Edelrid - Mega Jul and Micro Jul Belay Device

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• published: 18 Nov 2013
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Daniel Gebel, Head of Product Development at Edelrid explains all the features and uses of the Mega/Micro Jul. This device, in a non-mechanical way, takes all the benefits of a guide mode tubular device and adds a solid brake-assist. Want to compare this belay device to all the belay devices on the market? Check out www.weighmyrack.com/belay ******TRANSCRIPT My name is Daniel Gebel and I work for Edelrid, from Germany. I will start telling you something about our new belay devices. We have then on the market since one year already. This is the Mega Jul, it works for ropes diameter from 7.8mm to 8.3mm in double ropes and from 8.6mm up to 10.5mm single rope use. It’s meant to be a manual braking device –it’s not an automatic or semi-automatic belay device– you should handle it or use it like any tuber belay device. The way we recommend to use it is: get the thumb in the thumb loop, grab the braking rope and you lift the device a little bit and you can feed the rope when you belay somebody in lead. In top-rope or when you have to take rope in you just do it like with any other tuber belay device, you can tunnel up the rope or you can match the hands and go up again. In case you have a fall, the device has very high brake suspension; actually it locks the rope. I don’t want to speak of « locking » because we don’t want to motivate people to take their hands off. In any belay process, it’s always necessary to have the hand on the braking rope. Lowering off then works with both hands on the braking rope, you can keep both hands on the braking rope, you’re going to thumb loop again, you lift the belay device to the point it starts to slide and you can lower your climber off. The standard version that we recommend for rappelling is in the non-blocking mode so you have to function like any tube on the market. Like this: use a prusik node below and then you can rappel like with any other tuber on the market. You could try and see if it works with your rope, and in the other direction as well, but this is something I would recommend to train. You clip it like this, like in belay, and like this it locks off again, so it’s locked. In case you want to rappel you can just twist it, you go down. In case you have a heavy rope hanging down below you, you go in with the carabiner and you can go over the cliff. In the most case it will work but it can happen, for example, if you have a stiff old rope and you want to rappel, on two strays of up to 10.5mm rope, it will be really hard to go down. So there it makes sense to use it in the normal method, in the standard, non-locking method. When the rope is getting thinner and you feel the friction is getting less, you turn around and you have a much higher suspension belay device. In case you are in multi-pitch and you want to belay two climbers that are following: clip the rope in the guide function, so on this you pull in and on this one it locks off. With this device, it works exactly in the other direction than with all the other device on the market, because in case you would clip it on that direction, it will be locking in both directions. Nothing would happen, it would block but you couldn’t pull the rope in because it would be locking. The big advantage that it offers on the other side compared to many other tube belay devices on the market is it’s made from stainless steel – it’s not made from aluminum– which makes it very durable, very strong. So it looks a little tiny but it’s much stronger than many of the aluminum tuber on the market. The idea behind, started when we made a new twin rope 6.9mm. It’s the thinnest twin rope on the market since last year. The ropes are getting thinner and thinner and thinner, which make sense because they are getting stronger, safe as ever – we can make them thinner now. The problem is, as the ropes are getting thinner, you’re getting concerned: maybe “will I be able to hold a fall if somebody is really heavy?” So we wanted to create a belay device suitable for a 6.9mm twin rope and give some added safety in case of a fall. And what came out is the Micro Jul, and as this one worked out so well, it was clear that we had to make a follow-up for double-ropes and single ropes: and this is the Mega Jul. All the same function we have in the Micro Jul, but the Micro Jul is design for smaller rope diameter. With every pair of flycatchers that you buy, you get one Micro Jul for free. It’s always included in the package because there is no other belay device on the market that would be suitable for that rope diameter.