward the way I like. His was simpler.

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A disadvantage of the die cut, that is, asymmetrical harnesses is that they are not reversible. If you partner up with a weird person who racks on his left instead of normal people who rack on their right side wink.gif, then the symmetrical sling can be reversed to keep the small stuff in front and the big stuff in the back.

 

Having said that, I like my asymmetrical Metolius harness with the four loops. I seldom use the fourth loop because it is hard to reach. I do use the auxilary sling on the left. It gets tricams and a few hexes. Main loop #1 gets nuts and microcams and the other two main loops get the rest of the cams.

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my chest is configured a little differently than erik's and will's. i might not have the exact same type of problem w/the gear shifting up tongue.gif

If that's the case, then the problem might be your partner's gear shifting up! yellaf.gif

 

yellaf.gif no, he's a good partner, he knows just when to shift gears. evils3d.gif

 

CBS- do you always rack on the same side? i often switch b/c of the nature of the route. and all normal people rack on the left side anyway...sheesh! didn't think about the reversiblility issue

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I always rack on the right side. There are rare instances in which I have racked on the left side such as certain chimneys where I wanted to face right and have the gear on the inside.

 

Lots of people prefer to rack on the harness. There are plenty of good reasons to do this, not the least of which is that the weight is lower and more centered. If you are really climbing hard and especially overhanging routes, this would be the preferred way because a sling would hang behind you and where you couldn't reach the gear.

 

For weekend gapers like myself, I prefer the sling because I can just hand the whole thing to my partner, thus saving time. Racking on the harness would require that I hand the pieces one by one to my partner.

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I have found my new favorite gear sling...a daisy chain. it's light, simple, has lots of loops and serves a secondary purpose if need be. I use a biner around on my back to size it however I like. It might be unconventional, but I've decided it's my new way to go.

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I don't like the multi looped sling because it spreads the gear out in a big fan that seems to get in the way more. If you are not a large person you may find that the multi looped gear sling gets in the way. When I want to organise gear more compactly I put several peices together on single large keylock biners. This allows you to easily remove gear without removing the biner from the sling, while also allowing the gear to stay in a tidy clump on the sling, easy to throw behind your back (or switch sides).

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I don't like the multi looped sling because it spreads the gear out in a big fan that seems to get in the way more. If you are not a large person you may find that the multi looped gear sling gets in the way. When I want to organise gear more compactly I put several peices together on single large keylock biners. This allows you to easily remove gear without removing the biner from the sling, while also allowing the gear to stay in a tidy clump on the sling, easy to throw behind your back (or switch sides).
That is a very good point. It is the total number of biners that causes the CF on single loop slings. If you rack multiple pieces per biner then you could probably have only half a dozen there. If you then rack all your slings tripled with two biners you are set when you pull the piece off your rack sans biner.
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but I don't climb that much multi pitch trad (ya like I followed 4 times MAYBE)

 

At least you don't look like a Christmas tree when you get to the belay anymore. wink.gif

oh you would be suprised, if I am sketched and cleaning I look a mess when I get to the top of a climb tongue.gif I still need way WAY more practice Edited by Muffy_The_Wanker_Sprayer
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