belay kit

Left handed belay instructor here… Like it or not, the industry is moving towards assisted breaking devices, so don’t buy an ATC. On toprope, you can actually apply some pretty slick left handed technique with a GriGri, but not so much when lead belaying. Any of the geometry assisted devices (BD Pil

Non autoblocking I really like the Mammut norwand alpine belay. Rope bearing surfaces are steel so it's quite bomber. Autoblocking I like the edelrid megajul/Jul series.

As someone from Europe where GriGri is still very prevalent but not a total monopoly like in the US I beg you for the love of god and your own safety and peace of mind learn a normal device like Pilot or Edelrid Jul or Mammut Smart. I see so many people use the gri and completely disregard the safet

I generally carry two devices. I wish to carry one for those few trips where every gram counts. By the way, I was messing around with my Mega Jul today and found a different configuration for top belay. Edelrid does not approve...LOL! Bodyweight tests confirmed that it holds load even when the user

Skip Petzl’s products. Better camming products exist (Trango Vergo or Edelrid Pinch), so there’s no reason to consider a grigri family. Similarly, if the goal of the Neox is “tube style” simplicity, get a tube. Many brands offer semi auto locking (same class as Petzl’s products) without moving parts

I think a lot of dislike for the grigri from people who originally learned to lead belay on an ATC comes from just not having enough practice with it to belay smoothly. I was a grigri hater for years (used an edelrid jul 2 as my ABD for a long time) and have switched to the grigri as of a couple yea