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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 28, 2017 - 02:30am PT
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Kickstarter for the new D4 Portaledge going live 12pm Noon Yosemite Time, Feb 28. (That's 7am, March 1 Hobart, Tasmania time). Keep posted at http://facebook.com/bigwallgear for Kickstarter link.
Cheers
John Middendorf
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 28, 2017 - 01:04pm PT
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Live link here! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1188459201/the-d4-portaledge
Sold the first three before I could even send the link out!? How did that happen? Then another 5 in the next 5 minutes. You guys are keen--we will make some good ones for you, and get them to early backers first, probably well before September.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 28, 2017 - 05:13pm PT
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Cool.
At present, 14 of the next 25 (for 9/2017 delivery) for $975 are sold.
After the remaining 11 are sold, then it's $1,140 for 2018 delivery.
I still use one of your A5 haulbags, bought back in the 80s!
I haven't done a wall with a portaledge in awhile; just the walls with built in ledges these days.... :-)
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John Mac
Trad climber
Breckenridge, CO
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19,878 as of this morning ... 26K is the target.
I was hoping they would have a t shirt up for sale...
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WBraun
climber
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Go Deucey Go Deucey Go Deucey Go Go Go ........
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 1, 2017 - 01:08pm PT
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20 ledges sold the first day! Really appreciate everyone's support. We will be working hard to ensure the best ledge to everyone. Really fun to be back in design, working on the haulsack details this morning... And tinkering with the superlight Single version and MiniMe ledge as well as another half dozen or so D4 Double prototypes going out to big wall product testers in the next couple months...
Only 8 left for our 2017 batch--they are going quick! Production on the Kickstarter batch planned to begin in April.
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 1, 2017 - 01:16pm PT
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Really psyched how compact everything folds up--this is the ledge, the fly (and fly pole), all in about a 12" x 33" x 6" pack. Really easy to carry around and put into a pack or haulbag. No more wondering what haulbag the fly is in! All deploys very readily.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Holy crap, dude - you never told me ^^ THAT!! ^^
Bloody brilliant, mate.
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Lookin good man. Fun to see it all come together. You left one thing out though. Get back to the drawing board mate!
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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^^^Hahahahahaha.. would'a doin growin pot😜
Edit, and WOW! on that set up. Looks dreamy😍
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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The ez deploy looks great. It's nice to see ledge design finally getting more advanced after many years of stagnation.
But its kinda sad that someone who did Trango now takes multiple days to get up an indoor wall.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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^^ It's about the journey, not the destination..... ;)
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2017 - 10:43am PT
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We made our Kickstarter goal! So we will be building the new D4 for everyone! Much appreciated!
The fun part now is documenting the next few months of continual prototyping, getting feedback from the pros in the field, and refining the details of our design for the batch of 28 for September. Stay tuned for updates here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1188459201/the-d4-Portaledge
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Congrats on the Kickstarter, Deucey! It's great to see so much interest in your bitchin' new ledge design.
"...getting feedback from the pros in the field..."
And also from the Big Wall Parvenus. ;)
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Rock!...oopsie.
Trad climber
the pitch above you
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As an aside - nice FPV racing drone collection on the wall in the background!
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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In case you missed it at the bottom of the last page,
CLICK ON JOHN'S NEWEST VIDEO: https://www.facebook.com/thetreeprojects/videos/598241450369089
If you go to the video where he shows the titanium ledge they used on Great Trango Tower, this is around -1:59 on the video, you will see the design flaw:
Look at the portaledge straps, and you will see that there is not enough "adjustability" built into them. This has been a CONSTANT problem of all portaledge designs [except Fish]. The problem with lack of adjustability occurs during the too-frequent situation where your belay anchors are too close together.
If you are climbing a trade route, and you have a nice wide horizontal spread of bolts and anchors, it is easy to set up your ledge and pig far enough apart, so that your ledge hangs symmetrically next to your pig for easy access in and out of your pig. Because the anchor bolts are well spread, the straps on either end of your portaledge are all about the same length - a symmetrical hang.
Truly this type of camp setup is more Big Wall Theory than Big Wall Fact. Quite often the anchor bolts are very close together. What if you only have a two-bolt anchor? In this situation, the pig and the ledge hang too close together. What you need to do is to "shorten" up the straps on the "pig" end of the ledge, and "lengthen" the straps on the other end of the ledge to give yourself an asymmetric hang. Hopefully this will allow you to hang your ledge and pig side-by-side for easy access.
In virtually all portaledge designs [exept Fish] there is not enough "adjustability" in the straps. This is particularly annoying in really big ledges. Some of those monstrosities like the Anker and the BD have some tiny amount of adjustability like only 16 inches. On hangs where the anchors are close together horizontally, it is impossible to get a proper hang!
If you look on John's video above at his old Trango ledge from the 90's, you will see this design flaw. Look carefully at the straps on this ledge [you will have to pause the video] and see how little adjustability there is. This is the problem that has existed for so long in so many [crappy] ledge designs!
The new D4 ledge has fixed this design flaw. The D4 has a properly adjustable suspension system, with near infinite "adjustability", so you can get this baby set up comfortably on even the most "asymmetric" of hangs, where the bolts are too close together.
In all the various features and benefits for big wall camping that the D4 offers, this was - to me - the most important problem in current ledge design that needed fixing.
You're going to love it!
Also, if you have never seen this video of JOHN SETTING UP THE LEDGE, then please click here:
https://www.facebook.com/bigwallgear/videos/402269260150407/
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 11, 2017 - 08:30pm PT
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
I have been setting it up and taking down about 8 times now, and I have it down to about 90 seconds set up and less than a minute packup. Way quicker than what you see in these initial videos, which were both early setups before practicing setup much ( although even in these videos it was pretty smooth and quick to set up with no clusterf*#ks or hassles).
Way easier than my old block corner design and of course no spreader bar to struggle with.
We still have some more available for pre-order at the sale price of $1080. An awesome good deal if I don't say so myself as the more I use this ledge the more I realise it is really a game changer for big walls, especially for remote big walls where light is right and extra messing around with setup and fly deploy in rough conditions can really be taxing. We are not compromising on materials ( and will likely only break even on the Kickstarter batches). Hopefully we will continue producing them past the Kickstarter sales, but you never know. My primary aim is to get them into the hands of climbers like Libecki and Twid Turner and Marek Raganowicz who need better tools like a lightweight and compact full-size ledge system to help push their endeavours, so that is already being accomplished, but of course these ledges will help benefit everyone's big wall experiences. So order yours now!
The D4 portaledge will be available on Kickstarter for a few more weeks. (note, I am being conservative with delivery dates--once we finalise the details of the design in the next month or two we will be producing them and delivering on first ordered, first shipped basis from Durango, so the ones ordered now though Kickstarter may well be delivered sometime later this year).
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1188459201/the-d4-portaledge
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