so it looks like Griggree works like
Gri like Gri So let's do some of those
strange experiments and figure out if it
is a Grigree And to make things complete
I will also include Neox into the mix
also known as Gri And in case you want a
TLDDR version when it comes to cam
assisted devices Pinch is probably the
best alternative to Gri right now And if
you want to know if it is better than
Gri then the answer is not that simple
So let's see All right So the only truly
unique feature of this device is that
you can attach it directly to the
harness without the need of extra
carabiner which I thought it's a super
cool idea However what everybody
instantly notices that this button which
releases the device is not multi-action
So it's pretty easy to press on it and
remove the device So the question is can
that happen during the blaying and Edid
got bombarded by this question Oh yeah I
don't know how often I saw this and
honestly I was quite surprised that this
is the first thing people think of and
also with what passive aggressive
criticism this gets So yeah if you worry
about safety you are passive
aggressive But since my name got there
somehow I feel I have a duty now So to
investigate this let's divide it into
four possible states First when the
device is loaded then the device is
unloaded and the transition between
these two states So let's begin with
unloaded scenario And let's see what
Ederlid has to say about that Could I
accidentally open the device in an
unloaded scenario and the answer to this
is no It is simply impossible when you
are attentive and you operate the device
as shown in the user's manual So
understood Read the friendly manual and
then it's safe But um yeah before Phil
starts hating me let's look into this
deeper So there is actually only one
spot where I can press the button It's
right here If I start pressing somewhere
else nothing happens And this button is
nicely flush with the plastic round So
pressing from the sides nothing happens
Plus the button has pretty stiff spring
You need to press it quite hard to open
If the device is unloaded and I would
try to press the button I'm simply going
to push the device to the side and
nothing is going to happen Even if I try
to poke it really hard Ow ow ow ow ow So
the only way I can imagine pressing that
button in unloaded scenario is if I
would I don't know get knocked by the
rock fall on the ground and somehow
press on that button and release the
device How likely for that is to
happen probably not very okay Next
scenario The device is loaded Well I'm
trying to load it now I can press the
button Okay But I cannot open the
device
Well apparently I
can That was not planned That was first
attempt Ah okay See what happens And I
was pulling down on the brake strand
really hard and then it got loaded But
it got loaded in this downwards facing
direction and then somehow by pushing on
the button I managed to slip the sling a
little bit and now I can open it
Normally if the load is really high
probably I would not be able to pull the
device down as much and then in this
scenario if I press the button and I
would try to open it it would not open
because there is this little extra lip
which is hooking on the blay loop So
here is actually a good moment to talk
that there is a limit on blay loop width
If it's too wide it's not good cuz
device will sit sideways But if it's
very skinny like the one that I have
right now then it's more likely that the
loop could sit in some strange
orientation So I would be more cautious
with super skinny harnesses like this
one Now what if the device is loaded I
press the button and in that moment
somehow it would unload Could it uncip
at this moment
well I wouldn't say no but at the same
time it's very very unlikely So yeah
personally with this super skinny ble
loop I was using this device with a
backup carabiner maybe a thicker blay
loops my monkey brain would be happier
However I'm certain that if this button
would be double action then I would be
much happier Also this direct attachment
to the harness requires a little bit
more attention I had a viewer of mine
send me a picture where he accidentally
clipped like this which I can see how
that can happen quite easily where the
rope runs like so Also if you don't pay
attention and you have very skinny ble
loop you can accidentally close it like
so And you might not notice this And
this is very dangerous because it can
easily open So yeah pay attention and do
the double check before you start
climbing always Alternatively you of
course have an option to attach it with
the carabiner like any other blay device
However in this case pinch sits really
far from the harness cuz it actually has
this lip which is longer than on most of
blaying devices and it becomes really
uncomfortable to use and it kind of
defeats the main benefit of pinch
So yeah All right Now before we go to
actual benefits of direct attachment to
the harness let me first debunk one kind
of myth Now that you can give more slack
this way when the device is close to the
harness This is actually the opposite So
if I have a grigree and I give slack
like this Yes now I can give a little
bit less slack But guess what i can push
gri down giving much more slack So I
pull the rope and push the device down
This is actually a very cool technique
for short climbers or short arm
bellayers And before my comment section
explodes I have to say that there is
multiple ways to give slack You can do
this you can do that And I'm not here to
debate which method is the best the
safest However I will compare every
device in all of these methods So no
matter what you use or what you like you
will know which device is the best for
you So back to the pinch directly
attached to the harness And the main
benefit of that is that it's closer to
the harness is less floppy around And
when it falls down it does not fall as
much down So it makes it much easier to
find blindly with your hands And this
brings me to the first mistake where I
try to use pinch like I would use gri
where I would take my index finger and
hook under this lip and give slack like
this However you quickly realize that
this lip is way too small and it's not
comfortable to hook with index finger
Then I started grabbing with my thumb
around like this And actually this is
not how pinch is supposed to be bellayed
So with pinch you're supposed to have
all your fingers wrapped around the rope
and use only the thumb to gently press
on the cam and give slack like this And
this works really really well So
objectively thinking four fingers is
more than three And it also encourages
you to not touch the device when you
don't need it So it must be a little bit
safer While on contrast with Gri if I
hook my finger here and I relax too much
I might not actually hold the rope at
all And I already made a video of what
can happen in that scenario
So don't get too lazy and actually hold
the rope especially with super skinny
ropes All right So how does the pinch
work in practice the first thing I
noticed that it pinch is pretty heavy
and it's front heavy because it has a
steel insert in the front So after you
give slack it will fall down It does not
fall down as much as the giri cuz it's
closer to the harness but it does fall
down and there is no way to stop that
cuz you're not supposed to be hooking on
it So every time you give slack it falls
down and then you have to blindly find
the rope again and give slack So at
first this was kind of uncomfortable but
I thought that the longer I will use it
the more I will get used to it and
eventually it's going to be fine And
after using it for quite a while
delaying my partners projecting
different routes eventually I kind of
got used to this However the first time
I switched back to Griggi I instantly
felt how much easier it is to give slack
for me Then you give slack like this and
the device doesn't fall anywhere at all
So the first takeaway if you are a
Grigree user and you like giving slack
like this stay with Griggree If you're
someone who doesn't like this idea of
having hands close to Blay device then
pinch is much better option Now in case
you like giving slack like this in a
tube
style style then I actually tested all
the devices with different rope
thicknesses We have skinny ropes it
doesn't matter All the devices work very
well with skinny ropes Once the ropes
get slightly thicker to like
9.5 then Gri becomes unreliable It
starts locking up too much While pinch
was working really well However the king
of the hill was Neox cuz it's pretty
much designed to be blayed like this
It's incredibly smooth Even with the
ropes up to like 10 mm it's still super
smooth So if that's how you blay then
Nox is your best blay device Okay Now
one thing that I did not like about the
pinch that it felt that it takes more
effort to pull the rope through I asked
you guys and some of you said that
actually pinch is much smoother than gri
However others said that pulling the
rope through pinch feels like doing
chores So first I wanted to measure how
much internal friction each device has I
kept adding weights and checking when
the rope started to slip First
observation was that my old grigy had
slightly lower friction compared to
brand new one This is probably due to
smoothening and rounded edges and I
should probably retire this gri already
and pinch depending on the rope had up
to 30% more friction compared to a brand
new Griggree Now I was expecting that
Neox will beat all of these devices
However that is surprising Turns out
that my Neox had so much dust that the
wheel does not spin as smooth as it used
to So I did buy a new Neox nice black
one I like it And it is actually
significantly smoother It's crazy
smooth So I contacted Pzel and asked how
to clean my old Neox And once I get a
response I will try and see if cleaning
helps or actually Neox's have some dirty
issues So I'm going to make a separate
video on that Now I did not want to rely
on a single ugabooga test so I did
another one This time I wanted to
measure how much energy it takes to give
one arm of slack To make things as equal
as possible for the gri I used a tiny
tiny carabiner This way the amount of
rope pulled through all the devices is
very similar And then I used a small
load cell to measure the forces over
time which should give me this value
Man this is significantly harder Now as
you can imagine having consistency in
such tests is really difficult That's
why I needed a lot of samples a lot of
data points to reach statistically
significant numbers Wow my shoulder is
working on this device Also I had an
unexpected discovery that such way of
giving and taking slack many many times
macaroni causes many many tangles in the
rope which I had to remove before every
experiment So yeah new Neos this time
felt the smoothest and that's a
difference very closely followed by
Gri and pinch was double the trouble
This feels much
harder All right next up Now I'm going
to regret this This is 10 mm rope I
already feel my shoulder from
9.5 So with 10 mm rope Griggy was hard
to
use Definitely
usable Not easy though but
usable But pinch was another level Let's
see how this
goes Oh yeah
It's an actual workout
now However Neox was impressive in a
good way Okay new
cre Oh
wow
Okay that's
nice Oh it locks Now taking the slack
felt really great with pinch There was
no back slip at all However when it
comes to lowering I had antipanic
engaging all the time
Wow it's or and yes you can override it
by pulling the lever even more which
works well However in certain projecting
situations when the climbber asks to
lower just a bit and antipanic kicks in
it causes a jarring experience both for
the climbber and for the bare Now good
part is that you can actually disable
this antipanic feature by inserting a
little screw that came into the package
And unfortunately for me um I had no
idea what that screw is when I got the
device and now I have no idea where that
screw is Moving forward the front of the
pinch has a steel insert So if you let
the rope run through that it should make
the device last much longer unlike the
Grig where it develops grooves over the
edge It should also provide more control
in lowering with skinnier ropes However
from my testing I could barely feel a
difference So this steel insert is a
nice addition However I do slightly
prefer having my hand on the side when
lowering So I would prefer having steel
on the side like Gri Plus has and maybe
a little bit less when in the front to
have less weight All right next
experiment Ready yeah
I mean done So I have done a bunch of
these tests with Gri in the past and it
pretty much imitates of what happens if
you don't hold the rope and there was no
slack in the system in the beginning
Basically first attempt and it already
slipped
and nothing Just for comparison let's
compare against Gri And then let's
compare against
Gri Ah I need a
carabiner Ah see how great the pinch is
You don't even need a carabiner Oh yes
Swing it so it falls straight on my head
and kills me And this is gri
Yeah I've done this in the past a lot A
lot a lot And it's possible to make it
completely slip
but way
harder Okay just
for sake of comparison this is
criy Some people asked why it's why I
call it creek Let's go
I think this is even worse than pinch It
seemed like it's falling much
faster
Yes This is definitely more sketchy Now
every time I do these tests someone will
complain that I'm using too low weights
But I have already explained in my
physics of Griggree video how friction
affects the forces So I highly recommend
to watch that video But long story short
with enough friction your climbber
becomes very light Let's maybe try with
more weight because there's always
people complaining about me using low
weights Oh sheesh
It's not going to kill
me I guess I'm not going to try that
with
Neox Or should I you should I
should [ __ ] Now it's a bit sketchy
Okay this is
definitely much more
sketchy So when it comes to this test
Griggy was the safest followed by pinch
and Neox was the most likely to slip So
I got a comment that catches with pinch
felt harder than catches with gri So
what I'm going to try is to measure the
forces I am a bit skeptical about this I
mean when Gri catches there is the
carabiner which moves up so maybe that
plays a role
Three
four Okay
077
3
4 6 Exactly the
same
68 So I'm getting consistent results
It's not even like that It's
progressively loading It's just
goes The only difference would be if
there would be different slippage in the
device But both of these devices seem to
have similar slippage which is very
little
So equal However what should play more
of a bigger effect is doing a proper
soft catch It's a bit silly to even try
on this uh test setup but let's see if I
can do
anything Half
035 compared to the previous one So
that's a good illustration how soft
catch plays a much bigger role And
actually my next video is going to be
about soft catches and catching falls
for my blay master class So stay tuned
All right So
takeaways grigree is definitely smoother
to pull the rope through However this is
only noticeable on thicker ropes like
9.5 or above or some older fuzzier ropes
Now if you bellayed in the past with gri
and you like this index finger hooking
on the lip to pay with slack by gri stay
with gri be happy with gri However if
you're not a fan of touching the blaying
device then pinch is definitely an
amazing alternative for you It works
surprisingly well Very nice And I would
pick
Neos if I would primarily delay like
this or I would use very very thick
beefy ropes like 10 mm or above ropes
It's only usable with Neox And before we
finish I wanted to share a story with
you When I was in university I had a
calculus teacher who was probably one of
the best teachers we had back then there
And that teacher worked at a bank at a
high position in a bank So he was making
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teaching us And because of that one day
somebody asked him like hey what's the
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in your glamorous life and his answer
actually stuck to me till this day He
said well it's an exercise for my brain
and I don't want to forget the basics So
yeah for me that was a very nice message
to never stop learning and that's why
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