Climbing Practice Rig

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Climbing Practice Rig

Postby Crockett » Feb 5, 2006 7:26 pm

The local fitness center (gym?) has agreed to allow me to set up in a corner and climb. The ceiling is high, it is protected from the weather, and there are other advantages. I probably will not have a climbing partner (there will be plenty of people nearby to help if I call for them). The normal rig would be through a rack near the floor then a pulley up in the rafters. I know I can hold the rope in a hand and let it feed through the rack to let me back down. I have done that a lot. Does anybody have a better way? A gadget or trick? I like to climb a set number of steps then rest briefly while lowering down to climb again. This seems to mimic actually climbing especially tandem.
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Postby NZcaver » Feb 5, 2006 8:10 pm

That would probably work, but controlling the rack with your hand while climbing might be a little awkward and "touchy". You'd need to play with adjusting it. There's also a variation of this shown in On Rope, but it uses a weight hanging below the climber - you'd have to check it out to see how it works.

Personally when I set up a climbing rig like this, I use a Troll Allp descender. This is a true controlled-rate (aka variable-rate) bobbin-type descender, with a little butterfly screw to finely tune the friction applied to the rope. Unfortunately these descenders (made in the UK) are fairly tough to find.

In lieu of an Allp, you could try starting out the usual way with someone else feeding the rack for you. Once you've figured out the optimum rate of rope feed by ONLY adjusting the spacing of the bars, you could make a mark on the frame and install a small screw clamp to fix the bottom bar in place. I've never seen this done or tried it myself, but I don't see why it wouldn't work - assuming the rope is carefully flaked out beforehand.
Have fun. :grin:
Last edited by NZcaver on Feb 5, 2006 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Scott McCrea » Feb 5, 2006 8:12 pm

Hi Mike!

You are looking for a rope treadmill. Check the back issues of the Nylon Highway. Several issues have been written about this with pics and instructions. But they are not easy to build and probably not something that can be set up in the local gym. You'd be much better off with a person running the rack and feeding you rope. I bet once you do it once and you draw a crowd wondering what in the heck you are doing, you'll have lots of people to help. Especially if you let the curious try it.
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Self Belaying Rope Treadmill

Postby pacaver » Feb 5, 2006 8:22 pm

Hi Crockett, I’ve been using a version of what you’re doing and what I do is put a steel ‘biner on the side of my harness and run the rope from the rappel rack through the ‘biner and then to the starting rope bag. This way if you drop the rope you can easily retrieve it. Plus when resting I just tie a large knot that won’t pass through the ‘biner so I never get off rope until I’m out of rope. The rack is anchored half the height of the pulley and is about 30 feet from where the pulley is attached. This allows you to just hold the rope to keep it from feeding through the rappel rack and then lowering like you do. If the rappel rack is anchored on the ground and too close to the pulley, you may have to feed out rope as you climb. Have you contacted any local grottos to see if you could dig up some climbing partners? If they saw your rig in the gym, they might try to get a vertical training session set up. Anyway, I hope this helps and keep on climbing!
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Postby wendy » Feb 6, 2006 12:19 am

you could always just do a change over and rappel back down :-)
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