More About Ascender Handles
The U.I.A.A.
once set a standard defining a minimum acceptable size for an
ascender's handle. The standard included a minimum hand opening
size defined by the area obtained by drawing a 20-mm radius top
circle and a 15-mm radius bottom circle whose centers are 60-mm
apart, and then connecting the circles with the common tangents
as shown in the figure. I prefer to think in terms of the overall
length of the opening and the diameters of the circles, so I'll
refer to this as the 95-40-30 shape.
I can't take this standard very seriously, for some of the
following rather obvious reasons:
- There are a number of handleless ascenders that work perfectly
well, so obviously the minimum acceptable size is 0-0-0.
- Many of the climbing systems that use handled ascenders do
not use the handles directly. If one isn't going to grip the
handle, then the size of the handle does not matter.
- People have different size hands, so what is so special about
this size? For example, it's certainly too small an opening for
my hands to completely fit inside.
- Even if a particular person with a particular size hand is
going to grip the handle, the size depends on how they are going
to grip it (fingertips? fingers? whole hand?)
- Given a particular hand and a particular grip, the size needed
also depends on whether the hand is wearing gloves or mittens,
and how large these are.
Nevertheless, I thought it might be amusing to define a few
other shapes and compare the various ascenders. I made six different
"handle size gages" out of wood, and used them to test
the opening for each handled ascender in my collection. All of
these were designed by connecting the tangents of two circles
in the same manner as the U.I.A.A. defined their handle standard.
In addition to the U.I.A.A. gage, I made the following gages:
| Code |
Size |
What fits |
| 60-20-20 |
Tiny |
Two or three of my fingertips |
| 80-30-30 |
Small |
Three of my fingers, fully inserted |
| 100-30-30 |
Ample |
Four of my fingers, fully inserted to palm |
| 110-35-30 |
Large |
Four of my fingers, wearing leather gloves, fully
inserted |
| 120-50-40 |
Huge! |
Four of my fingers, wearing expedition mittens,
not badly compressed. |
Needless to say, these sizes are completely arbitrary, and
I don't believe that I can justify this as being a very good set.
For one thing, I found that there were several "near misses."
Second, since none of the ascenders accommodated the 120-50-40
gage, it was clearly too large to be meaningful. Perhaps I'll
cut some more blocks out someday and try this again, but these
will have to do for now.
Now for the results. A green dot
indicates a fit with no problems, while a yellow dot
indicates that the gage only fit in a particular ascender configuration
not normally used for ascending (e.g., if the cam safety was not
in the locked position). I used the
symbol to emphasize a no-fit situation that some people might
find surprising, just to show that I didn't omit a green dot by
accident.
| ID |
Device |
U.I.A.A. |
60-20-20 |
80-30-30 |
100-30-30 |
110-35-35 |
120-50-40 |
|
|
| 211 |
Advanced
Base Camp |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 123 |
Altius, Version A |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 257 |
Altius, Version B |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 194, 195 |
Anthron
AD-10 & AL-15, Version A |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
| 133, 134 |
Anthron
VauDe AD-10 & AL-15, Version A |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
| 155, 154 |
Anthron
VauDe AD-10 & AL-15, Version B |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
| 151 |
Camp
Pilot |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 24 |
Clog
Expedition, Version A |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 25 |
Clog
Expedition, Version B |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 26 |
Clog
Expedition, Version C |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 130 |
CMI
Expedition |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 130 |
CMI
Expedition, Dual Handle |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 27 |
CMI
5000 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 28 |
CMI
5002 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 29 |
CMI
5003 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 30 |
CMI
5004 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| 114 |
CMI
Large UltrAscender, Version A |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 31 |
CMI
Large UltrAscender, Version A (Modified) |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 116 |
CMI
Large UltrAscender, Version B |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 115 |
CMI
Large UltrAscender, Version B (Modified) |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| 216 |
CMI
Large UltrAscender, Version C |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 246 |
CMI
Large UltrAscender, Version D |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 32 |
CMI
Small UltrAscender, Version A |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| 34 |
CMI
Small UltrAscender, Version A (Modified) |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| 33 |
CMI
Small UltrAscender, Version B |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| 35 |
CMI
Small UltrAscender, Version B (Modified) |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| 220 |
Edelrid
Elevator |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 256 |
Heightec-PMI
Pulsar D40 |

(but only
upside-down!) |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 199 |
Hugh
Banner |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 145 |
International
Safety Components |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
| 136 |
Jumar,
Version A |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 36 |
Jumar,
Version B |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 38 |
Jumar,
Version C |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 118 |
Jumar,
Version D |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 39 |
Jumar
78, Version A |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 40 |
Jumar
78, Version B |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 42 |
Jumar
78, Version C |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 187 |
Kirov |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
| 139 |
Kong-Bonaiti |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
| 22 |
Kong-Bonaiti
Modular With Caver Handle |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 23 |
Kong-Bonaiti
Modular With Climber Handle |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| 23 |
Kong-Bonaiti
Modular With Dual Handle |
|
 |

(one side) |
|
|
|
| 249 |
Kong
Procave |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 210 |
Kong
Twin |

(one side) |
 |

(one side) |
|
|
|
| 165 |
Lucky
Pern AD-10 & AL-15 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
| 43 |
Petzl
Ascension, Version A |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 44 |
Petzl
Ascension, Versions B1 & B2 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 46 |
Petzl
Ascension, Versions C1 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 169 |
Petzl
Ascension, Versions C2 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 127 |
Petzl
Ascension, Version D |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 47 |
Petzl
Pompe, Version A |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 241 |
Petzl
Pompe, Version B |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 164 |
PMI
Cat |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 157 |
PMI
Puma |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 48 |
Roloff |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 122 |
Russian,
Version A |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 123 |
Russian
Interalp |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 49 |
Russian
Uola |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
| 147 |
Single Rope Technique
A1 EXP 6 Large Explorer |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
| 54 |
Single
Rope Technique A1 Explorer |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| 51 |
Single
Rope Technique Caver, 8-11 mm |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| 53 |
Single
Rope Technique Caver, 8-15mm |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 50 |
Single
Rope Technique Climber |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| 178 |
Handled Ecc. Cam:
Ural-Alp 10.32, Version A |
|
 |
|
(barely misses) |
|
|
| 188 |
Handled Ecc. Cam:
Ural-Alp 10.32, Version A |
 |
 |
 |
(barely misses) |
|
|
|
|
| 219 |
Black
Diamond nForce |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| 55 |
Kong-Bonaiti,
Version A |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 56 |
Kong-Bonaiti,
Version B |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 58 |
Russian
Copy of Kong-Bonaiti |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
| 120 |
Ural
Alp Handled |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| 144 |
USHBA
Handled |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
HandleTest.html/080911
©2008, Gary D. Storrick