The OS Outdoors Show In Pictures

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The OS Outdoors Show In Pictures

Postby Evan G » Mar 19, 2007 11:26 am

The OS Outdoors Show In Pictures
By Jon/Dave Mycroft
Link: http://tinyurl.com/2raxpo

We popped along to the OS Outdoors Show on Friday. So many stands, so many people that we couldn't hope to do everything justice and unfortunately, we got so caught up in jawing with people that we didn't even manage to get to the bar.

Overall, we thought it was an improvement on last year's slightly disappointing effort. There seemed to be more interactive stuff around plus lots of stuff to buy too. On top of that, we spotted the odd interesting new product - more elsewhere on the site - and discovered that the excellent all-natural US Clif Bars are back in the UK.

Anyway, here are a few photos to give you an idea of what it was like, the first one shows what happens when the Royal Marines abseil off the roof a little too enthusiastically for the opening ceremony - that window looks expensive... Ooops.

[center]Image[/center]

Cont.: http://tinyurl.com/2raxpo

This pic is from the article and I find it rather interesting:

Something else that caught our eye was this uber headtorch from bespoke bike kit people Hope. More elsewhere, but it's a very neat, CNC-engineered housing with twin high-powered LEDs and a rechargeable battery pack that should blow away anything else out there in terms of brightness. Ideal for evening fell running, but not cheap at £175. Gulp... serious light, serious price.


[center]Image[/center]
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Postby Scott McCrea » Mar 19, 2007 2:04 pm

Interesting. Thanks for the link, Evan!

How about the dude that claims he has a new climbing system that can do 30 meters in 5 seconds? :rofl: I think he's pulling legs. His climbing system does look interesting tho. Looks like he has a frog with a bungied foot harness. Here's the pic:
Image


That light appears to be made by a cycling parts manufacturer called Hope. I couldn't find anything else about the light. Could it be the first Stenlite knock-off?
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Postby SofaKingCool » Mar 19, 2007 3:42 pm

That is an interesting climbing system. It also looks like he has his chest harness up on his right shoulder like those non-roller rope walkers.
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Postby Scott McCrea » Mar 19, 2007 4:24 pm

I think that is just his upper ascender (Basic) and he's just leaning to the side. I cropped and zoomed the pic and it looks like the foot harness/ascender is attached to a strap around his leg just above the knee. It would be faster than a normal frog, but much less efficient than a ropewalker. Good to see some Brits trying new things.

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Postby potholer » Mar 19, 2007 5:57 pm

A floating foot-jammer (tape loop round foot, bungee over shoulder to keep jammer upright) was maybe the most common UK addition to a standard frog rig for people wanting a 3-jammer system when I started vertical caving in the early '80s.
These days, I guess most people who would want that kind of system would just buy a Pantin
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Postby fuzzy-hair-man » Mar 19, 2007 6:18 pm

Scott McCrea wrote:Good to see some Brits trying new things.


I don't see how this is new it looks like a hybrid ropewalker - frog that has been around quite a while (if you look at the Petzl literature for the Pantin there is a diagram there that achieves much the same thing, although the diagram is confusing for me)
http://en.petzl.com/ProduitsServices/B02%20PANTIN%20B02500.pdf

Vertical has another version of a floating cam frog - rope walker hybrid.
http://www.caves.com/7ASCENT.pdf

Sherry Mayo's webpage (now hosted by wasg?) has yet another suggestion for a frog ropewalker hybrid.
http://wasg.iinet.net.au/srt/srt.html

The only thing new that I can see is that he held the ascender upright with a harness at the knee, I don't think that's been done before. In my opinion the Pantin is a better solution because you can easily kick it off before you get to a rebelay and pass the rebelay as a frog.

Scott I agree from when I tried a ropewalker - frog hybrid (using a Pantin) it is quicker than a frog, I haven't tried a dedicated ropewalker but I'd guess the hybrids are a little more tiring on the arms as there is no ascender at shoulder or upper chest height. That said I would think the hybrid frog ropewalkers should be just as quick as a dedicated ropewalker (I can't yet see why they wouldn't be).
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Postby Scott McCrea » Mar 19, 2007 6:32 pm

Scott McCrea wrote:Good to see some Brits trying new things.

I should have put a ":tonguecheek:" after that comment. I know Brits are always coming up with new stuff. And that US cavers use many techniques developed by Brits. That was just my very weak attempt at humor. :doh:

fuzzy-hair-man wrote:The only thing new that I can see is that he held the ascender upright with a harness at the knee, I don't think that's been done before.

That's the part I was calling new. Again, I did make myself clear enough.

Scott I agree from when I tried a ropewalker - frog hybrid (using a Pantin) it is quicker than a frog, I haven't tried a dedicated ropewalker but I'd guess the hybrids are a little more tiring on the arms as there is no ascender at shoulder or upper chest height. That said I would think the hybrid frog ropewalkers should be just as quick as a dedicated ropewalker (I can't yet see why they wouldn't be).

Hard to say which system would be quicker, but because ropewalkers have a chest roller (that holds the caver upright, close to the rope--no hands necessary), it would be more energy efficient on a straight up climb.
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Postby fuzzy-hair-man » Mar 19, 2007 6:56 pm

Scott McCrea wrote:I should have put a ":tonguecheek:" after that comment. I know Brits are always coming up with new stuff. And that US cavers use many techniques developed by Brits. That was just my very weak attempt at humor. :doh:

:oops: I guess you gotta make it a bit more obvious for me! :oops:
Australians have sort of copied everyone! but somehow whaletails seemed to only be popular here(not much any more) not too many other countries have heard of them as far as I know.
fuzzy-hair-man wrote:The only thing new that I can see is that he held the ascender upright with a harness at the knee, I don't think that's been done before.

That's the part I was calling new. Again, I did make myself clear enough.
OK :kewl:

Scott McCrea wrote:
Hard to say which system would be quicker, but because ropewalkers have a chest roller (that holds the caver upright, close to the rope--no hands necessary), it would be more energy efficient on a straight up climb.
I agree having to hold yourself close to rope would use more energy, whether this would effect your speed I guess depends on how long the climb is :grin: I was wondering whether it would help to clip a carabiner somewhere high up on the hybrid chest harness to help with this.... :question: maybe I'll have to try it.
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Postby Scott McCrea » Mar 19, 2007 7:17 pm

fuzzy-hair-man wrote:I was wondering whether it would help to clip a carabiner somewhere high up on the hybrid chest harness to help with this.... :question: maybe I'll have to try it.

I'd bet it would help. Lots of people have done this in other systems. I've done it in emergencies when someone forgot their chest roller or damaged it or something. It works just fine, but, it doesn't move up the rope as easily as a roller. It just depends on how efficient you need/want to be.
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Postby potholer » Mar 19, 2007 7:33 pm

Speed-wise, adding a foot-jammer to a Frog rig and using legs independently can certainly increase peak (sprint) speed significantly, and possibly efficiency/sustained speed to a somewhat lesser extent, though a lot would depend on how well-set-up the Frog rig was - a good rig can involve very little height loss on the sit phase.

It's hard to tell from the photo who the individual is. There *is* a bloke who tends to do things at outdoor shows who is, as we say over here, 'not exactly backwards at coming forwards', and who might have let his far-from-insignificant ego convince him he is the world's fastest rope climber.

I should have put a "Tongue in cheek" after that comment.

I'd kind of assumed there was an implicit one, but wasn't absolutely sure.
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