Zac, It’s Mike Wedding…What’s up. Concerning the belay devices, I have used both the Gri Gri and the Cinch. Both have pluses and minuses and shine in certain situations. I know the Gri Gri tends to be pretty simple and self explanatory. The Cinch also functions similarly. My initial experience with the Cinch was not the best, yet it was the original model of the Cinch and it has since been redesigned with a longer lowering handle.

Here is a bit of a break down:

The Gri Gri is easier for lowering your climber initially. I found the Cinch to be weird at first, but then got the hang of it and it is fine now.

The Cinch takes a small bit of time to get used to lowering if you treat it like a Gri Gri.

The Cinch will handle a larger range of rope diameters.

The Cinch feeds rope much easier for sport climbing due to the rope path being less curved in the device than the Gri Gri. I have also found the method of using the Cinch for sport climbing to be less susceptible to belayer error resulting in a larger fall. (With the Gri Gri you must pinch the device to counteract the spring locking mechanism…there have been cases where climbers have been injured when the belayer “froze” up and pinched the device more as the climber fell thus negating the autolock feature).

The Gri Gri is a bit smoother for rapping (should you be in a situation of rapping on a single rope).

The Cinch provides less rope slippage on sub 10 mm ropes. Good for sport climbing, possibly not the best for trad, depending on how solid your gear placements are.

The Cinch weighs less and costs less.

The Gri Gri overall takes a bit less time to “get used to”, which makes it extremely popular.

For the Cinch…I can get you a very good deal on one should you decide to go that route….

Everything aside, I think they are both great devices and I have no problem using or recommending either one.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

A word from the founder of Trango, who started the company in 1991 to bring cool and innovative climbing products to the market. Today he’s going to show us how to use the Cinch.

Yeah, I’ve seen a clip of that video here at Trango. The Cinch is pretty much as easy as it looks in the video. The key is that it works a little different than the Gri Gri. So if you are used to a Gri Gri you need to take a little bit of time to look at the Cinch and play with it a bit. Plus, the tests that we have done here at Trango show that thinner ropes 9.7, 9.4 … slip quite a bit less in the Cinch than in a Gri. Rockclimbing.com has some useful reviews. I personally use both. As a side note, Malcom, the founder of Trango & the one in the video, has only one leg as a result of a climbing accident in Alaska (crazy story) yet still climbs 5.11+. Amazing, plus he’s a pretty down to earth guy.