Pantin?

[davem]

I'm thinking of getting a Pantin as I have heard lots of people saying how good they are.Now starting to do some bigger pitches and I understand that they could make the standard set up more efficient? Has any one got any advice or comments on how well they work or not?
Do I need to change the configuration of my SRT kit or is it simply a case of one foot in the footloop the other using the Pantin?

[darkplaces]

No change to the existing SRT setup. Yes one foot in the footloop one with the pantin on the rope. It helps with holding a better position on the rope and with practice makes progression faster/easier. Helps with rebelays and pitch-heads. The awkward bit is keeping it on the rope as you draw the leg up, it takes practice. Then kicking it off when required.

http://www.darkplaces.co.uk/Wikka/Pantin
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aka.. Chris Davies

[davem]

Cool, looks like I'm gonna get me one of those!

[bif]

Dave
you can ofcourse apply pantin to standard frog rig and it can make frogging more effective. This can be a lot to do with the fact that you can frog with slighlty offset feet, ie the pantin foot lifted higher and hence take a longer/ easier step up. Small pitches can often be frogged up with just the pantin and chest jammer though I dont doubt this could be deemed bad practice

If however you have any intention of rope walking (of a form) aswell, its worth being selective about when and how you do this. Works well on shortish pitches especially where cave wall comes into play. Much more exhausting on long free hanging pitches. Useful technique to have in your arsenal all the same, and takes alot of the bounce out of rope on pitches where rope isnt or cant be rigged text book and might have rub points. Also often a lot easier than frog on type of pitches mentioned above (shortish leaning against wall).

If rope walking, it is best to adapt frog rig slightly. Bra type harness with crampon style buckle very handy so you can easily/quickly reorientate to a more standup position than for frogging. A 5mm dyneema/kevlar footloop is a plus also. The french thread this down the side of their left leg through snoopy loops on thigh/ welly. I find this a pain in the arse, so dont.

The most useful mod of all however, is to put a snoopy loop through the top of your hand jammer. When ropewalking you can stick this over your left forearm and grab the rope above the hand jammer. This enables the handjammer to move up the rope automatically as you climb and makes coordinating you various limbs 10 times easier. Definately read this paragraph twice....

Have fun experimenting. There is lots of subtle variants you can apply. If youre on mendip and you want to bounce some idea around or go for a practice then give me a shout.

We use to cut the bottoms off of old jammers, remove the gate and take a turn out of the spring to build homemade footjammers. For no good reason we used these on our left boot. Ironically when Petzl bought out the pantin as a right foot device you can imagine how long it took to get srt kit reorientated and brain engaged to deal with this .... oh how I grumbled
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nobody said nothing about locking horns with no tigers ....
www.littlemonkeycaving.co.uk

[LesW]

[davem]

Hi Bif,
Thanks for all the advice......lots to take in and I think your right I perhaps need to come down and have a play on the tower getting used to the various different options.

We have been increasingly doing the larger pitches on mendip and are now using Rhino as the training ground in preperation for another weekend trip to Derbyshire in the spring. Last year we did Knotlow and Oxlow, this year we are talking about doing Eldon,JH and possibly even Titan!
So I'd really like to have mastered the Pantin by then to ensure I'm as efficient as I possibly can be on these large/very large pitches!
I'll give you a shout once I have got one and planning to come to Mendip and perhaps we could meet so I can pick your brains?

Thanks,

Dave

[bif]

Dave
Look forward to it. I find it nigh on immpossible to get SRT kit out on mendip without a good excuse, so a little trip would be great.
Dont reckon you need to worry about the tower ... I imagine youre well beyond that nonsense. Just slap it on with you existing setup. Youll soon work out how best to fiddle it for your own style.
later
Bif
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nobody said nothing about locking horns with no tigers ....
www.littlemonkeycaving.co.uk

[darkplaces]

We (3 of us) are doing coral cave easy peasy SRT if your interested in coming along and testing it out, or anyone for that matter.

aiming for around 7pm let me know.
_________________
aka.. Chris Davies

[Nigel Graham]

BIF wrote:

"When ropewalking you can stick this [snoopy loop on hand-jammer] over your left forearm and grab the rope above the hand jammer."

(Sorry, I've not grasped how you "reply with quote" the proper way. SRT's easy, ish; IT's 'ard! )

I see the point but don't quite understand the 'grab' bit - I take it you simply let your hand slide up the rope? If so would you get the same result simply by holding the jammer and keeping your arm still?

One thing on a long pitch - would holding your hand up above your head for some time not tire the arm?
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Nigel_G

[bif]

Hi Nigel, welcome to the forum.

Ropewalking with a pantin and hybrid frog system requires a whole different body geometry (ie a more upright postion) as compared to conventional frog. It is also easier if your brain doesnt have to try and synchronise moving your hand jammer while also alternatively moving your feet, which is assisted by the snoopy. A snoopy allows you to orientate your hands higher than the jammer, maybe on the rope or fetures on the cave wall. Rope walking is rather tiring and most everyone who isnt superhuman (and youll unlikely find any of them) or clueless will revert to conventional frog on a longer pitch, especially when free hanging (rope walking in this form benefits significantly from a favourably orientated wall). Everytime you sit back down in the harnss when ropewalking puts a big increase on the effort as you then have to stand back up and get started again. However, don't take my word for it, give it a try and establish your own best practice. Interestingly, some folk will maintain a consistent frog technique up a long free hanging pitch, and others (possibly those with a few tricks up their sleeve) will change their style at various points on route (maybe mix in a little bit of walking), to relieve the monotony and take the strain off of different muscle groups. Now this is a tricky one to explain in words.

Hope this helps. Havnt put much thought into this reply so apologies if it's very badly wriiten and not very concise, but Im sure you'll understand.
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nobody said nothing about locking horns with no tigers ....
www.littlemonkeycaving.co.uk

[Nigel Graham]

Thank you very much Bif!

As you say, its one of those things you can only really try.

There was a mod to the frog-rig introduced some years back that allowed you to convert from rope-walking to frog & back on the pitch. The theory was that you'd beetle up the long straight then revert to frog just before the rebelay or pitch-head, given that the rigging & frog-rig were developed as a mutually cohesive system.

It was Pete H & Malc Foyle & others on a trip to France about 4 years ago who introduced me to the Pantin. It takes (well, takes me!) a while to grasp the knack, but I found even using it to enhance the "ordinary" frog rig makes quite a difference. At times I find myself gaining a sort of semi-rope-walking rythmn even in that mode, until tiredness through lack of SRT practice knocks my co-ordination for six.

It's interesting to see that it seems to have made people look afresh at prusiking after a couple of decades of basically converging "standard" rigs & methods. Although that universality has advantages especially in rescues, such variations are to the good really, for what may work well for one individual may not do so for another.



As for co-ordinating limbs, given that it was playing the drums (sort of) that got me into caving, I've no excuse really....
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Nigel_G

[bif]

[LesW]

[bif]

short pitches where you could be at the top before the next chap has faffed about sorting out his hand jammer and foot loop.

rifty and climby pitches where it might be a pain in the arse to be moving hand jammer when its easier to have hands on rock and one free foot for clambering.

atleast thats when I might find it convenient to apply this approach. It will probably bite me on the ass one day, but ho hum.

on a side note, a few years back Cookie explored the usefulness of a pantin as a spare jammer. Having left his chest jammer at campsite he prussiked 350 odd metres of rope with his hand jammer on his chest and his pantin on the hand/ footloop. I was particularly impressed (partly because it was Cookie )

Caver with shunt - time to run away
_________________
nobody said nothing about locking horns with no tigers ....
www.littlemonkeycaving.co.uk

[bif]