Climbing Chat: Sport Quickdraws vs Trad Quickdraws, do you need both?

[@simonrobbins815]

Trad draws get clipped into textile frequently (e.g. cams), my main argument for separate draws for sport & trad is that the sport ones get chewed-up by the hangers and I don't want that damaging trad textiles.

[@samuelbuettner1214]

A couple seconds with some 200 grit sandpaper smooths them out again

[@ianchowmiller]

All my trad draws are made from double-length slings and two wire gate carabiners. I've never bought a made-for-trad specific draw. I do have a set of sport draws that are separate from my trad draws.

[@NPC-fl3gq]

I set up my draws as follows... Trad (not inc alpine draws): - solid gate upper (Edelrid Mission, for the occasional carrot i prefer to have solid gates on me) - wiregates for the rope end, purely for weight (nano22's) - 22cm trango dogbones (skinny dyneema) Sport: - nano22's up top - photon wire-gates below - wider 18cm UHMWPE bones I only have half a dozen of each so i also have another bunch of older draws that i take with me regardless of what im doing, and theyre a mixture of solid/wiregates and different lengths etc.

[@tjb8841]

I agree that if you are starting out, buying “trad” QuickDraws is best. For the versatility if you want to do it all, and also because if you are a beginner climber, you are likely to be climbing easier routes, which are often on more “featured” rock. A longer, more flexible QuickDraw will make for less rope drag, and have less chance of unclipping in a fall. The one thing I would say is to maybe pick a model with a slightly larger wire gate carabiner at the bottom, to make clipping easier, and that also makes it easier to use with gloves if you want to use the draws for ice and alpine climbing too.

[@foobar9220]

Honestly, if you are just starting out, buy whatever is on sale, and it will be good enough. I am still happy with my pretty basic Edelrid Slash quick draws from sport climbing to trad, alpine and ice climbing. Rope drag can be considerably reduced by using double ropes and for the cases that really need extensions, I have some extendable quick draws with 60cm slings. All that is super good enough. Never understood why people pay like double or triple the price for a supposedly optimized quick draw

[@RandomClimbingGuy]

Skinny “trad” draws really are nice for alpine climbing, traveling climbing trips, and low bulk with a heavy rack. I just wait for them to go on sale and buy and I’ve gotten to have two separate racks. Alpine draws are another separate thing.

[@jake981]

Dude check out back Country right now! I got my DMM alpine draws for 35% off. 8)

[@samjones3875]

I bought sport quickdraws, which I use for sport, and double length slings and use the carabiners from the quickdraws on the slings for trad. Then you have both and save a little money on carabiners.

[@ollieb9875]

I've got quite a few sport draws because I thought I'd be sport climbing but it turns out trad might be more my thing so I will use them, along with my alpine extendable draws for trad and gradually just phase them out for trad draws when I can afford them.

[@bastianse]

Solid gates (specially on the straight gate biners) are also great when cleaning a sport route. And wire gates without the hook are quite expensive. It's difficult to be a begginer without knowing what path you're going to follow and having to buy gear.

[@LeftCoast_TomP]

I could see those long trad draws instead of doubled up slings. You end up doing a fair amount of faffing about undoing and redoing doubled up slings not to mention doubled up slings can get tangled up a bit on your harness. Maybe mostly those long floppy draws with a few doubled up alpine slings that you could extend when you really need it for trad.

[@bornagainintrepid]

I have separate ones mainly because I don't want to use a chewed up sport draw on say a textile sling.

[@JBMountainSkills]

Good point!

[@jake981]

Honestly the trad quickdraws are amazing for all around climbing and I think they're a good start for most climbers would want to do sport and multi-pitch/trad climbing! I'm actually surprised that more people here in the US don't use them. That being said, I'm considering getting 10-12 sport specific quick draws for what you mention at 6:00, those sport draws are much easier to clip. Lol.

[@dagmarbelesova4284]

Quite a timely video with some interesting conclusions. I started with 6 traf style QDs and 6 sport style with thick dogbone etc (wierd choice I know). I thought Id be mostly using the sport ones as we mostly do apoet climbing and save the lightweight 'trad' ones for the occasional time when weight would matter more because of longer walk in etc or trad training day. But I found the 'trad' ones so nice to use I got a full set of them and I'm considering getting rid of the sport ones entirely.

[@hotharvey2]

Just when i bought my first 12 biners (all sport) 😂 I didnt even know there were trad draws tbh...

[@audiojck1]

You'll be fine. Trad draws are also something that is way more relevant to the UK, because there is a lot of Trad climbing there. If you mostly sport climb, then sport draws are nice.

[@tylerjames7449]

To minimize our gear closets I wonder if sticking to alpines would be even better

[@dwbuchanan1980]

Would it also be the case that sport draws are much less likely to twist and cause a back clip situation. Increasing the efficiency you talk about

[@JBMountainSkills]

Yeah I didn't want to get down that rabbit hole as I knew I was already going on...! Ideally we'd never back clip, but if we did skinny, floppy trad draws might do you a favour compared to a sport 'draw.

[@drstrangelove85]

Does anyone know an accident that happened because of this gate flutter thing? Even Ederid, who gets reports of all accidents, isn’t aware of a single case where a carabiner broke because of it. I would guess it’s just a myth.

[@JBMountainSkills]

Gate flutter itself is not a myth, I’ve seen slomo videos of it, does it realistically cause a problem? Not so sure. There’s plenty of chat about incidents potentially involving it, especially on forums like Mountain Project but I’ve certainly never heard a definite flutter at fault incident. Anecdotally I’ve been hit by a cam ripped out on a lead fall (it was clipped to the rope) and we wondered at the time whether it unclipped due to flutter, we’ll never know, but for a couple of reasons we thought it might be.

[@Ben-ew3hv]

What are your thoughts on instead of grabbing the dogbone grabbing the lower biner almost as if it were a pocket. I've not done it and probably would only if it didn't have a rope already clipped, saw Stefano Ghisolfi doing it and wondered if it was safer

[@JBMountainSkills]

I belayed Seb Bouin a bit a few winters ago on a 9b route he was trying. When he was dogging he'd just use one finger to mono the bottom clip. Safer but I'm not strong enough 😂 Two fingers is much more doable for us mere mortals and for sure it's a decent method. I think as long as you're sensible about how you grab the dog bone it's ok.

[@audiojck1]

Try it. It's pretty uncomfortable, if you don't have a lot of weight on your feet. I don't think it's unsafe, it's just pretty painful for average climbers.

[@burnsbabe87]

Why would you want trad draws like you've shown instead of just buying sport draws and alpines?