Bosavi headlamp on kickstarter

Bosavi is a nifty looking headlamp featured on the kickstarter fundraising website, it is rechargeable with a lithium battery. It appears to be similar in a lot of ways to the Petzl Tikka headlamps when used with a rechargeable Core battery, but there a few interesting differences. It is smaller and lighter than the Tikka XP2 with a Core battery (the most comparable Petzl lamp), the packaging for the lamp is designed to turn into an origami lantern, and it has a bike adapter for fitting to a bicycle handlebar.

It has very similar lighting modes (red light for night vision, diffuse white light, two levels of high brightness spot light, strobe safety light, and a high intensity 110 lumen boost mode) to the Tikka XP2, similar brightness on the normal mode (both 60 lumen), similar battery life (70 hours on low setting for Bosavi, ~80 hours for Tikka XP2 on low).

So far it is fairing well on kickstarter - as of 12 May 2012, after around 10 days it has raised roughly $18,000 of its $20,000 target, and there is still 35 days to go. It seems a given that it will raise its target - and quite likely that it will raise significantly more. The minimum amount you need to pay in order to receive one of the lamps is $65 (+$15 for international shipping). It is also likely that UK residents will pay significant import/postal costs, in the past I have been charged £20 for an $80 item from the US.

Video from Bosavi kickstarter page

BMC Helmet campaign and helmet booklet

Since the beginning of the year The British Mountaineering Council has been running a helmet awareness campaign to "challenge views on helmets, and to encourage you to re-examine your reasons for wearing one or not". They have produced a booklet on helmets to help people make an informed decision.

The BMC emphasizes that in climbing and mountaineering it's important for each individual to make their own decisions when it comes to deciding what risks are personally acceptable.

Image from BMC website

Device for mounting fingerboards or holds above a doorframe

Another product from Serious Climbing – a nifty device for mounting fingerboards or holds above a doorframe. It cams into place rather than using bolts or clamps, and is supposed to work with many different doorframe shapes and sizes.

Adjustable angle climbing wall which can be flat packed

This is the Serious Wall from Serious Climbing (their main website is not live yet). It is an adjustable angle wall which can be dismantled and 'flat packed' to roughly 30cm thickness. The adjustable upper part slides smoothly on rails - the motion looks a lot like opening a garage door. It can be locked into a 9 different positions using sliding bolts.

The Serious Wall on display in Boulders climbing centre Cardiff
Photo from facebook

Do ropes need to rest between falls?

Black Diamond carried out some tests to find out if letting your rope rest between falls would help to reduce the peak forces experienced in a fall. They did tests where the rope was left to rest for 30 mins, 2 hours and 24 hours. They also checked to see if loosening the knot after a fall helped to reduce peak forces.

Image from Black Diamond

The graph shows successive falls from 1-10, with peak force on the vertical axis (using antique lbf as units, 1000 lbf = roughly 4.4 kN).

Their conclusions were:

"As expected, progressive drops resulted in increasing forces

The largest increase was from the 1st to the 2nd drop as expected

 Loosening the knot after each fall reduced the load a bit, but not much

Letting the rope rest 30 min between drops had a bigger effect at lowering loads than loosening the knot, but still not much

Allowing the rope to rest for 2 hours and 24 hours had an even greater effect at reducing the loads on the 2nd drop, as expected

Allowing the rope to rest 24 hours still resulted in a 2nd drop load of 11% greater than the first drop"

Thread slings through wires rather than larks footing to improve runner strength

DMM carried out some tests comparing the strength of using a larks foot versus simply threading (ie 'basket hitch') a sling through a wire. This is often done when you can't clip a carabiner directly to the wire because it would end up with the carabiner being loaded over an edge. The results showed that threading a sling through a wire is always stronger than using a larks foot (ranging from 1kN to 5kN stronger roughly).

Image from DMM

Homemade offwidth super-size cam

Jeremy11 from the rockclimbing.com forums has created a very cool homemade cam for offwidth cracks. The cam is bigger than the biggest camalot (camalot size 6, range: 114-195 mm, weight: 650g) weighing in at around 850g with a range of very roughly 130-210 mm. He used an oversized solid aluminium axle - the original intent was to minimize weight but it turned out that over-sized aluminium axle was heavier than the steel alternative that he had considered.

The homemade cam side by side with other big cams. Image from rockclimbing.com forums

He tested prototypes of the cam and they held over 14kN - pull tested using a jeep!

Magnetically locking carabiner from Black Diamond

In July 2011 Black diamond announced they will be releasing a new magnetically locking carabiner called the Magnetron. It uses small (neodymium?) magnets on two sliding locking arms which are released by pushing them towards the nose of the carabiner. A steel element inside the gate of the carabiner attracts the magnets to lock the gate when closed. It is due for sale in July 2012. The video from BD, with engineer Bill Bellcourt, describes it well:

Image from Black Diamond website

Reflections of a Green Business Pioneer, a Lecture by Yvon Chouinard

The UCLA Institute of the Environment held an interview (more like a lecture) with Yvon Chouinard - the founder of Patagonia, and also Chouinard Equipment (which became Black Diamond Equipment).

The interview is about all kinds of things and he shares some excellent stories about starting up his equipment company and Patagonia.

Part 1:

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w30d87Dsoc&feature=relmfu

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH21aUH4NbY&feature=related

Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-C98EiYMi8&feature=relmfu

Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoC0p6YRULI&feature=relmfu

Carbon fibre carabiner (key chain)

Bison Designs, which seem to mainly sell key chains and other trinkets, have created a carbon fibre carabiner key chain which can hold around 500lb (227 kg) and weighs 10 grams. According to a description on carbonfibergear.com the gate is heavier than the body of the carabiner. Unfortunately 227 kg is about 1/10th of the strength required for climbing carabiners so it won't be so useful for that. But it will hold a mighty heavy set of keys. The niche for a carbon fibre carabiner for rock climbing still waits to be filled.

Image from Bison Designs

New BMC Belaying & Abseiling Leaflet released

The BMC have released a new leaflet/pdf on belaying and abseiling. The leaflet has been updated to keep up with changes in belay devices. The booklet includes greater emphasis on 'assisted braking devices' such as the Grigri 2 or Eddy; these devices have sometimes incorrectly been referred to as 'auto-locking' - this term is misleading because the devices do not allow you to belay hands free. They merely assist in holding a climber; you should always keep hold of the braking end of the rope.

The leaflet also deals with the importance of matching your belay device with your rope. Many ropes are thinner than ever, and new dry treatments on a rope can make them feel even slicker in a belay device. Download the leaflet from here:

http://www.thebmc.co.uk/News.aspx?id=4332

Direct pdf link.

Image from BMC website.

Folding composite ice axe

The Alpico walking axe passes UIAA 'B rating' tests and, compared to other axes, the manufacturers suggest that it provides a more solid belay in soft snow because of its shape. The axe can be stowed away in a holster without needing to access rucksack straps, and once stowed it does not have exposed points which tend to get caught on things whilst climbing. The handle is made from a carbon fibre based composite. It was designed by Soluzion Inventive and is distributed by Climbing Technology.

Image from www.soluzioninventive.com