Edelrid Pinch - "Strange" Experiments and Long Term Review

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

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