SBG II

I use this thing at the ropes course I work at. Believe me, when you have a 300 lbs. slobbering bull wetting himself because he's never been more than eight feet off of the ground, you want something with a little more "umph" to it than an ATC. ATC's are great and I use to use them exclusively; after dealing with the rope burn and comparatively poor lock-off performance, not to mention the jerky lowering method I had to use on the aforementioned bull, I'll never go back. We just bought three SBG's to replace our ATC's last week, so I guess that says something. Belaying through the v's is the easiest thing in the world, and if you want to increase the friction, just clip in short and wrap the rope around the stem.

The only real gripe I have is that if you do clip in short and actually need all of that friction, you sacrifice most of your rope-feeding ability. Short-rope city, woo-hah.

This is by far the best rope controller I have ever used. It is so smooth and gives you many options for amount of friction you want to apply. The Deep "V" cuts allow you to apply friction very easy. Very lightweight. Plus you can also use it as a figure 8 as well. I climb with this device exclusivly now.

This device is simple and works great. The high and low friction sides give superior rope control and the solid stem keeps the device from binding the rope on the biner like what happens with an ATC. My advice would be to buy this device and use it as a primary belay device.