Hi All

Where can I buy a Gibbon Slackline in Cape Town? Does anyone stock them?

What lengths do they come in?
And how much are they?

Thanks Cliff

Geez, I'd like to know the answer to that question as well :S
I got a cool one from Warren though that works sweet.

Still wouldn't mind a Gibbon though

check out sierra tradingpost.com

Online from the overseas they are easy to find. Just would prefer buying it in RSA. I hate having to deal with RSA customs.

enlighten me as to what is special about a Gibbon.
we could maybe add it to our next import shipment from the USA....

The Gibbon lines are easier to do tricks on, and the tensioning system (ratchet) is simple to set up.

If you had to bring any in I would recommend the Surfer Line as at 30m it would last the longest as your skill level improves (one craves longer lengths pretty quickly) and could be set up shorter to start off with.

Am I missing something or are these fancy slacklines really no different to the heavy duty ratchet tiedowns used in the trucking industry? Which you can buy from Midas/Autozone/4x4 stores?

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Happy climbing
Nic

I think the Jib LIne (http://www.gibbon-slacklines.com/en/products/slackline-sets/jib-line/index.html?a=23&level=0) would be really sweet as well

Nic, I'm not sure, but I think some of them are. But I presume they use different webbing types or something in the different lines to give them varying feels and change the responsiveness.

I have the pleasure of owning a slackline from SlacklineSA (Warren and co.) and can set mine up much faster than my friends with Gibbon lines. This is due to the ring and pin system used on the non ratchet end.

That said - the ratchet on the Gibbon lines is far superior to the lines from SlacklineSA and I have considered buying a Gibbon line just to get the ratchet.

The Gibbon lines DO come in different webbing materials and feel totally different to the SlacklineSA lines - I regularly walk on 3 Gibbon lines as well as my own line. My line stretches but is not very bouncy (ie nonlinear elasticity) which I like for walking lengths. When you want to Jump bounce is very useful and the black Gibbon line provides it. The Purple gibbon line is somewhere in the middle. The Yellow Gibbon line is truly a poor piece of kit and I'd never buy it.

A group of people slackline in De Waal park every week. Check out CithSlackers. The guys from that group who own gibbon lines got them from X ware. I know these guys don't advertise with the site so I'm sorry for posting it - I'm just responding to the OP. I am in no way associated with that company and have never done business with them myself.

%%Edit was to fix the word pleasure - was incorrectly "please"%%

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I don't think, therefore I'm Not

Sweet! Now if only I had R900 spare lying around

Cool Thanks for the help.

X ware was the place I was looking for just couldn't remeber the name.

Yeah they are rather pricey but seem really good quality

hey guy's

I have a brand new Gibbon Jibline 15m and a set of tree ware. I am keen to sell it for R960.00.

please get in touch with me if your interested, acourt@bishops.org.za.

thanks
andy

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if your not living on the Edge...
... YOUR TAKING UP TOO MUCH SPACE!

Ratchets... What an issue! They are my biggest problem as yes, you can get a 40mm ratchet for our Wakeline (the wide one) but it won't offer the leverage of the 50mm we use. I am trying to find a practical spacer system to solve this problem, but I must be honest it is low on my list right now.

We designed our lines to be affordable and practical. I do think our ring and pin system is better than the Gibbon, but I confess that their ratchet is nicer. I have thought about taking the gibbon jibline to a webbing manufacturer and asking for a copy, and if the market demands it we will however the minimum order wil be in the order of 1000's or meters.

How much do you guys know about Gibbon- I mean do you know how it is that they became so big? Basically someone with enormous financial resources threw money at slacklining (Gibbon) for a few years making the best known brand in the world, as they concentrated their efforts on marketing, not product development. Gibbon haven't made any changes or additions in years, while other brands like Slackline-Tools and Slackstar continue to innovate and offer wider ranges. Their "World Cup" is only open to their athletes, and this is a stumbling block in getting Slackline to the Olympics. the net result of their strategy is they now dominate the market through shear marketing clout, in the same way that chain stores dominate retail in South Africa.

Personally if I were to distrabute an international slackline brand I would look beyond Gibbon, however the market will only demand the things they know, not the things that are best. Please read my signature.

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

hey warren, the Ratchet is kept together with a pin system, you could remove that and place washers inside for your desired spacing. why use 40 mm webbing?

you can also tie an off cut to the ratchet handle or run excess webbing through the handel to help pull. it gives alot more leverage

The gibbon line's are a well known brand in the slacking industry, my main reason for buying the gibbon line is for the simple fact that they are one of the few guy's that add a line rating label to the line, as i work in the 4x4 industry an often come across recovery ropes, i have noticed that the rope with the rating on them has been tested and approved and the last alot longer, i have to admit the ratchet on the gibbon line could be below standard, but the i will soon replace it with the "Ratchet X" ratchet.

The main thing about lines that stretch is that you have to take care of it, keep it clean and make sure you give it a 12 hour rest between slacking, this will majorly improve the live of your line.

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take the leap, its worth the adventure

I'd love to place those Ratchet X units on my kits, and I did speak to the distributor about it, but they weren't interested in selling just the ratchets. there are several reasons why i put a 38mm webbing in a 50mm ratchet, but primarily because the 50mm has a longer arm, meaning more leverage on the line. The other major reason was durability.

I agree that I could put some kind of spacer in the bobbin, it is just a case of finding a neat way of doing it- even glue or steel putty would do the trick, but they would look a little unsightly, and yes, I could use washers. I am not keen to add too much to the cost of the unit, the point of my kit is that is doesn't cost a grand, and i want to keep it as far from that as possible, unlike Gibbon.

It has been interesting inspecting the gibbon, seeing what i like and what i don't and building accordingly. I don't like the stitching, nor the pinching on the ratchet's sling against itself, as a result we went for bar tacks for stitching and a ring and pin instead of the pinch, but perhaps this is a personal taste issue, however your system should last much longer. it was interesting the pins we originally used were 8mm, but we found with time these would bend through the ring, and so we upgraded the pins to 12mm.

there are several reasons why we didn't simply go for a 50mm webbing, but primarily it was because I don't like walking on a line that wide as it wraps round the foot too much, the gibbon 50mm is very soft webbing which i didn't like (reminds me of a seat belt) and the wider lines are more receptive to wind. Wind is an important parameter in Cape Town, and i have noticed even with my 25mm line suffers from wind if the line is too long. part of the reason why i haven't made a 30m 38mm kit is because of wind, not tensioning.

we went to several different webbing suppliers and manufactures before settling on that 38mm. the SA market isn't big enough to have a custom webbing made (minimum orders of 10 000m) but when we took the gibbon to various manufacturers they all said it was not a custom webbing, but one used by certain car manufacturers for seat belts. there are other slackline brands in the world that do use custom webbings, such as Slackline Tools, and i spoke at length with them about bringing there kits into the country, however because the first brand slackliners learn is Gibbon bringing in a better product from a less known brand was a combination i wasn't happy with.

Most of the manufacturers were happy to court our business (the Ram business card helped tremendously), and gave us several pieces of webbing to try. We then made up a bunch of sample lines and went playing in the park. I tell you all of this because i don't want to be accused of not doing my homework on the webbings. for various reasons we voted for this webbing, but it lost many points with us thanks to the strength rating being printed on the webbing. this is a problem as the webbing breaks at 50kn , but we didn't want a kit that strong as it would add to the cost and make the kits ungainly to operate. we haven't had the kits SABS tested because that is R20k that we would never recover, and SABS doesn't have a standard for slacklining anyway, meaning more expense to set that up.

Naturally we did test the stitching, and i am happy with it breaking at about 20kn, as i can't see slackers placing close to that much force on a 20m line, as the ratcheted tension needed wouldn't be possible by hand. both the ring and pin, and the stitching fails at about the same force.

Anymore questions?

PS: yes, I have done a highline on one of my kits, but no, I wouldn't recommend it.

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?