Light, small, and easy to use. It feeds out rope on lead extremely well and catches people just as well. A bit sensitive when it comes to lowering, small sweet spot. But still would take this over the large clunky models elsewhere.

If you spend time belaying people that hang and hang, bolt after bolt, this might be the device for you. Compact, user friendly, and it works fairly well for solo missions. The handle is a bit small/hard to use with pumped hands, but it works well. A *5* as a lap-running/fixed rope-projecting device.

After reading a copy of "Accidents in North American Mountaineering," I was sold on the idea of an auto-locking belay device: it seemed that a huge fraction of disasters could have been averted if an auto-locker was used. (Note that Trango, for legal reasons, refuse to call the Cinch an 'auto-locker'.)

I've had my Cinch for about a year, and I love it. It is just like a Grigri, but lighter. It works with skinny ropes too!

The upsides are the same: improved safety (if a rock fall hits your belayer, you're still safe); improved convenience (grab that sandwich while your leader dogs the route). The downsides are similar: no double rope belay; jerky lowering (particularly with a slick new rope).

Like the Grigri, it takes a little getting used to. I highly recommend carefully reading the docs on the Trango website.

I get the same impression from this device that I get from most Trango climbing equipment - a really good idea that almost worked. The Cinch has some big advantages over the Grigri, namely its weight, size, and increased rope diameter range. But the rope handling just doesn't hold a candle to the Grigri. It's easy to bind the thing up when feeding out rope, and once it's locked, it's pretty tough to get it feeding again. Especially when your partner is frantically tugging for slack. The shorter lever arm gives less mechanical advantage, which makes rapping with it jerky. But if you're a skinny rope user, this thing is approved down to 9mm, so that's a big advantage over the Grigri.