Blog

Happy CIRCUS time! Raed athlete @pietrobarilli officially received his Circus Diploma from the @inac.circusschool - congrats! In the picture you can see a glimpse of his breathtaking and very entertaining rodeoline performance. Pietro performs his show on TWTMNBN webbing and with a RODEO weblock - you can get your own in our slackshop: https://raed-slacklines.com/twtmnbn-highline-webbing & https://raed-slacklines.com/rodeo-weblock

The Drill and Chill Climbing and Highlining Festival is the festival with the highest community stoke in Europe. It also is the festival with the highest lines. We supported the last year's edition with 3 amazing lines, 40m Cumulus for Beginners, 100m Rainbow for ambitious highliners and 500ish Rainbow for the pros. Every single one of these lines was mindblowing. The height, the exposure, the view.

We're crossing fingers that this covid thing will be over very soon and that we all can gather at this magic place again. Until then, we love to show you this video, made by the highly talented Sammy Theurer. Stay safe and healthy, everybody and keep the balance!

"Play local" is the theme for highliners in 2020. raed athlete @quirinherterich went out with his buddies Lukas and Julian for a fun session in the Alps, this spot is 8km away from Quirin's home. ⁠

Line: Cumulus https://raed-slacklines.com/cumulus-nylon-highline-webbing⁠

Weblock:Riglock https://raed-slacklines.com/riglock⁠

Anchor: Runner Twin Olympic 6mm rope https://raed-slacklines.com/gleistein-runnertwin-olympic-6mm⁠ 

Meet Pietro, the latest member of the raed athletes team! Born in Italy, now living in Portugal, Pietro sent us this showcast, to become a raed team member. We were immediately convinced - just watch it and make up your own opinion:

Magdalena Preimesberger just sent us a picture from the Terrassenfest at the @SeeblickhotelGrundlsee - highlining in a traditional Austrian "Dirndl" in front of amazing alpine landscape near the Grundlsee, Austria. We love the atmosphere of this line, this shot, this landscape. The webbing she used for the line is TWTMNBN, you find it here in our slackshop: https://raed-slacklines.com/the-webbing-that-must-not-be-named

Maggie is a member of the raed team for one year now. And we love to support this strong slackgirl on her journey. If you're also a really strong slackgirl and like to become a part of our athletes team: get in touch with us! Thx for the picture: Andreas Syen

Can a highline be any more beautiful than a line crossing a waterfall? raed athlete Maggie shows her home spot in this picture. Wow, we're so jealous now! Here's what Maggie tells about her slacklife in general:

"Highlining has become incredibly important to me over the last 5 years since I first started. Although it has been nearly impossible to highline during my studies, I never lost the craving for it. Those calm moments, the intense fighting ang struggling, as well as the happiness you experience in this sport, are what keeps me going. It shaped me, widened my way of thinking and gave me opportunities to meet incredible people and simply enriched my life in many different ways."

Get your own highline gear in our slackshop: https://raed-slacklines.com/ pic: Tom Peek

A sunset session with a walk directly into the sunset is one of the most iconic things every highliner dreams about. Here's what raed athlete Soraya has to tell about this one:

"Before we went to Sardinia we did some research and had contact with a local highliner. He had never rigged the line at Capo Testa but he knew it has been done before. The information that he could give us was: bolting is not aloud. Everything is rigged natural.

We needed to go to this place as we got mesmerized by the pictures in the climbing topo.

After a short walk we entered the valley. I was impressed. The shapes of the rocks where fascinating and the highline was obvious. We scrambled/climbed up on both sides to check out the anchors and made a plan. You have to be creative when you rig a natural anchor what makes it a lot of fun. To rig a 155m highline in a team of 2 can be a challenge. It's always hard work but everything went smooth. Just before sunset we finished the highline and we could have the cherry on the cake: a beautiful session at sunset."

Line specs: 155m Double Rainbow ( https://raed-slacklines.com/rainbow-polyester-highline-webbing ) Anchors: all natural Location: Capo Testa, Sardinia Picture: Tom Peek

We're happy to announce a new raed athlete in our team: Thomas! This guy has insane surfing skills, as you can see in the picture where he goes rad on our MOTM webbing. He is also easily mastering long highlines. You can read about Thomas' slacklife in his short summary:

"I’ve been slacklining since 2011. It all started with a little piece of 15m gibbon slackline that my climbing coach gave me in order to improve my skills on the walls. I got addicted super fast and 4 years later, after I torn it apart by using a stupid piece of concrete anchor, I bought the surfer line from gibbon a 30m piece. But I got bored super quickly, I wanted more ! One week later I had my first longline setup with a piece of 150m polyester… I think It’s here that my real slackline journey started.

Unfortunately like I was studying in the north of France I didn’t get the opportunity to highline so much. Only 3 sessions over three years. I realy started highlining in 2017 around Toulouse in South of France. And now after 1.5 years of practice over France and Europe I can proudly say that I’ve passed 460m, and 350m blindfolded. Even if I love walking long highlines, I’ve always been more passionate about surfing. I just love that pure graceful act of balance. It gets you into a flow very quickly and the sensations can be ridiculously insane… So between a huge long highline and a line that you can surf I would always choose the line that you can surf, regarless the beauty of the spot of course. Notice that my favourite setup to surf line is not nylon, but heavy polyester, at least 90gr, on 100 meters at least. I can also say that among all the hours of slacklining I’ve surfed more than I’ve walked."

Welcome to the team, Thomas!

Raed athlete Soraya went to Sardinia with her partner Tom and many meters of Rainbow webbing in their backpack. Here's the story she brought from that adventure:

"Before we went to Sardinia we did some research and had contact with a local highliner. He had never rigged the line at Capo Testa but he knew it has been done before. The information that he could give us was: bolting is not aloud. Everything is rigged natural.

We needed to go to this place as we got mesmerized by the pictures in the climbing topo. After a short walk we entered the valley. I was impressed. The shapes of the rocks where fascinating and the highline was obvious. We scrambled/climbed up on both sides to check out the anchors and made a plan. You have to be creative when you rig a natural anchor what makes it a lot of fun. To rig a 155m highline in a team of 2 can be a challenge. It's always hard work but everything went smooth. Just before sunset we finished the highline and we could have the cherry on the cake: a beautiful session at sunset."

Please welcome to our team of slackline athletes: Maggie! In this picture you can see her on a highline from Rad Pack Projects in the olympic stadium in Munich, Germany during a shooting for Bogner.

Maggie is an extraordinary #slackgirl - very calm and relaxed on the ground, but with the heart of a fighting lion and blessed with lots of talent for movement when being on the line. When we asked her, what webbing she needs for her training, she immediately answered: "Give me the heavy "webbing which must not be named", I want the heaviest and most difficult training line I can get." That's her spirit!

If you want to traing like Maggie, get your "webbing which must not be named" in our slackshop: https://raed-slacklines.com/the-webbing-that-must-not-be-named

Sit back and enjoy the next 3 minutes of laid back beats and extremely relaxed highlining footage. No fancy whirling around, no bounces, no tricks. Plain blindfold walking and exposure on a 150m long and 400m high highline.

Looking for a cool new slackline wallpaper for your electronic device? Look no further, we've got you covered! The wallpaper can be downloaded in several sizes for different screens:

Laptop:

Laptop 16:9

Smartphone:

iPad:

Android Tablet:

Summer is at the door, so is the waterline season! Waterlines are perfect to try new tricks and moves on a line. If you fall, you fall soft into the water without any injuries. So do it like raed athlete Maggie, grab your swim trunks, bikini or whatever mother nature gave you and have fun on a waterline this summer.

We recommend webbing with soft edges for waterlines, like our Rainbow: https://raed-slacklines.com/rainbow-polyester-highline-webbing

Picture: Karl Steinegger

140m of glorious feelings. At the place where human flight was invented. Otto Lilienthal would be proud of Sebastian and his friends from Slackline Brandenburg! https://raed-slacklines.com/parsec-longline-webbing pic: Daniel Neumann

The combination of Parsec webbing for both, main- & backup line has proven to be a very easy to learn setup for beginner highlines. Raimon visited this beginner's session for a quick ride to demonstrate, how it's done the right way. Thanks for joining in and teaching! Parsec webbing: https://raed-slacklines.com/parsec-longline-webbing PRO weblock: https://raed-slacklines.com/pro-weblock

Awesome! :) Get your Helium webbing here: https://raed-slacklines.com/helium-polyester-slackline-webbing

Walking a highline is like dancing in the sky. Playing with the clouds is one of raed athlete Sebastian Klimke's favorite dances.

raed customer Jonas Schneider shows his locked arms exposure skills on raed's good old #FFF webbing. This webbing is discontinued, but you can train your skills on Parsec, our famous longline webbing: https://raed-slacklines.com/parsec-longline-webbing

raed Parsec webbing is the easiest way to tension a beautiful line in very short time. Its low stretch makes it possible, for example in this beautiful sunset waterline in Russia. Get your Parsec webbing here: https://raed-slacklines.com/parsec-longline-webbing

Watch Sebastian and Raimon having a hard waterline surfbounce session @ Spektesee, Berlin. Line Specs: 61 m of MOTM webbing @ about 5 kN over clear water, tensioned with raed PRO pulley system.

Go big or go home! Daniel totally owns the 104m long and 40m sag Rodeoline made of Helium, the dedicated rodeo webbing, at the abandoned Aktienbruch quarry in Löbejün, Germany.
Get your Helium webbing here: https://raed-slacklines.com/helium-polyester-slackline-webbing

It's official now: Dyneema whoopies don't harm trees if they are used with raed TreePRO, the only carbon fibre reinforced tree protection on the market. Read the full study, authored by the International Slackline Association and get the lightest slackline anchor set available today:  Many thanks to Philipp, Lisa, Thomas, Ruth, Bradley, Sonya and Jan for the huge efforts everyone of them put into this study and the ISA in general. You all are really pushing the whole slackline community to an awesome direction.

Longline sets used to be heavy and bulky over the last years. But somehow times change and things get better - and lighter. Time for us to take a closer look on slackline anchor systems from the perspective of their weight.

Longline anchors usually work the same way: you wrap some kind of sling around a tree and connect your slackline gear to it. But this is where the similarities end. There are many differences in slackline anchors. Some brands use relabeled spansets that are known from industry rigging, others use modified webbing and a quite new approach is the use of spliced Dyneema rope.

For our comparison we took the most known longline brands and added the weights of their anchor components: the anchor sling itself plus the treeprotection that is usually sold along. Let's keep it short & simple, these are the results, sorted from lightweight to heavyweight:

1. raed whoopie + TreePRO (894 g per set)
2. BC adjustable sling + TreeLite (1024 g per set)
3. Slacktivity adjustable sling + Treeprotector (1380 g per set)
4. SlacklineTools Baumschlinge + Landcruising TreePlus (1760 g per set)
5. Landcruising Spanset + Landcruising TreePlus (2580 g per set)

As you can see, there is a very easy way to save lots of weight in your slackline backpack. The difference between the commonly used combination of spansets / TreePlus and whoopies / TreePRO is more than 1650 grams. Thats the equivalent of a 1.5l water bottle!

tl;dr: Loopies are extremely dangerous. Don't use them as highline/slackline anchors. Whoopies are definitely safer and easy to use, Loopies 2.0 are definitely safer but have high potential to use them wrong.

Dyneema becomes more and more popular among keen slackliners. Many reasons speak for it: It's strong, it's lightweight, it packs small, it's easy to splice. But it has downsides too: Knots reduce its strength a lot and you have to splice it. And this is what this article is about: Dyneema splices for advanced slacklining use. There are several techniques to splice Dyneema ropes to build anchors for longlines or highlines. This article highlights the most common techniques that can be found in the wild nowadays and show their advantages and their flaws.

Some weeks ago i saw a picture of a highline anchor in my facebook feed. Nice, clean, lightweight. But there was one big flaw: There was a loopie sling used in a highline anchor. I studied the picture for some minutes and realized: wow, this is really dangerous (I will point out the reason a little later). I commented on it, there was a little discussion, I forgot about it some days after. During the last days I came across another picture like this: Clean, lightweight, Loopie. And once again: Hell, this is f***ing dangerous. That's why I decided to write about the danger of Loopies and how to avoid it. So here we go:

Hard to recognize but this is really dangerous: A Loopie Sling in a highline anchor. Pic: David Kingston

Why are Loopies dangerous? Basics of hollow braid splicing

A splice in a hollow braid rope always works the same way: The rope is threaded through the hollow core of the rope itself. When the outer braids come under tension, they reduce their volume, the outer braids press onto the threaded rope, the friction keeps the inner rope from slipping. It's that simple. But it's also that simple to misunderstand this: If the outer rope braids are not under tension anymore, the inner rope is completely free to slip again. I'll come back to this later.

left side: rope sections under high tension reduce their volume and produce friction to the inner rope. Right side: No tension means hollow braid without any friction for the inner rope

Whoopie Slings

Whoopies are awesome. They are quite easy to splice and give you a completely adjustible rope with a loop on both ends. The adjustable splice has a huge advantage to any other spliced loop: As long as the eyes of the whoopie are loaded, the splice itself is loaded, so the inner rope is always under pressure from the outer braids and can never slip. There's nearly no way to use a whoopie the wrong way. 2 Loops, adjust the length, ready to go as soon as there's tension. Whoopies are safe.

Splice section of a whoopie sling

Loopie Slings

Loopie splice section.

The left part of the splice can easily be undone even under load because the loose tail doesn't carry any load at all Loopie slings are even easier to make than whoopies. You splice the rope to a loop and bury both loose ends. That's it. And there's another thing that seems to be a huge advantage on first sight: Loopies always carry the load on 2 strands, so they should be twice as strong as whoopies in theory. But they aren't. Loopie slings are extremely dangerous as an anchor slings for slacklines. Here's why: The splice section of a loopie has one loaded end (right side in the picture) and one end, that's a loose tail (left side in the picture), which is completely unloaded. This unloaded tail moves freely when the sling shakes. These shakes can easily be caused by wind or leashfalls for example. As soon as the loose tail moves, the splice opens and the inner rope is not under pressure anymore. The inner rope slips out and the whole anchor fails.

There are several strategies that try to avoid the loose end to move freely: 1.: Whipplings. This seems to be an easy method to keep the tail in place. I tried it, it still moves and it slips. 2. Bend the splice section through a shackle or a basket hitch: This works well in arborists' configurations. They have low loads and none to little movement in their setups. Slacklines are the exact opposite: High tensions and lots of movement, caused by wind, surfing, bouncing, leashfalls, some children touching the anchor sling and move the splice section, you name it. The result: The shaking makes the bent splice section move forth and back in the shackle or the basket hitch. This can move the splice section into one direction, what opens the splice completely. The result: the anchor fails in a split second. I tried it. I used it in a 60m Longline in the park. Suddenly I stood on the ground and didn't even realize how quick it became undone. So you can learn from my mistakes: This is dangerous! It will become undone under several circumstances. Loopies should never be used in a highline rig!

Loopie Sling 2.0 a.k.a. "Pirate Loopie"

Concept of the improved Loopie Sling, called Loopie 2.0 a.k.a. "Pirate Loopie"

There is an advanced loopie sling method. It's more complicated to splice it and more complicated to use it. Keen users might like this but it's neither foolproof nor safe for novices. So please be aware: If loopie 2.0 is used wrong, it's just a simple loopie sling with all its risks of failure! The trick of Loopie 2.0 is an additional loop splice in the loose tail, where the loopie part is threaded through once. If both eyes are loaded, both parts of the splice section are loaded and the splice can not become undone. PROs: Reduces rhe risks of a Loopie Sling. CONs: It still has a potential of failure when used the wrong way. Maybe a thimble is needed to reduce friction and abrasion in the spliced eye.

ToDo

* comparison of breaking strength Whoopie vs. Loopie 2.0

Splicing Knowledge: Straight Bury vs. Brummel Lock splice

Some customers asked us what kind of eye splice we use for our Whoopie slings. There are 2 possibilities to splice an eye: The straight bury and the Brummel Lock Splice. We use the Brummel Lock for a very simple reason: The straight bury is very unsafe in conditions where load appears in cycles. There are cases known from climbing slings where simple straight buries became undone just by handling the sling. The Brummel Lock Splice prevents this effectively. Even if it becomes opened it will be fixed in its former correct position when being under load again.

upper row: straight bury being unloaded and loaded again will increase eyesize aka the splice will fail - Lower row: brummel lock splice unloaded and loaded again: Everything is in correct position

Credits

Philipp Gesing: For very inspirational input about splicing techniques of the Loopie 2.0 and other good talks, David Kingston for a very nice chat about Loopies vs. Whoopies, http://Hammockforums.net/ for being another inspirational source on splicing techniques, Gleistein Ropes for their awesome Dyneema ropes, Selma ( http://www.selma.no/ ) for their convenient splicing fids.

Winter days are training days. One of the most effective training tools to become a stronger slackliner is a sling trainer. This is how you can build your own simple and effective sling trainer  from old slackline and climbing gear, you don't want to use anymore. Here's what you need:

• 1 piece of rope between 4m and 8m, depending on the height you want to use it
• 1 pulley,
• 1 carabiner,
• 1 6mm Paracord sling, 1-2m
• 2 3mm Paracord slings, 50 cm each
• 2 pieces of webbing, 1m each (we use MOTM tubular nylon webbing here)

Step 1: Connect the pulley to the carabiner and thread the rope through the pulley.

Step 2: Connect one 3mm Paracord via a Prusik Hitch to each strand of the rope. Use an overhand knot to tie the ends of the Paracord.

Step 3: Connect the webbing pieces to the prusik slings. Tie the ends of the webbing with an overhand knot

Step 4: Connect the 6mm Paracord to the carabiner. Use the Cord to attach your sling trainer to a branch or a hook in your wall.

You are ready for training now! Have a look at the inspiring training videos in our Sling Trainer page

Do you want to become a better and stronger slackliner? We have the right training tool for you, completely made from slackline components: The raed sling trainer. 

A slingtrainer is the perfect training tool for your core stability. The raed suspension trainer is a very simple but powerful tool that makes you stronger everytime you use it. And it's fun to take it to the park too: Connect it to a branch of a tree and train after a slackline session. You will love the feeling of getting stronger outdoors.

There are 2 versions of our slingtrainer available. The brand new version is built from new materials. New pulley, new rope, new carabiner and so on. The recycled version of our sling trainer is very environmental friendly. It comes with recycled pulleys, carabiners and slings from used slackline sets and pulley systems. So this slackline gear gets a new life after its awesome slackline use. You will see that it had a great life as slackline gear before and it will still bring you environmental friendly fun and huge training effects.

Every part is completely tested for safety of course. Every part of our raed sling trainer is made in Germany and oringinally made for the daily slackline use. The webbing for the slings is made from our most famous MOTM for example. It's so smooth and soft, it's just perfect to snuggle it to your wrists in training sessions. The pulley on the other hand is from our PRO pulley system. It's completely frictionless, so it challenges you for really intense body engagement during your training sessions. You see: every single part is very strong and robust. This sling trainer will be your best training buddy for years and it will make you as strong as you never believed to be. Go hard or go home ;) 

raed athlete Sebastian Klimke during his 200m onsight send on Parsec Longline webbing. Get yours here: https://raed-slacklines.com/parsec-longline-webbing and crush your personal bests too!

Picture: mh bilder ( http://www.mind-produktion.de ) Organisation: Slackline Brandenburg

Spliced Dyneema becomes more and more popular among enthusiast slackliners. It's one of the easiest ways to save lots of weight in a backpack full of gear. Check out our Dyneema Whoopies as slackline anchor slings and our incredibly strong soft shackles. You will love them, promised!

Whoopies: https://raed-slacklines.com/slackline-hardware/slackline-anchor-slings/l/dyneema/

Soft shackles: https://raed-slacklines.com/slackline-hardware/slackline-soft-shackles/l/dyneema/

German Slackliner Clara having fun on a 76 m Longline, easily tensioned with the raed PRO slackline pulley system and Parsec longline webbing in the last sunny days of the german autumn.

French Slackliner David Znaty cruising on a 280 m Longline of Parsec webbing. Sag: 13m! Get your own Parsec Longline webbing

That's an awesome package we sent to France today. Many hundreds of meters of Parsec, our low stretch Polyester Longline webbing and 100 additional meters of MOTM, our high stretch tubular nylon slackline webbing. Seems like there are huge projects going on in France. Keep the balance!

"Is your PRO pulley system connective to other brands' gear?" Of course it is. See our PRO slackline pulley system working together with the shiny SeaHorse from Slacktivity. Thanks to Arne for this nice picture!

The second most question that we recieve is: Is your PRO pulley system compatible to a LineGrip? How can other gears be connected to your system? We want to show you the simplest option:

raed PRO pulley system connected to a LineGrip with a stainless omega shackle.

The PRO pulley system has an outer width of 24mm which makes it compatible to stainless omega shackles. This shackle can be used to attach anything you like. A LineGrip, a different weblock, whatever you can imagine.

Of course there are many more options of connection.

Way 2: use a soft shackle around the attached weblock diverter to attach your linegrip. Quick n dirty...

Way 3: you could attach 8mm express slings to the screw of the pulley system to create a new anchor point.

We are sure there are more options to connect gear to our PRO pulley system. So be creative but be safe. And keep the balance!

Slackline gear becomes dirty over time. That's no big deal, you can easily clean it in your washing machine or bath tub. This helps to keep your gear shiny and reduces wear over time. Here's how to do it:

* Put your webbing or rope into a pillow case or a net bag before putting it into the washing machine. This reduces tangling to nearly zero.
* There are detergents for synthetic fibres like sports clothes available in drugstores. These are very good for washing webbing and ropes, because your gear is made from the same fibres (polyamid/polyester). There are also special rope detergents available in outdoor stores. 
* Use low temperature programs like the hand wash program or the wool program. These are very careful to sensitive textiles, so they are best for your gear too. Max water temperature: 30°C. Please make sure that your washing machine can handle the load of your gear - clean it by hand in a bathtub if your machine can't handle the load.
* Most washing machines have an extra rinse program, it's worth using it after washing, to completely wash out all detergents. If you wash by hand, make sure to rinse well after washing too. 
* Don't spin dry or tumble dry your gear. For drying it's recommended to hang it in smaller loops, like shown in the picture:

* You're done. Now take your gear, get out and rock some lines. Keep the balance :)

Short but awesome highline in an abandoned place in Russia. Slackliner: Alexander Tschernjawski. Webbing: raed Parsec.

What a nice highline in the urban heights of Moscow, Russia: Semyon Kolesnik, walking on Parsec Webbing.

И первый пошел ? #slackline #highline #moscow #москва #девушки #красавицы #смотрят #на #Семена

Ein von Фёдор Мутьев/Theodore Matthew (@fedor_of_all_trades) gepostetes Video am 2. Jul 2016 um 22:38 Uhr

#moscow #highline #slackline #moscow

Ein von Фёдор Мутьев/Theodore Matthew (@fedor_of_all_trades) gepostetes Video am 2. Jul 2016 um 22:44 Uhr

Due to many customer requests we decided to make it a bit easier for you to order our famous PRO gear even if you fell in love with some non-raed-webbing. From today it's possible to configure the PRO Longline Set without any webbing. Choose whatever webbing you want, but use the best gear to tension your lines. Of course the non-webbing-version saves you lots of money too. Money that you can spend in some awesome webbing for your next projects. Maybe you want to try some of the webbings we really like to recommend to you:

Slacktivity Marathon - some really nice low stretch webbing for long projects

Landcruising Sonic - Landcruising's masterpiece. Stretchy, soft, bouncy.

BC Mantra MK4 - low stretch, round edges - what else would you want?

SlackFR McFly - really stretchy and round edges. Lovely

Landcruising Core 2 - heavy duty webbing for those who need to rely on heavy things.

BC Feather PRO - some lightweight webbing for low tension projects

SlackFR MILF- strong and soft webbing for longer projects

Slacktivity RedTube - really high stretch. Can you control that beast?

Whatever webbing you love: Our PRO Longline Set will have it tensioned for you with ease in a few minutes. So have fun and keep the balance!

Girl Power: 80m Parsec webbing, one handed rigged with PRO pulley system by Clara in less than 5 minutes. Clara made an impressive walk across this wonderful longline and had even much more fun on it. Location: Barnstorfer Wald, Rostock, Germany - get it here: https://raed-slacklines.com/pro-longline-set

Some months ago we introduced TreePRO to the awesome slackline community. TreePRO is some kind of new school tree protection that allows you to use Dyneema whoopie slings as anchor slings on trees, as shown in our famous PRO Longline Set for example.

We recieved tons of feedback about the TreePRO concept. The feedback included many suggestions on how to further improve the protection of trees. So we tried lots of smaller and bigger changes on the design. In tis article we want to show the state of the evolution of TreePRO and highlight the PROs and CONs of the designs.

DESIGN 1
The first design was quite simple. We took some Cordura nylon, folded it in half, some pocket seams were sewn in and the carbon plates were put in.

PROs: easy to produce, lightweight, needs only Cordura and carbon fibre plates,
CONs: no possibility to fix it to the tree during setup, the anchor sling can not be fixed to prevent abrasion, the carbon plates have 'unprotected' space in between, where traces can occure under circumstances of very rough bark, no soft padding of the carbon plates against the bark

DESIGN 2
The second design was a unique prototype that became deprecated quickly

PROs: nice look
CONs: all of design 1, harder to produce, not robust enough

DESIGN 3
Design 3 tried to avoid many of the CONs of design 1. We added some very flexible but robust memory foam with cordura cover as base layer, the red cordura was sewn onto this base layer to create the pockets. Velcro patches were attached to the red Cordura. The velcros should create the ability to fix TreePRO to the tree and to fix the anchor sling to TreePRO.

Have a closer look at the sandwich structure of this design. A base layer of Cordura, memory foam and Cordura again, carbon plates in the middle and Cordura on the outside:

PROs: ability to fix it to the tree during setup, ability to fix the anchor sling

CONs: velcros can't keep the whoopie in place when using saggy lines, unprotected space between carbon plates

DESIGN 4
When introducing design 3, some people's feedback was that the concept may be right but to get it done perfectly we most propably would have to make it even heavier and more bulky. That's why we did exactly the opposite: We designed it smaller, lighter and nevertheless with lots of more tree protection and usability than in version 3

PROs: Same load distribution area like the bulkier versions before, Nearly no unprotected space between carbon plates, memory foam base layer, friction protection by Cordura nylon, velcro straps to attach it to the tree during setup, velcro straps can be threaded with anchor sling for protection against slipping when tensioning saggy,
CONs: velcro straps are too wide, under some circumstances the anchor sling can put pressure below the carbon plates

DESIGN 5

Design 5 is a small but important change of design 4. The pockets for the carbon plates are 15% longer for even more load distribution area and the velcros are attached a little higher on the outside cordura. This prevents the anchor sling to slip below the carbon plates. This makes sure that the anchor sling always lies on the carbon plates for full load distribution.

TreePRO is shown here in use in a bad angle configuration. The anchor sling is kept in place by the velcros nevertheless.

PROs: huge load distribution area, nearly no unprotected space between carbon plates, memory foam base layer, friction protection by Cordura nylon, velcro straps to attach it to the tree during setup, velcro straps can be threaded with anchor sling for protection against slipping when tensioning saggy or in bad angle conditions

CONs: no cons known at this moment

Results when using TreePRO

TreePRO design 4 & 5 are in use for some weeks now. We had lots of internal tests. After these tests we were confident to show this update to the public and went to several slackline festivals, like the TüTü-Slack in Tübingen or the Slackline Festival NRW (thanks for the awesome time to both festivals b.t.w.). We believe that most slackers will agree that slackline festivals can be seen as an ultimate gear test. Dozens of slackliners walking, bouncing, jumping around on your gear for many days in a row. That's why we don't want to keep the results of those heavy use installations from you:

The result of 100 m Parsec line with about 3.5 m sag, rigged at Roßberg during the TüTü Slack on a tree with a very wet and therefore soft and moss-covered bark. No visible traces beyond some greener moss because of keeping the bark wet unter the TreePRO. No traces of load, no traces of Dyneema rope in the bark.

The result of anchor 1 of 70 m Parsec line with 2 m sag, rigged on a birch tree with quite uneven bark at Slackline Festival NRW. Time of load to the tree: 3 days. Visible traces: None

The result of anchor 2 of 70 m Parsec line with 2 m sag, rigged on a beech tree with very even bark at Slackline Festival NRW. Time of load to the tree: 3 days. Visible traces: None

ARE THERE NEUTRAL TESTS OF TREE FRIENDLINESS?

It's official: The International Slackline Association made some very technical and insightful tests to find out about the forces of different slackline anchor slings on trees. They found: Dyneema whoopies don't harm trees if they are used with raed TreePRO, the only carbon fibre reinforced tree protection on the market. The forces even stay below the threshhold of none damaging loads of permanently installed rigs. Read the full study, authored by the International Slackline Association. As the study tested a worst case scenario with a very small diameter tree, we put up some calculations about higher loads you can put on whoopie slings at larger trees without going beyond the threshhold of tree friendliness. These calculations are based on a worst case scenario, so the values will most likely be a little below. But we believe it's worth protecting our trees a little more. So these are the numbers for your orientation:

HOW HEAVY, HOW BULKY IS TREEPRO?

TreePRO weighs 297 grams each. Rolled together it's smaller than a hand. See the pictures:

HOW DOES TREEPRO + WHOOPIE COMPARE TO OTHER SLACKLINE ANCHOR SETS?

For our comparison we took the most known longline brands and added the weights of their anchor components: the anchor sling itself plus the treeprotection that is usually sold along. Let's keep it short & simple, these are the results, sorted from lightweight to heavyweight:

1. raed whoopie + TreePRO (894 g per set)
2. BC adjustable sling + TreeLite (1024 g per set)
3. Slacktivity adjustable sling + Treeprotector (1380 g per set)
4. SlacklineTools Baumschlinge + Landcruising TreePlus (1760 g per set)
5. Landcruising Spanset + Landcruising TreePlus (2580 g per set)

As you can see, there is a very easy way to save lots of weight in your slackline backpack. The difference between the commonly used combination of spansets / TreePlus and whoopies / TreePRO is more than 1650 grams. Thats the equivalent of a 1.5l water bottle!

So: Get the lightest slackline anchor set available today, protect your trees and and save lots of space and weight in your slackline backpack. It's a win win. 

TreePRO by raed slacklines is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://raed-slacklines.com/treepro

Parsec is the most famous longline webbing webbing from raed slacklines. New tensile tests of this awesome piece of weavery show: It's stronger than ever before. The first generation of Parsec achieved a breaking strength of about 36 kN - we added some safety margin and it was sold as a 33 kN webbing.

The latest development of this webbing makes it even stronger. Tensile tests assure a minimum breaking strength of more than 37.5 kN in average. And again we add some safety margin. Parsec is now sold as 35 kN longline webbing. These improvements don't change anything on the price of Parsec webbing of course. You can buy it in our online shop for the best price possible. 

Always be safe and keep the balance - on strong Parsec webbing :)

The safety of slackline gear is essential for slackliners. Longlines are set up with high tensions so there is lots of potential energy stored in the parts of a longline set when you walk across your line. Nobody wants the line or the components like pulley system or weblock to fail. This could lead to serious injuries when a slackliner is hit by flying parts of a high tension slackline after one part failed.

That's the reason why safety concerns are absolutely taken serious by the raed slacklines team. Every part is accurately engineered by our german engineering team. Many prototypes are produced to make sure everything works absolutely fine. Afterwards every product is tested in lab tests and used by ourselves in many field tests. Only products that pass all those tests will make it to our shop.

Take our PRO weblock for example. It's an engineering part that we are really proud of. No shackles, no parts to lose. And yet way lighter and stronger than most other weblocks out there. Its MBS: More than 100 kN. During the lab test there were 16mm stainless shackles connected to it to make sure it stays in place. These heavy duty shackles were completely bent before the PRO weblock failed at more than 10 tons of load. Watch the video above to see the strength of our PRO weblock. Fun facts about this test: The side plates, made of the ultrastrong ROCsolid steel don't even show signs of deformation after the 100 kN load. Only the screw of the center divider was cut off by this huge load. The shackles that have been connected to the weblock had to be cut out afterwards because of their heavy bendings. Enjoy the detail pictures ;)

Hey Slackers around the globe! We are proud to introduce PRO, our revolutionary longline system, to you. This longline set doesn't need any heavy shackles. It also doesn't need any heavy industry slings. It's just a pure result of german engineering to bring you the most efficient and lightweight longline set ever. The complete PRO set - including everything you need to walk 100 m of awesome webbing - weighs less than 9 (!) kilograms. Yes, including anchorslings, weblocks, pulley system, treepro, everything. The best thing about it: With this efficient system you can rig 100m of slackline in about 5 minutes. Alone. Times when 5 guys were needed to tension a longline are over! ;) Want to have a closer look at it? Just click https://raed-slacklines.com/pro-longline-set

El Chorro. One of the best winter climbing destinations in Europe. Home of countless hard climbs, refuge for many addicted climbers and slackers during the harsh winter in northern europe. Like us.

What's one of the best part of climbing trips? You all know it: resting days to go sklacklining! So we took our raed slacklines PRO pulley system and 45 m of MOTM tubular nylon slackline webbing and looked for a nice spot to rig a decent longline. The spot was quickly found inside a reservoir with very low water level. The enclosed basin was absolutely perfect for rigging the line only knee high but left us enough sag to have tons of fun on the bouncy nylon webbing.

Soft shackles are awesome. You can open and close them, so you can use them like a shackle or a carabiner. But at their given strength they only weigh one seventh of a steel shackle coming with same strength. Soft shackles are made of Dyneema, an extremely strong fibre that is as strong as a steel cable the same size but at way less weight. It is so lightweight, it even swims in water! 

Ou 50 kN raed soft shackles with are made of 6mm DynaOne which is known for superior strength and durability in many conditions due to its innovative coating. You can use them as replacement for your steel shackles and save lots of weight in your backpack. We promise: once you experienced a lightweight rucksack full of gear you will never want to go back to the heavy stuff ;)