Scott McCrea wrote:Perpendicular is the best orientation for a rack. You can make parallel work, and lots of people do, but the only way to get the full benefit of a rack is in the perpendicular orientation. Here's what OR1 says about it:
LINK
Interesting point. However what's "best" for rack orientation is still a debatable topic, regardless of what one rack designer's original intentions were. Micro racks and other standard U-racks, for example, seem to be much more commonly used in the other configuration. Mr Cole was obviously referring to his own legendary rack design in that statement, and the same logic doesn't really apply to U-racks so I guess it's a moot point. (This has been debated at length in other threads on this forum, and is probably getting a little off-topic for this thread. My bad.)
Do not connect your rack's biner directly to the waist and leg loops--use the belay loop. As OR1 suggests:
LINK
If you do feel the need to ever "bypass" a belay loop, at least do it with a D/delta maillon - something that will accept multi-directional loading. But on the whole, using the belay loop for its intended purpose should be fine.
The set up you got from OR1 should work fine. Actually, it's exactly right.
Agreed - it should work fine.