Front View	Rear View	Side View

Technical Details

I acquired this rack from Larry Brocker in 2020.

My Anpen rack is 218 mm. tall, 85 mm. wide, 22 mm. thick, and weighs 508 g. The frame is made from 9.4 mm. stainless steel bent into a U, with an internal width of 26 mm. There are 4 brake bars. The bars are 22 mm. in diameter. The top and third bars are 85 mm. long, and the other two are 59 mm. Allowing 35 mm. for the rope leaves 53 mm. for spreading the bars. All four bars have pre-formed rope grooves for a single rope. The bars are held in place by pinned threaded posts.

The top bar is stamped with "ANPEN." The third bar is stamped with a "reading-is-dangerous" icon, "P14," "201402," "Rope ø 9-14mm," and "GA 494-2004."

Comments

This rack is nicely made. I particularly like the pinned top posts, as the provide a secure means of retaining the brake bars without the corners found on hex nuts. The posts are not tubular - they have threaded blind holes for the frame. This eliminates the possibility of sharp threads extending above the post.

The hyperbars are unnecessary, at least for anything I'm gong to use this rack for. In my world, hyperbars are nice additions to four-bar racks so that one can add friction conveniently. If a U-frame rack has sufficient frame extension, and this one does, then one can loop the rope over the top bar and the frame extension will hold it in place, making the the top-bar hyperbar unnecessary.

Even if you can talk me into one hyperbar - and one of my favorite racks, the Howell-N-Mann Mt. Sira has one - why do I need one on the third bar pointing downward? Maybe there are times it would be convenient in rescue, but I believe there are better ways to do things. It is the down-pointing hyperbar that really bothers my sense of simplicity.

So why does this rack need even one hyperbar, let alone two? My guess is that Anpen copied another rack, perhaps the CMI Hyper Rack Extreme. This rack violates my K.I.S.S. philosophy. Replacing the hyperbars with standard bars would be an improvement that saves size and weight. A further improvement would be to reduce the diameter of the lower two bars at the same time.