Reddit mentions: The best climbing pulleys

I built mine piece by piece after shopping around for the best deals and also getting some hand-me-downs from friends. I can highly recommend Andy Lewis' own Slack Bros. pulleys because they have an integrated brake which is an additional $80-$150 you won't have to spend.

Regular climb-spec nylon webbing tied into slings can be used until you feel like investing in some spansets. MFRexpress is by far the most affordable place to buy spansets that I've found.

Catonslack sells the most affordable weblocks by far and even with the $20 shipping from Poland you're still looking at $50 for a good banana lock compared to $125 for all the other options. Right now the new models are on preorder for an additional %30 discount. Recently ordered two Catlock Pros myself for $97 shipped and I'm super excited. You can also get by in the meantime with a couple heavy steel shackles and some steel rings for linelocks but you won't be able to pretension, won't be terribly cheaper than a single Catlock, and you'll outgrow them pretty quickly.

Any small pulley can be used as a multiplier. Even a carabiner will work albeit not very efficiently. I use one of these which are available on Amazon but I purchased it directly from Aliexpress for about half the price. Use it with a prusik cord and you've got a very efficient $20 multiplier system.

Your next biggest investment is going to be the static rope. The size you need is going to be determined by the sheaves of your pulleys (Slack Bros. pulleys like 11mm) and the length you'll need can be determined by using Balance Community's Rope Length Calculator . This is going to cost about .70-$1/ft and you'll just have to shop around all the different sources to see what might be on sale at any given time.

Also, join Slackchat and Slackchat: Used Gear groups on Facebook if you're not already a member and look out for what's being offered. Some good gear can be had for some good prices if you can catch it before everyone else.

>over $600 to start

If you want a cheaper version of the above, without having to buy all the Slacktivity equipment (I live in the USA, so importing all that comes out as quite pricey), you can do the following:

• Buy 2 cheap stainless shackles and approximately 20-30 feet of 1 inch tubular webbing (any type will do). Tie a frost knot (or an overhand on a bite with extra slack will do, as there is essentially 0 force on this ever) in one end of the webbing, and make your own soft release.
  
• 3 - 5 of these 1 inch pulleys off of amazon. Use a grinder/hacksaw/drill to grind off the metal nub on the end, and go to the hardware store to buy some locking nuts, washers, and a 1.75" bolt.
  
• Some skate bearings off of amazon (4 bearings per homemade webbing pulley). These go over the bolts, with washers in between, of the pulleys that you took apart to make a homemade set of these. Buy some cheap pear carabiners to go with them. You have now made your own highslides/cheap hangovers for 1/3 - 1/2 the price depending on how many you wanted.
  
• Find a 3d printing service near you and 3D print your own linegrips. Buy some very thin rubber (most people recommend the 1 mm vibram sheets, but I used this cheaper one and it works fine) and super glue, thread it with ~6mm cordelette and you have your own linegrip. Do this as many times as you want.
  
• Tie some cordelette into bunny-ears knots with differing lengths on each one, and clip your homemade webbing pulleys to each loop. The loop lengths should be long enough that your webbing pulleys don't hit each other. Clip one of the sets of webbing pulleys to your home-printed linegrip, and the other set to anywhere on your anchor. These are your homemade soft RPs.
  
• You need 1 weblock. For price, instead of buying 2 stainless shackles, just get 1 and buy the cat-on-slack soft release to hook in directly to your soft release. Or get the normal weblock they sell and hook it onto your stainless shackle. For weight, get a weblock that does not have sharp edges at the connection point and use a soft shackle (discussed below) to connect it to your soft release (like the alpine weblock or use a purelock to go straight into your soft release, both of which are pricey).
  
• Don't buy pre-constructed soft shackles, as they gouge you for the price. Buy your own 1/4" amsteel and make your own soft shackles (1 or 2 is fine for long-lining, make 4 or 5 for highlining as you will swap these out for the steel ones on your soft release).
  
• For anchors themselves, buy static rope. There are plenty of options out there, and what thickness/weight/breaking strength you want depends on your personal priorities in anchor construction, so I won't make a specific recommendation to you. Canyoneering static rope tends to be better in terms of weight/breaking strength, but is pricier. Depends on what you want.
  
  This allows you to use the above posted method, even up to a 27:1 mechanical advantage (if you 3d printed 3 linegrips, with 5 pulleys so you could put 2 extra 3:1 multipliers on a 3:1 system) without losing efficiency. Rigging 100m in the park is impossible just using normal carabiners; you really need the webbing pulleys/hangovers. Best of all, you've accomplished this at a fraction of the price of buying pre-made gear, and none of your janky homemade pulleys or linegrips are life-dependent pieces of gear if you went highlining.

A couple of these style pulleys and these (or some rope tied in a loop) , some rope(rope with a sheath, or tighter braid will work smoother), Paracord, or vinyl coated wire and some carabiners will make you a good cable machine for cheap. Get one or two loading pins if you want it a bit nicer. These are useful for other things as well.

Put one pulley at the top for high position and attach the other at bottom for low and move the bottom pulley onto the bar or around the safeties if you want to move it anywhere in between. If you get one or two extra pulleys you could to cable fly/crossovers.

You'll spend a lot less than other options and be able to customize all the lengths to your situation. Those pulleys are also way nicer than the spud or archon pulleys. High weight rating, can use a wide rope and allow you to remove the rope easily.

In lieu of the cable attachment, you could do a DIU Spud Inc. solution.


I ordered all my parts yesterday, I will post an update and review when they come in.


$21.95 - Loading Pin


$26.95 - Straps, Carabiner, & Bonus Grandfather Clock Grip System


$21.60 - Nylon Coated Wire Assembly


$35.70 - Rescue Pulley's

I had 2 extra carabiner's from my abstraps, otherwise you'll have to buy 2. (Or just buy ab straps)

All-In I'm $106 for what I'm expecting to be a very good system.

Once this comes in and I can measure things up, I plan on getting 2 more lengths of nylon coated wire assemblies. Then I can anchor a second pulley low for rows or mid-rack for external/interal rotations and other various exercises.

Edit: I should mention, there's ways to do this even cheaper, but I think these options are a good balance of value, performance, safety, and install time.

I used these rock climbing pulleys, and I'm currently using this cord (6mm). I attach it all with soft loop straps. I have multiple brands of those, they're all inexpensive and highly useful. These are the carabiners I ordered. I use two Titan loading pins but loop straps can be used to hold the weight too.

All you have to do is cut the accessory cord to the length you need and tie a knot with a loop at each end where you'll attach a carabiner. After you cut the cord it will be frayed, but you can just burn it and it will melt nicely. A piece of cord goes through each pulley. The top pulley is simple with your handle attached to the front and the weight to the back. When using the bottom pulley you attach that cord to the cord of the top pulley, and the other side of the top pulley to the weight.

Not sure if I answered what you're looking for, but any questions and I'll be happy to answer.

Is there anything that you would recommend doing differently? I'm really interested in setting up one myself ^^

http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Mobile-Rescue-Pulley-Blue/dp/B00ZPR15BG/ref=lp_3402641_1_9?s=outdoor-recreation&ie=UTF8&qid=1454118054&sr=1-9

Is this something I should use instead of the pulley you got?

Thanks!

Very nice! If you want to keep adding to your home gym, the next thing I would recommend is a cable pulley system. All you need is some heavy duty rope, some mountaineering pulleys, a pair of handles, and some eye-hooks from your local hardware store. Jinkies!

not "cheap" per se but $13 dollar climbing pulleys are like sex after using a pulley from home depot.. it's worth it if you're designing your own pulley system

If you just connect your dog via a carabiner to the run, there is a good chance it might jump over any knots you put in the line. I use a zip line pulley (got this one on sale for under $20) to attach my dog too. Smooth as butter and it doesn't jump the knots I put in the climbing rope to function as a stopper.

Use a 2 pulley multipier, video here...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gKMeeAk460

Pulleys like these...http://www.amazon.com/Fusion-FP-8151-ORG-Rescue-Pulley-Orange/dp/B008KECI8K/ref=sr_1_20?s=outdoor-recreation&ie=UTF8&qid=1407130520&sr=1-20

..are cheap to buy. You'll just need 3 or 4 more carabiners, 2 pulleys and bit of rope. The tension achieved is impressive, literally the power of 3 people.

> I plan on getting 3" pulleys here soon which should make the pull much more smooth.

This is where my upgrade path for the pulleys stopped. 10 bucks. They work great:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008KECI8K/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Question for you. I outgrew my primitive and upgraded to a pulley system this spring. I got a pair of these a few years ago to try to extend the life of my primitive system, and I'm using them now in my pulley system. I'm having trouble pulling more than a 70' line or so with these and an extra 1:3 multiplier made from a croll and a micropulley.


Think it's my cheap purple pulleys? If so, I'll snatched up a pair of these. I was also thinking of replacing the micropulley with a larger one, but I don't know if the difference there will be huge.


Edit: fixed the link

Looks to be about $80 with these parts:

2*$15 Pulleys

$25 Belt

$25 Rings

$16 Rope

This is assuming you have a place to hang it.

Is this pulley sufficient for a tensioning system? It's rated to 40kn but seems less burly than the SMC pulleys that I see more often. I would use it to tension and then softpoint, so the pulleys wouldn't be holding forces while walking the line.