ABC Chest Ascender--Rave Reviews

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Re: ABC Chest Ascender--Rave Reviews

Postby jharman2 » May 7, 2012 3:55 pm

driggs wrote:John Harman has a great photo comparing the two different versions of the ABC alongside the Petzl; perhaps he'll post it here...


I've dredged up the pictures Dave is referring to along with a short writeup to a friend a few years ago. Since I made my review I've worn out the shell on no less than 4 more ABC chest ascenders. They never slip and I have no complaints. I've also switched out my upper to a ABC and have been very happy with it. I guess it's worth noting that these ascenders are always used in a very muddy / gritty environment where accelerated wear is a given.

2008 Review:

I have attached a couple photos showing the difference between the three different chest ascenders that I have used. I wore out two Petzl crolls. Both stopped biting the rope and would slip down requiring me to manually engage them. I returned the first croll to Petzl and they gave me a new one but after a year it was up to the same tricks. Everyone I talked to was very pleased with the ABC so I decided to give it a try. Despite looking very worn the first ABC still works very well but I bought another one for Mexico at OTR. I started to look at the two ABC ascenders side by side and realized that ABC had updated the design yielding (in my opinion) a far superior ascender for the following reasons:

1. In the first picture you can see the upper teeth of the ABC ascender. It has two extra teeth between the first half set of teeth and the first full set of three. The set of half teeth on my Petzl ascenders wore out and allowed it to slip down the rope. The extra teeth on the ABC help it engage the rope better.

2. The ABC is much easier to "thumb" than the Petzl because it has the metal post that pushes the cam downward when you push down on the bail.

3. The ABC seems to feed better than the Petzl. I have nothing but my own anecdotal evidence to back this up.

4. The "new" ABC design is much better than the old. The old design seemed to come off rope almost too easy. I never had it inadvertently come off but it never felt as secure as the Petzl. The new design has a much larger tongue that fits up inside the body and makes it much more difficult to come off rope unintentionally.



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John Harman (Pantin apologist)
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