Old Faithful

The Cinch (trango.com) has been available for years and has scads of loyal fans, who see it as a cheaper, lighter, and more compact tool than the Grigri. Though the Grigri 2 has stolen some of that luster by getting smaller and lighter, the Cinch is still a solid performer, and it handles really well—once you get the knack of it. One of the tricks to the Cinch is the non-intuitive lowering technique that Trango recommends, but once this is figured out and mastered, it is smooth sailing. For belaying, you essentially hold the device open so it feeds easily. It then locks up under load almost instantly—it scored 9.8 out of 10 among our testers for “automatic” braking. Since the right techniques are essential, we highly recommend watching Trango’s how-to videos. One tester called the device “smoother than the Grigri—smoother than an ATC! But you have to do
it just right.”