How good to be too good to be true? $60 harness and $30 pantin?

[Savan]

I'm a beginner as some of you may have seen here. Trimmed some dead off about half of my dozen trees and having fun climbing and reading about climbing.

I came across this tree harness and foot ascender on amazon while thinking about changing to SRT to get more out of my rope. does anyone have experience or thoughts on these? any obvious safety problems or flaws in either? I'm thinking for $30 its worth a try on the foot ascender. If it busts on the way up I can always fall back to a foot lock.

harness
ascender

 

[Oakum]

I dunno. I'd be more inclined to avoid the harness. Can't find good reviews and the source isn't reputable (that I could find with a quick search.) Personally, I wouldn't trust it. The ascender probably won't handle much abuse, either. Although, I can't really say because of the lack of reviews. Your money is probably better spent buying something from a reputable shop. But hey, if you get the ascender and its pretty good, I wanna know about it.

Luck to ya.

 

[Wayne Wilkinson]

Its YOUR life and YOUR money. Do with it what you please, someone has to review those products. If your not doing production work, they may pan out for you. For the harness keep an eye on the stitching, it looks to be way more comfortable then the weaver wide-back that was my first harness. For sure if the foot ascender works and takes a beating I would also like to hear about it. Its about half price of a CT ascender.

 

[Wayne Wilkinson]

Well curiosity got the better of me. I ordered one of the foot ascenders. It came in the mail yesterday. I got it after I got home so didnt have the chance to check it out at work, but seemed well built. One of the foot straps was in the way of the swing of the rope grab. Re routing the strap solved the problem, no more hang up. I have a hand full of chains to sharpen today but after im done that ill give it a try and report back. But really for $27 i had to give it a try.

 

[Oakum]

I was tempted as well. I'm fairly close to wearing out the webbing on my CMI ascender. I saw that they have a few other types of ascenders as well. Like you, though, I really wanna try to the foot ascender. Let us know! Thanks

 

[Wayne Wilkinson]

Ill post a pic of it in a bit, but it worked quite nice. I only played with it for an hour some quick climbs 25-30'. Slid up the rope smooth once I tied the tail end of my climb line in a huge hang mans knot. The strap that goes under your foot to keep it adjusted kept sliding on me, but only to where it wanted to be then it stayed in place... It wasnt uncomfortable where it was riding so I said screw it thats where it will stay. Its not very heavy, its comfortable and I would say it had less tendency to kick the line out then the more expensive ones that I got to play with at Treestuff. They didnt have a CT in for me to try so i dont know about them. Bottom line it was worth it so far. In a week or two if the strap fails or starts to slide again ill report back, but as of now $27 well spent.

 

[Savan]

Hey, I thought I'd post back in here too. I did end up getting it and although I have no frame of reference of other foot ascenders I think it's a pretty nice.

The straps do need some fiddling as wayne said but the bigger problem was the user. My first couple ascents w/ the foot ascender were kinda clumsy. All said I think it was a good purchase and for a rec climber like me it seems like it'll be sufficiently durable. Machining is nice on it, no obvious burrs on edges. Rope clamp operated smoothly once I got the straps out of the way. I was a little surprise that it didn't self tend until about 10' or so got under me.

I'd buy it again.

I ordered a right hand ascender yesterday for $35 off aliexpress. If it works out I'll be pretty happy, a working hand/foot ascender set up that's less than the cost of 1 petzl ascention.

 

[treesmith]

Would not buy that harness, not worth it

 

[Frank Savage]

The difference between chicom ascenders etc. vs. Petzl, Black Diamond etc is die cast or hot-forged (sometimes heat-treated, sometimes not much) hell knows what wanna-be copy of renowned material vs. cold forged, stress relieved, heat treated from the best alloy availible. Some chicoms are quite good, some useable or so-so, some of them way less-and impossible to tell via internet. The same story as with chainsaw spare parts...

As to harness, even from the poor photo the sewing pattern is of the "are f***g kidding me" kind, straps are of soft-binding construction and I bet my left ball that the leg loops will be wrinkling together, resulting in narrow contact line and troubling the bloodstream in legs when sitting for prolonged time. Nice for masochists, but not for a worker. Petzl etc. harneses are pricey as hell, but hard to beat comfort vise.
I have a test for rock climbing and work harnsesses-I put them on, hang myself onto a limb or anchor in the ceiling by lanyard, sit in there solely supported by the harness in position "as you drop in there" and read a book. No movement of lower body to relocate the harness allowed, but once or twice straighten the legs for a moment is acceptable. If I feel comfortable, without compromised senses in my legs after 10-12 minutes, the harness is good for me, I do not accept anything less. Petzl Calidris, Seqoia or Black Diamong Big Gun are comfortbale even after 17-23 minutes.
Keep in mind that if you ever hapen to find you in a FUBAR scenario from which you can not get out by yourself, no matter the reason, it takes some time until the rescue climber can haul his ass and gear to you. And when you check stats, you will find that a lot of trauma and even deaths of climbers comes from compromised or collapsed bloodstream. Dangling somewhere unconscious for 6-7 minutes in the super light, narrow "sport" rock climbing harness is frequently about as reliable death sentence as a bullet in the head, just the suffer is waay much longer (like days, but the result is final from the begining).
You can compromise ascenders-if they fail, you have usualy the second one engaged, a flipline set somewhere or so and definitely have some chance to grab the line as you fly by and monkey outta there, but harness failing to support your body in the best possible way or failing upon fall will get ya´.

 

[Savan]

I got the ascender and left this feedback fyi. If it doesn't rain I'm going to try it out today-

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/outd...mbing-ascenders-free-shipping/1860165670.html

"build quality is decent overall. the only quibble would be that the side of the rope clamp rubs on the body of the ascender. the retaining lever for the clamp is metal and rubs on the edge where it locks. this will discolor the ascender where they contact over time. not bad for the money tho-"