(It's after four on a monday. Yes, I'm working hard.)

It occurs to me that purple and yellow are silly colours and that trad. ropes shouldn't be manufactured in either. Why? Because "That's me on yellow" sounds mighty silly when yelled at the top of one's voice.

Instead, I like red and green. They're monosyllabic and the words differ significantly so they're distinguishable even if they're hard to hear. (Unlike "take" and "slack" which, when yelled by a guy who's around a corner, down-wind, pumped and freezing cold, sound pretty similar.)

Coming from a sailing background, they're associated with port and starboard so there's no effort to remember which one you were clipping on the left or the right and there's even the connotations of wrong and right to help you remember which one to pull when you're at the base of your abseil.

Lastly, they're bright and colourful.

If you could pick any colour pairing from amaranth to zaffre for your two ropes, what would it be and why?

My personal favourite combo I've used is 'purple' and 'puke'
My second favourite combo was 'green' and 'green'. Yes they were identical makes and models. The two seconds found pitch 7 interesting, a thin traverse followed by a butch overhang...

Another chom has 'Shatsey' and 'Mousey'

Variety is the spice of life. You can just imagine "off belay on red' being met with 7 renditions of 'off belay' from around the crag... ne?

I got blue and red (although it might be going slightly orange since it rained). I got these colours mostly because they were available at the time, but also because they're easy to hear in the wind.
I once had a single rope that was bright yellow (think highlighter!) and you could easily spot us from the accommodation below.

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Climb ZA - Administrator

all trad ropes are "blue" and "red". just need to decide which is which.

Green and red are indistinguishable to almost 5-8% of men so for quite a large slice of the population they are both grey.

Mine are blue and "Bonfire" (a red/orange) which are the only colours they make them in.

I had a black Beal Joker (to go with my yellow one, it was the only colour that my friends didn't already own) which is the worst colour for a rope because you can't mark the middle and wear is hard to spot as well.

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Happy climbing
Nic

Blue (my mates say it's green?) and red - they were selling the Blue Water Excellence 8.4s in pairs like so

For abbing:
'R'ed goes 'R'ound (the tree or whatever)
pu'LL' the b'L'ue

you guys have crappy colours

we climb on magenta and turquoise ropes

I helped a friend take a water tank out to his place over the weekend. The tank was tied on with two ropes and the one was quite thin and a bit dodgy looking. Friend says "Hmm I don't like the look of that thin / old rope... I've got an old climbing rope we can use to back it up with just in case".
Below is a picture of the rope

It's a whitish/hawser colour.

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Climb ZA - Administrator

Those colours are very last season. Vermillion and cerise are so hot right now.

Always be seen, with lumo pink and lumo green!