Some people say that rules are created so that you can cheat without breaking them. "Tell me the rules and I'll get around them." A few years ago, someone brought this ascender to the vertical races at the N.S.S. Convention, and tried to enter the "knots" category. The rule was that any metal and it was a mechanical ascender. Honestly, I don't know how they ruled on this one, but I have to hand it to the person who tried.
The cheater knot consists of a sewn circle of stiff rope that is used as a carabiner substitute for any of the carabiner knots. I've shown one used to form a pseudo-Bachmann knot. Needless to say, the cheater doesn't work as well as the carabiner version, but one can easily improve on the performance of a true ascender knot.
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©2007, Gary D. Storrick