New Kong ascender designs

[Rick Brinkman]

Kong has come up with a new design for an ascender. It's about 2/3 the weight of a Petzl Ascension. Looks interesting.

http://www.kong.it/doc/KONG_FUTURA_SYSTEM.pdf

[Scott McCrea]

Oooooo! I want!

For your viewing pleasure, I pulled a couple screen caps out of the PDF. And I jpg-ed the whole thing. The info on the PDF seems to have been somewhat lost in translation. Can't wait to get my hands on these.

[hank moon]

Interesting design!

jpegs extracted from pdf:

[Rick Brinkman]

I wonder how the hand ascender will work when going over an edge......

[hunter]

Neat looking design, especially on the hand. Any thoughts on whether the cam is steel or aluminum? I thought it looked like steel but they only list aluminum in the description. I'm not fond of aluminum cams due to wear.

James

[Scott McCrea]

The SE rep for Kong Liberty Mountain (US Kong distributor) says they won't be available until spring '09.

[YuccaPatrol]

Very neat simple design. I'll definitely look forward to playing with one of these.. .

[NZcaver]

Interesting design. Bizarre, even.

Might take some getting used to, and as Rick suggested it might be more awkward for negotiating tough edges. I wonder if the bodies are cast or rolled/milled? Personally I prefer not to use cast ascenders for caving if I can avoid it. I can't really see how the safety/lock open for the cam works, but I assume there is one.

On the positive side it looks like you can still cup your other hand over the top to help with good Frog technique. On the negative side I'm thinking the rope sliding against your palm would be really annoying for those who prefer to use their ascenders without gloves (as shown in the photos). The absence of an upper attachment point is a little disappointing too - this can add options when you need to do "other things" with your ascender (haul cam or PCD for rescue, etc).

I like the look of foot ascender with the rigid stirrup piece under the foot. I wonder if this setup will provide improved ergonomics over the Petzl Pantin? (It would be nice if it does.) I love how they show the shiny new ascender and rope on an old grotty boot. Very cool!

Hunter - I think the cams must be steel or some composite. I can't imagine they'd be an aluminum alloy. I think Scott's right about a few things being lost in translation. They probably tried to use a program to translate it instead of a real person. I'd be reluctant to describe most mechanical toothed-cam ascenders as "belay devices" but I think "bloccanti" is supposed to mean blocker/jammer/ascender rather than belay.

I'd give these a try, especially if someone else owns a set and doesn't mind other people borrowing them.

[wyandottecaver]

hmmm.

Well it does look cool. But I sometimes really need the "handle" part more than the Ascender part dunno if I could hang on to that thing as easy. It also looks like it could easily suck a glove into the cam...though maybe it just looks easier. I'm also wondering what happens when I load my cowstail into the lower hole and the force is on the opposite side of the rope as the cam....

[cavehopper]

The negatives of this design outweigh any positives (which end at lighter weight) my money will be spent elsewhere.

[ek]

Wow, the Kong Futura Hand is 11g lighter than the Petzl Basic. The design seems (like the Petzl Basic, Kong Modular, and other bare-bones ascenders) like it would encourage good climbing form (which the Petzl Ascension, Kong Lift, and handled ascenders in general fail to do). And it looks like it might be comfortable and ergonomic even so...provided that your hand fits one of the grips they make for it, and that you wear gloves.

It says "Supplied with two interchangeable handles with different sizes. Weight 125g." I wonder if 125g is with the smaller handle, the bigger handle, or no handle. I assume that by "handle" it means the yellow plastic handgrip.

I wonder if it would be tolerable to use without either of the handgrips...

Well, these and the redesigned Petzl ascenders are both coming out in the US in spring of 2009, so we'll see how they compare.

[caverdoc]

The foot ascender looks promising.

Will reserve judgement on the "hand" model until it's been out for some time.

Kong also makes an interesting caver bolting hammer, I wonder if we could implore Liberty Mountain to order some Kong goodies for us?

Dr Jay

[Ralph E. Powers]

The negatives of this design outweigh any positives (which end at lighter weight) my money will be spent elsewhere.

Care to share your views and opinions of the negatives? LIke to hear what are the negatives and why... from your perspective please.

I am looking at the foot ascender (yeah I also liked the mix of sparkly new device and grotty boot) and trying not to be real tempted to consider buying one. I have a KONG ascender myself (as one of my spares)... I don't like using it unless I have to because of it's nasty tendency to slip downwards on the rope at unexpected moments. Other KONG's I've used have had the same problem. or maybe it's just me.

Am thinking that eventually other manufacturers of ascending devices will probably follow suit on the design, unless they have already.

[ek]

I am looking at the foot ascender (yeah I also liked the mix of sparkly new device and grotty boot) and trying not to be real tempted to consider buying one. I have a KONG ascender myself (as one of my spares)... I don't like using it unless I have to because of it's nasty tendency to slip downwards on the rope at unexpected moments. Other KONG's I've used have had the same problem. or maybe it's just me.

Could this be due to the less aggressive teeth on the Kong ascenders, compared to the Petzl ascenders? (In my mind, the downward-angled, scary-looking teeth on the Petzl ascenders are a good thing. Any ascender can damage rope in a shockload, but at least Petzl ascenders tend not to slip down the rope as you're climbing: +1 for Petzl.)

[hunter]

Hmm, I've got to admit I don't like the looks of the foot ascender for a couple reasons. First, it looks to me like twisting a bit you could pop the rope out. Because of this I would never use it as a life supporting device (could use it like the pantene though). Second, my ascenders wear out by cutting of the aluminum where the rope sits. For most ascender designs a particular spot wears through creating a sharp edge but without failure of the entire device like the photos on this page: http://forums.caves.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7318. To me the foot ascender looks like you could wear through the entire aluminum side. This leads to a question of safety as the side wears.

I believe both these issues are probably present on the hand ascender but to a lesser degree because the rope appears better seated and the supporting side is much larger.

James