Mad Rock Paradox

Side View

End View

Technical details:

I bought my Mad Rock Paradox new from Jim L. Rott in 2006.

The Mad Rock Paradox is a notched belay tube. It is forged from aluminum alloy and then polished. Mine is 61 mm. long, 45 mm. wide, 106 mm. high, and weighs 69 g. The slots are 31 mm. long and 16 mm. wide. The top of the Omega oval carabiner that I use for comparing belay tubes sits 10 mm. below the ends of the slots.

The Mad Rock Paradox is similar to the Black Diamond ATC-XP, Black Diamond ATC-Guide and Wild Country VC Pro in that it has V-grooves on the side to provide additional friction for belaying or rappelling. Each side of each groove has three V-shaped slots, giving the grooves "teeth" to grip the rope more effectively. These teeth act to guide the rope deeper into the slot, in much the same manner as the teeth on the Wild Country Hand ascender work.

The keeper is stiff cable covered by plastic. The keeper is stiff enough to keep it from catching on the rope and being sucked into the device.

One side of the Paradox is etched with the Mad Rock Logo, "MADROCK", and "Ø9.5-11MM." The other side has two rigging icons showing the low and high friction rigging arrangements, with a "-" in a circle under the low-friction rigging icon on the left, and a "+" under the high friction rigging icon on the right, and "FRICTION" in an oval between, with arrows pointing to the "-" and "+."

Comments:

The Paradox is rigged with the V-slots on the brake hand end of the rope. Alternately, the user may reverse the Paradox to disable the V-slots. The teeth do not have the narrow angle found on the Salewa Tubus, Singing Rock, or Trango Jaws, so they do not create the same wedging action. For this reason, I find the Paradox to be less effective. On the other hand, the teeth on the Paradox provide a larger bearing area for the rope, which helps reduce localized heating.