Big Bro

What a concept! An expanding tube to protect large cracks weighing in at a small fraction of large cams. Unfortunately, they are useless in many cracks, because of the need to have smooth parallel sides. Unless you know the wide cracks you will be climbing are like this, leave these babies at home. It's a shame that they aren't more versatile.



Even if you have nice uniform cracks (like Indian Creek), you will discover another bad trait about Big Bros. They take much more time and energy than an SLCD to place. While this might be OK on easy routes with good stances, it sucks if you're desperately hanging on to a stiff offwidth.



When I first bought my #2 Big Bro, I really liked it. I placed it on a few easy routes, and felt confident about it, but I have finally seen the light.



Not recommended.

When you need one of these babies there is nothing else that will do. I've used the larger sizes in huge granite offwidth and finally came to trust them when properly placed.



Take some time to learn to place them before trusting your life to them. They are lightweight and more packable than large cams while covering much larger cracks.

When nothing else will do. I have had only a few opportunites to place mine and dislike it every time. Hope I never have to fall on one. Of course it beats not placing pro at all and I am sure I would get better with them if I had more practice with them. Still don't ever plan on falling on one though.



I find I leave mine at home most of the time as they are heavy. Only spend the money on them if you know you are going to use them.

I have fallen on one. It held fine, was easy to remove after fall, and suffered no damage. I have also droped one from about 20m (yes embarassing and cost me a beer). It got scratches but no damage to function.



I don't climb many cracks, but love chimneys. You do not need perfectly flat and paralell sides - but do have to place so that a small protruding feature of rock is inside the cylinder ends.



Equip with dyneema cordelette, as normal 5-6mm cordelette will have much lower rating than the bigbro.

Although pretty new to me, these seem to be a great fix for giant cams. The obvious downside is that they can't be easily walked up like a cam but are lighter and more compact. Nice to have!