I (Think/Hope) I Developed A New Hitch Design

[Knotorious]

@Brocky Wow! Thank you so very much for taking the time to test all of my latest hitches and for sharing your personal experiences with them. Overall, your assessment seems pretty fair. It's inevitable that most of the hitches I will come up with (considering the volume of hitches I release to the world; in other words, I share even my average hitches and I don't just limit my releases to the exceptional ones) will be pretty run of the mill, functional but not necessarily perfect hitches. One must also remember that people's experiences with any given hitch may differ depending upon the hitch cord and rope combo they have chosen and the state of each; not to mention how tightly or properly they tied it and their skill level. Also, one must consider whether or not a device such as a rope wrench was used. I'm assuming that's how @Brocky tested these. Is that correct?

I'm not attempting to diminish the quality or importance of the results you've collected. I would say that if anyone in this world is to collect accurate data on my hitches, it's @Brocky. He knows exactly what he's doing and he views hitches with the same scientific method mindset that I have..

I'm confused about the last part. That "from adjustable" hitch is not the same hitch as mine (in one noticeable way other than the different orientation). It also differs from every other hitch you have in those other drawing. Are you saying that my hitch (or my version of that hitch) is not original? I accept that it is clearly similar to an existing hitch to which I was unaware of its existence until now. That's disappointing that it isn't as unique as I had thought. Am I imagining this? Did I overlook something?

In any event, I am truly, truly grateful that you took the time to go through all of those many different hitches and to share your thoughts, knowledge and experiences with me. I am now much better for it and in a position to learn from your results. Thank you, @Brocky! =-D

By the way, your new hitch looks awesome! I think it's spelled "bight," isn't it? Or are you being an artist with the misspelling?

EDIT: I'm impressed that the Aurora didn't bind out despite its complex nature. I believe that was the one you said was like a Sticht hitch with a hitch leg for a "ring." Nice. Happy about that resutl.

 

[Knotorious]

I've decided that I no longer wish to have that hitch named after my YouTube username. I don't like it enough. Not to mention that I believe I just originated a much better hitch which I might name after myself instead. But I need our local authority on whether a hitch has been created before, @Brocky, to confirm whether or not this new hitch is indeed novel. I have a feeling that perhaps the basic structure of this hitch might not be new and it sort of resembles the Enzyme hitch. But it's definitely not the same as that hitch. This time I'm confirmation before I name it and get my hopes up. Anyhow, this hitch is wonderful. It grabs readily and tends beautifully. Check it out. I have it tied with my brand new spliced 10mm x 30" EpiCord. It's stunning. But yeah, this bitch looks killer.

 

[Brocky]

I was wrong about the Knotorious, the two are related though.

 

[Knotorious]

I spent part of the day yesterday cutting my new hitch cords to length. I cut them pretty long, but with the ability to be adjusted shorter. I then put a colored whipping around the two ends of each cord, as well as a thin strip of electrical tape. I have done this to all of my ropes as well and I've never had an end come undone nor have I had a whipping fail or unravel. Anyways, check out these three new 8mm hitch cords in the photos below! I love the Beeline and the Veritas, but I'm not a fan of the EpiCord in this diameter at all. It's very stiff and it doesn't want to make wraps around any ropes. Not sure how to break it in beside using and I honestly wouldn't feel safe using it at height. Oh well! The other two are great!

On another note, remember the ENIGMA stopper knot I created? Here's the video for that.

 

[Knotorious]

Introducing the PARALLEL hitch...

It requires starting with two bights on either side of the rope, wraps, and then another bight through those two bights, pass the other leg through and voila!

The name comes from the two sets of parallel strands at the bottom!

Tell me what you think!

 

[Knotorious]

Seriously? Nobody was excited about that last hitch! Front looks great...back, not so much! Check out this sweet hitch...

Introducing the EPIC hitch! Tying instructional video and photos attached!

 

[lxskllr]

Front looks great...back, not so much!

That's the thing, isn't it? You look at the front, and think "That looks interesting. I wonder what the other side looks like?" You flip it over, then think "Oh my..." :^D

 

[Knotorious]

@lxskllr Haha, yeah, from my experience, most hitches have one side that looks a lot cooler than the other side. Sometimes the coolest side isn't the front or the back, but the literal side; one or the other. Every so often I come across or create a hitch which has both an awesome front and a back. For some reason, the front is the one which is the most likely to be attractive to the eye. At least that has been my observation.

 

[Knotorious]

I think I've discovered a winner here. Confident in saying this one is highly likely to be original. Gonna play around with it more once the landscapers kick rocks. That's the plan at least; we'll see how it goes with the heat and my energy levels. Really want to play with my new role wrench some more, though. I'm tempted to call this one the Pretzel hitch, but that name doesn't really do the awesomeness justice. What do you think? Another name I like is the Euphoria hitch or maybe just Euphoric. In any event, it begins like a 3 over 1 Distel hitch and then ends with the resulting bottom leg creating a wrapped around the rope which is in turn wrapped around by the other leg. Very Secure and compact hitch. This results in three distinct wrap segments, much like my Trinity hitch (my very first hitch I created).

 

[lxskllr]

Dunno. I'd be interested in hearing how it performs. Looks like it could become unbalanced, with one leg taking more of the load than the other. I'm having trouble following the coils though.

 

[Knotorious]

Dunno. I'd be interested in hearing how it performs. Looks like it could become unbalanced, with one leg taking more of the load than the other. I'm having trouble following the coils though.

Yeah, I played around with it today in the sweltering heat for as long as I could and it's is somewhat of a puzzle piece. It's a pain in the ass to set and dress, first of all, and when you apply weight to it, it stretches out hugely and the nip/friction is distributed throughout the the entire length. It actually didn't perform too badly, but I wouldn't recommend it. Looks great, though haha..

 

[Knotorious]

Here's a new one. This one I think is going to perform well. It's very basic. It's just one leg forming a bight, goes around the back of the rope, goes through itself and then the other leg goes through the bight too.

 

[Knotorious]

Okay, everyone! Get ready for one of my best hitches yet. This one comes with several days of testing and several alterations to the tying method itself. I have discovered a hitch that will readily self-tend, one which is compact, which does not bind readily *at all*, which grips readily and reliably, and is probably my second best hitch after the Calligraphy hitch. Introducing the KNOTORIOUS hitch (this time the name stays)! After finalizing testing it this hot Arizona morning with three different ropes with three different rope diameters (10mm, 11mm, 11.8mm) and three different hitch cord diameters (8mm, 9mm, 9.3mm), I assembled a "how to" tie video with discussion at the end. If you test this hitch out, please share your experiences either here or on YouTube! I truly originated a winning hitch here. No bullsh!t. Check it out...

 

[Knotorious]

Check this hitch out. It's called the ORNATE hitch! Absolutely glorious looking. It's one of those rare ones that looks super sweet on both sides (in my opinion). I admittedly have yet to climb on it, but it has all of the hallmarks of - at worst - an average hitch. It's a little on the complex end of the spectrum as far as tying, but it self tends easily when legs are pulled towards the front. Grabs readily and is surprisingly easy to set and dress.

 

[SeanKroll]

Maybe it's worth rating the performance of the hitches.

 

[Knotorious]

Maybe it's worth rating the performance of the hitches.

Hmmm... *Ponders the deepest of ponders for 69.69 seconds* That's a brilliant idea! Quite honestly, I'm baffled as to why that didn't occur to me already... Oh well, thanks for the wonderful suggestion!

I already know how I'll most likely end up doing it. I'll give hitches a rating between 0 and 10, with increments down to the tenths of a digit allowed (aka "6.3" versus just "6") because I want to be able to rate two hitches closely together if necessary, with a small degree of separation. I'll also give them ratings like "ST" for "self-tends," like "ETM" for "easy tying method," like "RB" for "resists binding, and "C" for "compact," just to name what currently comes to mind. I will probably actually go back in time in this thread and give as many of the hitches I've already shared a rating as possible. That would be really helpful to anyone seeing such a mountain of different hitches all at once. It'll take awhile, but I'm comitted. Thanks again!

 

[Knotorious]

It was recently brought to my attention, by a keenly observing commenter on YouTube, that I have amassed this enormous video library of hitch and hitch tying videos (as well as miscellaneous educational content), but I had yet to make a single video showing how a hitch can be used in a climbing system. This was quite the realization.

In order to rectify this discrepancy, I woke up way early the following morning so that I could use my free time (and the hours before the Arizona desert became insufferably hot) to demonstrate a hitch-based climbing system alongside a rope walking technique. Naturally, the system I chose to demonstrate was the rope wrench.

Also shown in this video is me ascending and descending a rope using the KNOTORIOUS hitch. It really wasn’t a whole lot of climbing, but it showcases the hitch’s reliability and efficacy nonetheless.

Finally, for your viewing pleasure, I have attached the link for this loosely relevant video here: Just like most every other video I have ever produced, members of this forum have access to it days prior to me actually publishing it onto my channel. The reason I do this is so that, if/once my channel has grown, it will hopefully promote the Tree House forum and inspire people to join and participate in the thread and the forum as a whole. By posting here first, it also affords everyone on here who follows along with my thread the opportunity to offer input and insights. For example, on at least two occasions, I found out that two of my hitches were not original and that spared me the humiliation of posting it to YouTube and discovering it that way.

Anyways, totally rambling at this point. I have a problem with maintaining brevity during written discourse. The best part is that I don’t actually give a shit. If you don’t want to read my massive wall of text, then don’t. But I know a lot of people value my verbal vomit, and ultimately, at the end of the day, I’m just going to be myself.

My video is actually quite thorough and I thought I did a really great job considering I did literally zero planning or scripting for it. Entirely improvised and off the top of my head. Let me know what you all think.

 

[lxskllr]

Nice overview for getting started with the ropewrench system. The only thing I might add is exactly how a knee ascender works. It's fairly obvious if they look it up in a catalog or something, but it would be good to have for completeness.

 

[Knotorious]

@lxskllr Why thank you, sir! I greatly appreciate your reaction and input. To be honest, I was originally going to get more into detail with the foot and knee ascenders, but I realized that my knee ascender is kind of a weird one where I can't get it to work like a typical knee ascent setup which connects to one's bridge; I have to take the bungee and bring it over my shoulder, behind my back, and then clip it to my side D. I thought that if I started describing my odd ball arrangement that it might confuse anyone looking to buy or use a more traditional knee ascender. I figured that at least providing the viewer with a complete list of all of the required components would open up doors for them to do their own research from a solid starting point. And, to be even more perfectly honest, I forgot to bring my water with me that morning (yesterday) and it was around 7am and already almost 80 degrees. By the time I had to do the climb demo portion of the video, my tongue was sticking to my mouth and lips because they were so dry. So even if I had wanted to get more into detail, it probably wouldn't have happened haha Solid and legitimate observation on your part, though. Thanks!

 

[Knotorious]

In this episode, I’ll demonstrate the KNOTORIOUS hitch, this time tied using a length of 8mm Beeline hitch cord. This tying method was taught to me by @Brocky and it involves an overhand stopper knot at both legs, which allows for a unique formation of two eyes which won’t overcrowd the carabiner at a rope wrench the way that two tied or sewn eyes can.

This video doesn’t go into the actual tying method. That will be a separate video. This video was spur of the moment, where I was already testing this hitch on my relatively unclimbed length of 11mm Yale Bifrost and figured I could make a video showing some basic testing to lend credibility to my new hitch’s effectiveness and dependability! The Bifrost has received a few reviews on Wesspur about it being terrible with hitches.

During the tests, I ascend to the anchor point and then descend quickly halfway down the rope before releasing the hitch to see if it grabs properly. Then repeat until at the ground. I performed this many times, but only twice on video. While descending, it felt like I was going much faster than it looks in my video. I go visibly faster during the second go around. Most climbers typically do not descend so quickly as the friction at the hitch becomes enormous, so I thought it was a worthwhile test. It also released with ease every time and never bound up. I had no trouble using hitches on a Bifrost rope.

Here is the video! Let me know what you think! Don’t forget to “like” and comment on YouTube if desired! Thanks, everyone!

 

[Knotorious]

Today I went climbing. I decided I wanted to see how my 8mm Beeline and Veritas hitch cords performed on my 11.7mm XStatic rope. I normally opt for 9mm or 9.3mm hitch cords on this diameter rope, but I figured I would experiment a little. These hitch cords were just lengths of cord and I tied them the way that @Brocky showed me. I have grown extremely fond of tying my hitches this way while using my rope wrench. It always results in a compact hitch that lacks any undesirable bulkiness around the carabiner and RW connection hole. Since I am not having to be limited to a set length (the way someone would be while using standard eye to eye hitch cords), I can better remove any unwanted slack in the hitch and then secure both legs with a basic overhand knot. It's pretty fantastic.

Anyways, after doing several laps up and down the rope, I quickly determined that 8mm hitch cords work wonderfully on 11.7mm rope. I didn't even have to remove any wraps from the hitches I tried out, which came as somewhat of a surprise for me. I next used my legs to push off a limb and grabbed onto another limb about 10 feet off to my side, then I lanyarded in and pulled the end of my rope, and my RW, over the limb, then connected back in to create a redirect. This positioned me directly above (it was about 5 feet below where my feet hung) a large, long, very gradually upward sloping limb. I descended onto it and began testing to see how my hitch and new RW would work on a limb walk. Not only was the hitch responsive and smooth, but the RW moved through the rope without me having to put a hand on it to collapse it, which you aren't supposed to do, but I see tons of people doing it on the interwebs.

After reaching as far toward the end of the branch as I could safely travel, I lanyarded in to a nearby branch and ate a Slim Jim. Throughout my entire climb, there was some kind of angry insect that was annoying the crap out of me. It kept flying into my face and neck and buzzing in my ears. It would occasionally disappear for as long as ten minutes or so before returning to the task of going kamikaze into my facial features. I must have really pissed that thing off because it was clearly out for blood. Next, I disconnected my lanyard and walked back in towards my TIP, effortlessly tending my RW with one hand. Then I bombed out of the tree one final time before disassembling my basal anchor and hauling all of my sh!t back to my apartment.

I used a number of different hitches today. I used the Trinity, Knotorious, Calligraphy #2, and a new hitch I developed several days ago which has yet to be named. Keep an eye out for the new hitch; I'll make a post for it very soon. All in all, I'd say that I have a very positive experience with all of the hitches and with my new RW. I was surprised that the rope fed through the RW so easily on a limb walk. It was perfectly dialed in, which is amusing because, after purchasing it, I only ever adjusted one single time and that setting has worked fantastically with everything I've used it with thus far. How lucky is that?

Finally, I just bought 5' of 8mm HRC, 5' of 9.3mm EpiCord, and 5' of 10mm Veritas just so that I can try them out with my RW. I already have the EpiCord and Veritas in those diameters in the form of two 32" hitch cords, but those are my show pieces for YouTube haha I've never used HRC before, but it looks quite nice. I've never climbed on the 10mm, but the 8mm Veritas is wonderful.

Alrighty, I think I've rambled on enough at this point.

 

[lxskllr]

Have a preference of the hitches you ran today?

 

[Knotorious]

@lxskllr To be honest, they all performed pretty similarly. All of them are great hitches. If I had to pick the best, it would be the Knotorious hitch. It just behaves so beautifully and it's compact as well. It was the hitch that I was using during the limb walk I described in my previous post. It releases whenever I need it to - no problems - and the instant I lift off the hitch, it will lock onto the rope immediately. It makes me feel confident and safe. I put a lot of work into coming up with the Knotorious hitch. I went through around 7 different iterations before arriving at how it is tied now. And as if it couldn't get any better, it is simple and intuitive to tie. I think that the Calligraphy (the original) hitch might give it a run for its money, though. Hard to tell which is better; it would be very close.

 

[Knotorious]

Here is a nice and compact hitch I came up with this week, but it hasn't been tested live (with me climbing on it), but it has gone through my pulley system testing using a 9:1 mechanical advantage. It's hard to explain the new setup, but what I can tell you is that it mimics the forces during a climb and allows me to depress (break) the hitch while it's under tension in order to assess certain properties and characteristics. I'll have to try and remember to take a picture of the new setup. It is now perpendicular to the ground.

In any event, this one is called the ENDURANCE hitch and it is tied using a loop. Additional wraps can be added to either of the two sections, or removed, in order to manage friction appropriately. Feedback is greatly welcomed!

 

[Knotorious]

Last night I began working to try and discover my own secure/locked versions of the bowline. I eventually arrived at two working versions, one called the KNOTORIOUS BOWLINE and the second called the FIGURE 8 BOWLINE, both of which are undoubtedly very secure in comparison to a standard bowline. I have been meaning to do something like this with the bowline for quite some time and last night I felt inspired enough to pursue a quality variant. Not sure what else the say; the video will explain and demonstrate everything else you need to know. Enjoy!