Best Crossover Device

Coming from the Italian company Climbing Technology, the ClickUp has a minimal following in the U.S. climbing community, but it proved successful in our field tests. In many ways, it behaves like a tube-style device: You load the rope in a similar way, and you lock off with your brake hand just as you would with an ATC. However, in a fall, your belay biner “clicks up” inside the device to apply more braking force, so you can hold a falling or hanging climber with minimal effort. When it’s time to lower, you press out on the device’s body and pay out slack with your brake hand. We found the ClickUp locks quickest when you’re belaying a heavier climber or a leader fall; it sometimes didn’t lock right away with a toproping “take,” a lightweight climber, or lots of rope drag. But as long as you brake as you would with a tube-style device, it manages falls just fine—even if you mistakenly load the rope backwards in the device, as one of our editors did. (Doh!) Our testers gave the ClickUp a 6 on the “automatic” scale, a relatively dynamic belay that could be helpful if a climber prefers softer catches and the belayer prefers more control. We also found the ClickUp works best at the lower end of the device’s 9mm to 10.5mm range; with thicker ropes, some testers found it tough to pull slack fast enough. At just 4.3 oz., this is one of the lightest assisted-braking devices, and it comes at reasonable price.