Introducing the Petzl NEOX

In a small town in the southeast of France in 1991, a seemingly insignificant nobody by the name of Alain Maurice gave birth to the brainchild that would revolutionize modern climbing as we know it today. Maurice may still remain somewhat anonymous to most climbers in the 21st century, but his partners, Fernand and Paul Petzl, may sound a bit more familiar to those of you who have used the GriGri.

Named after a West African talisman believed to ward off evil and bring about good luck, the GriGri forever changed how climbers approached belaying. It created an elevated sense of confidence and quickly proved to be a jack of all trades while leading, lowering, and top roping.

It rose to belay device dominance thanks to a fusion of the STOP, a self-braking descender, and the SOLO, a device used for rope soloing. Petzl’s talisman of climbing employs the use of a camming mechanism to effectively block the brake end of the rope, arresting a climber’s fall and holding them in place while they figure out difficult crux sequences. For those of you who have spent countless hours grasping for dear life to the dead end of an ATC, the absolute user-friendliness the GriGri has to offer is known and widely appreciated.

Some 30 years later, and after at least a few knock-offs from brands like Beal and Mad Rock, Petzl has quite literally re-invented the wheel. The institution that is the GriGri has received a major upgrade and even takes on a new moniker – enter the NEOX.

At first glance, this lead-specific device looks exactly like the GriGri. As soon as you take a peek under the hood, however, you may notice some significant changes to Petzl’s latest cam-assisted device. It retains what the GriGri did so well – the cam itself. When blocking the dead end of the system, the NEOX employs a mechanism identical to that of its predecessor. The one major difference? It has a grooved wheel that makes paying out of slack virtually effortless. This feature gives the NEOX its purpose as a lead-specific belay device.

You may be thinking that the addition of a wheel to the GriGri design is counter-intuitive – I thought the same thing as well. Why would you put something there that allows the system to move so freely? Well, the NEOX is optimised for lead climbing and, damn, does this optimise the heck out of it! It allows the belayer a buttery-smooth belay when paying out slack without compromising on safety.

Secondly, the inner workings of the wheel are a mark of pure genius. Unlike the Wild Country Revo, the NEOX’s wheel doesn’t rely on the speed of the rope to lock into place. It employs a simple, but highly elegant system, ensuring the wheel stops turning in order to easily engage the cam, guaranteeing a comfortable and secure catch – if you keep a firm hand on the brake end, of course!

I have pinpointed a few areas where I think the NEOX excels and have compared it to the two GriGri models to determine if the NEOX is better or if it is just the final piece of the puzzle that Petzl needs to complete their collection.

Paying Out Slack

I absolutely adore the technique used on an ATC to give slack to my climber – it’s smooth and ensures I’m not short-roping them. I tested the NEOX on four different rope diameters ranging from 9.2mm to 10.2mm, and once I pinned the nuances of giving slack on the device, it performed beautifully on all four. All three devices max out at 11mm, but the NEOX’s performance was not diminished as much as the GriGri’s when the rope thickness steadily approached 11mm.

It is not a perfect device, however. I found that if there is slight tension on the rope as a result of it being pulled up for clipping, the wheel doesn’t spin fast enough to prevent the engagement of the cam. This was easily overcome after some getting used to the device, but it does require you to be extra attentive to your climber’s clipping habits (which you should be doing anyway).

My favourite part about the NEOX is that giving out slack doesn’t require you to override the safety feature of the device. Both the GriGri and GriGri+ have the belayer blocking the cam to efficiently pay out slack. Think of doing a handbrake turn in a car – it feels great and it works, but you know at some point it could all go wrong.

Taking In Slack

One thing the GriGri and the GriGri+ both do well is allow you to quickly take any slack out of the system. Due to the feeding technique causing your hand to be near the device, it takes one less hand movement to quickly do so. The NEOX has you belaying like you would with an ATC, so your hand is naturally lower on the brake end, which means you have that one extra hand movement to take in the slack.

This is negligible and by no means diminishes my opinion of the NEOX. Any climbers who learnt how to belay on an ATC will have no objections to this.

There is a quirk on the NEOX that may unnerve some. When taking in slack, the device has an audible clicking which is caused by the wheel spinning in the opposite direction. The inner mechanism works similarly to a ratchet and the clicking that is heard is simply this mechanism looking for a notch that will prevent the wheel from spinning, ultimately engaging the cam, and blocking the dead end. Once you understand how the wheel works, this sound becomes reassuring, letting you know the device is working exactly as intended.

Lowering

The NEOX boasts an extended recycled nylon handle, which Petzl claims offers the user a 3:1 mechanical advantage, which seems likely (because I measured it).

As mentioned already, the NEOX is near flawless on all four rope diameters and there was never a point where it felt as if the system was out of control. The extended lever allows you to tailor the lowering speed with encouraging precision, particularly with slightly heavier climbers.

The one flaw is that lowering with the NEOX still requires the brake end to be wrapped over the side plate, introducing a slight twisting similar to that of the GriGri. The smoothed edge ensures the longevity of your rope, but on the NEOX, the angle is less sharp than it is on its predecessor. I also tried lowering without this technique and it felt just as smooth and controlled.

The one fundamental flaw of the GriGri – that of causing your rope to pigtail – seems to have been addressed with the NEOX. Only extended use on the same rope will determine if it has truly been improved.

Value

I won’t beat around the bush with this one. The NEOX isn’t cheap. Pricing is estimated to be around R2 800, which is almost R1 000 more than the current GriGri, but closer to the current pricing of the GriGri+. Does the device add that much value?

Well, the NEOX essentially does everything a GriGri can do with the exception of being an effective top-roping device. When top rope belaying with the GriGri, the slightest tension causes the cam to engage. This tension is not enough to engage both the wheel and the cam on the NEOX, therefore the device stays unlocked more than it actually stays locked. I did already mention that it is a lead-specific device and this is something that it absolutely excels at. To be able to chuck out slack this smoothly and still keep fundamental safety features intact, the NEOX has found its niche beautifully, and I can confidently say, that if you’re a predominantly outdoors climber, you’ll be predominantly lead climbing as well – and for that there simply isn’t anything better than the NEOX.

In short, I will put it this way. I lent out the NEOX to one of my colleagues to try, and this found me back on my GriGri – I actually missed the NEOX. It felt like something was missing, and I began to regret not holding onto the NEOX for that one afternoon.

Summary

So, is the NEOX the new GriGri? No, it isn’t. It’s just another one of Petzl’s ground-breaking inventions that is designed to live in perfect harmony with the GriGri. Petzl is likely the first company to say that they have monopolized belaying.

There is now a device that fits into three major categories of climbing. The GriGri+ is for exploratory climbers and beginners. On the other end of the spectrum are climbers who want a device that excels in lead climbing situations – that is where the NEOX comes in. Fitting perfectly in between the two is the GriGri, capable of adapting well to both situations.

No matter where you are in your climbing journey, you can trust Petzl to have you covered when considering what belay device to get.

And yes, all three, including the NEOX, are available on Mountain Mail Order and in-store at CityROCK, so get yours now before they’re all gone.