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Technical Details

I acquired my first Fixe Descender (a.k.a. Miku V2) from Barrabés.com in 2021, and a second from Fixe hardware in 2022.

The Fixe Descender is a notched belay tube. It is forged from aluminum alloy and soft anodized. It has 2 slots with ribbed v-grooves, a carabiner eye, and a plastic-covered cable keeper. Mine is 93 mm. long, 42 mm. wide, 97 mm. high, and weighs 83 g. The slots are 35 mm. long and 15 mm. wide. The top of the Omega oval carabiner that I use for comparing belay tubes sits 23 mm. below the ends of the slots.

One side of the Fixe Descender is printed with a hand-holding-a-rope icon, "FIXE," "ROPE: Ø 8-11mm," a book-with-an-"i" icon, a climber icon, and "A0721."

Comments

Fixe called this the "Descender," a rather misleading name for a device whose primary function is clearly to be belayer. They also called it the "Miku V2."

The Fixe Descender is one of the following closely-related belay tubes:

Image Device Side Eye Keeper Black Diamond ATC-Guide, Version A Thin Round 4.7 mm. Black Diamond ATC-Guide, Version B Open Round 4.7 mm. Black Diamond ATC-Guide, Version C Open Pear 4.7 mm. BlueWater Ranger Round Hole Round 3.8 mm. Climb X Guide Solid Round 4.7 mm. Edelweiss Guru Alpin Solid Round 3.8 mm.	Image Device Side Eye Keeper Fixe Descender (a.k.a. Miku V2) Open Round 3.8 mm. Salewa Alpine Tuber Solid Pear 4.0 mm. Wild Country Pro Guide Solid Round 3.8 mm. Wild Country Pro Guide Lite Version A Open Round 3.8 mm. Wild Country Pro Guide Lite Version B Open Pear 4.0 mm.

Each of these is 97±4 mm. long and 41±2 mm. wide, but their weights range from 72 to 100 g., quite a span. Their slots are all 35±1 mm. long and 14±1 mm. wide. They all have plastic-covered cable keepers, with the Black Diamond and Salewa keepers being and stiffer than others.

The Black Diamond ATC-Guide was the first of these to appear, by many years. Version A was an improved version of their Black Diamond ATC-XP. From there, the basic design evolved and similar devices appeared from others.

These extend the ATC-XP and equivalents by adding a carabiner hole at the one side and a cord hole beneath the jaws. When belaying a second from above, a guide can clip the device to an anchor sling with a carabiner passed through the carabiner hole, belaying in an autostop mode, much like one might with a Kong Gi–gi. One can release a jammed device by passing a cord through the cord eye and pulling on the cord - possibly by looping it through a carabiner and applying body weight - but don't let go of the braking end of the rope! All in all, I like these devices

Each of these has V-slots to give additional friction for belaying or rappelling. Each side of each groove has three V-shaped slots, giving the grooves "teeth" to grip the rope more effectively. These teeth act to guide the rope deeper into the slot, in much the same manner as the teeth on the Wild Country Hand ascender work. The teeth do not have the narrow angle found on the Trango Jaws or its equivalents, so they do not create the same wedging action. For this reason, I find these less effective than the Jaws family. On the other hand, the teeth on these devices provide a larger bearing area for the rope, which helps reduce localized heating. These are more massive than many belay tubes, but will still overheat on long rappels.

Some of these have a thin sidewall, a hole in the sides, or an opening in the sides and the central rib. When present, these reduce the device's weight, but also reduce the devices' surface area for rejecting heat. They weight savings is small and offset by heavier keepers on the Black Diamond devices.

I do not see any difference between the field performance of the round vs. pear-shaped eyes.

My slight preferences from this set are the Salewa Alpine Tuber and the Wild Country Pro Guide Lite, Version B These are the lightest of the group and have the stiffer keeper; however, they require closer thermal monitoring on rappel.