UKH

Hi UKC

Title says it all, got some bold grit trad routes eyed up for this year which can be made a little safer with tricams in shot holes, does anyone know what size is best? Mostly around yorkshire so places like baildon and ilkley.

Thanks!

Tom

The size that the route you're after requires? Otherwise, black, pink, red. Some shotholes will take cams, especially those with a narrow head, e.g. microcams. If you're after a bold route that absolutely requires something specialist like tricams, you might be able to find out the specific gear beta from the logbooks.

The ones at Millstone take blues (size 2.5) but the ones in Yorkshire may be completely different.

Black is tiny. Pink is the most useful size in general. Red is also good. They're the 3 I carry but all those are way too small for shotholes. I always thought blue was the shothole one but could be wrong.

I believe it is in the peak like at millstone, some of the routes at baildon are more like a sport bolt size

Yes, black is tiny. I interpreted the OP as two questions: 1) which gear for shotholes? 2) which tricams are best? Perhaps not what was intended. Nonetheless, if I was buying tricams for bold routes where nothing else will fit, the three I suggested are the ones I think would be most useful.

Jeez... a guys tries to help someone and you just get pathetic people disliking comments without writing anything helpful. So much about society is condensed in that.

C Witter, I really don't get it either. You made 2 helpful, and completely inoffensive, replies on this thread. And then they pile up dislikes. Again - I just don't get it

Black ones fit well in Avon boreholes if you ever venture down south!

Maybe the dislikes are for Tricams in principle! 
(Not me. I’m a convert.)

Which boreholes in Avon are those? The only ones I've seen are massive (the open-sided ones take a size 11 hex). Black tri-cams are way smaller.

The holes at Millstone take either a size 2 or 2.5 (blue or purpley blue). Either will work. 

I can only speak for millstone but the holes there also take an orange alien cam.

I had the holes on pitch two of Piton Route (VS 4c) in mind.

I've heard about a big hex being useful like you mentioned on Central Slab (HVS 5a), but I've never been able to wiggle it in right!..

It might be worth considering one or more of the larger Totem cams as these have very narrow heads and would probably fit in shot holes.  Back in the day there was a three lobed cam imported from somewhere that was passed from aspirant to aspirant as required for shothole projects.

Or a Metolius superlight cam #5 (black), or I expect a BD Z4 0.75 (Green).

Ah yes, the proctologists move! Forgot about that. I can only think of a couple of that size in the gorge though (the other being on Push The Sky Away in Leigh Woods). Arent those holes from where the quarrymen stuck in their iron spikes rather than actual bore-holes? The holes I think of as bore-holes in the gorge must be about 100mm in diameter and they're everywhere. 

Not even the tiny white 0.125 size will fit a sport bolt sized hole. Still too wide. Not the ones I tried anyway.

You know what does though.........

[Pulls pin]

If you place it on lead, is it still.... I mean ..... Is that, like.... Um..... 

[Tosses over shoulder and walks away]

How about one of these?

But Millstone is in Yorkshire. 

The problem is that the petzl pulse needs a very accurate hole (either 8mm or 12mm) even down to discussion on how accurately circular it is (when drilling use a 4 cutting tip drill bit not usual 2 cutting tip). Not sure shoving it in an unknown hole is going to be secure, they have very very little tolerance.

In softer rocks like slate and mill gritstone where they usually want the rock fairly unbroken they'd historically often use black powder to pry the rock apart not smash it to splinters like gelignite/dynamite (replaced nowadays by AMFO) would have done.  As a result those shot holes are often 1 1/4 " diameter and a 12mm pulse won't fit at all.  Although that varies a lot depending on quarry (could be 1 1/2" or even 1 3/4" instead) so local knowledge is valuable.

Edit for spellings

The suggestion was made for a "sport bolt sized hole" though, and I doubt it was intended to be taken seriously. 

But if anybody (else) was inclined to take it seriously, you're quite right to point out it's a terrible idea.

Agreed, where my thumb will go it will go. I carry a white, black and pink on a krab with a set of brass offsets and imps as my 'get me out the poo' gear.

It all depends on the size of the shotholes, the ones here are the size of your thumb, but that's in super-hard blue grano-diorite where drilling big holes is difficult. Until metal treatments were advanced enough in the 1800s it was deemed too hard to quarry.

It would make tremendous sense for guidebook descriptions to note the size of specialist gear needed on routes. Some do but more could be done for sure.

I've had the pink and the red since virtually the beginning, and used to place them all the time when my cam collection was somewhat smaller. But they've hardly left the ground in recent years, because I rack them together (with some larger sizes) and rarely see the need to take a set of tricams with me. The best thing I've ever done to my rack organisation was to rack the black, pink and red with my regular nuts. Now they go up every route I climb, they get placed everywhere, and get used all the time. Win!

Tongue was firmly in cheek...

In reply to Mattress:

Sorry!