Rent or Buy: The Order to Buy Climbing Gear, and How to Read CE, UIAA and Manufacture Dates on Labels

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On your first gym visit you rented shoes, and the front desk handed you a chalk bag. A few months later you start wondering: is it time to buy my own shoes? What about a harness? A friend offers to sell you a rope he's used for a few years, cheap. Should you take it?

This is post 0 of the Climbing Gear series. The series gives each piece of gear its own post: the buying criteria and standard numbers first, then a comparison of current models, with written reviews and YouTube test and first-hand videos. This post doesn't compare models itself; the GRIGRI below is just an example of how a manual is written. It answers two questions: what to buy first and what to keep renting, and how to read the CE, UIAA, EN numbers and manufacture year on a label. How to choose each item and which models to consider are in posts 1 to 11; how to inspect and when to retire gear is the final post, post 12.

If you haven't been to a gym yet, start with the climbing beginner's guide.

What to buy first, what to keep renting

The series follows the order in which you'll spend money. The rule: buy things when you'll use them, and once you own them, be able to judge whether they're still usable.

Outdoor bouldering also needs a crash pad; that belongs to outdoor bouldering, and this series doesn't cover it.

Why shoes come first

Two reasons: fit and hygiene.

Climbing Ninjette (in Chinese) notes that rental shoes usually come in looser sizing, and that your own pair gives you a consistent feel underfoot. On hygiene, take the price list at Tup Climbing's Wanhua gym (in Chinese, checked 2026-10-19): shoe rental is NT$100 per visit and a chalk bag NT$80, and you must wear socks with rental shoes; you can buy a pair on site if you forgot.

When to buy? The same post suggests renting until you've climbed about five times, to find out whether you enjoy it, and buying once you're climbing at least once a week. That's one climbing blogger's experience, not a research finding, but it's a reasonable starting point.

Why harness and belay device come second

Once you top-rope regularly, you put on a harness and operate a belay device every session. With your own gear, you know its history and its feel. How to operate a belay device is covered in gym top-rope belaying; this series only covers how to choose one.

Helmet, rope and quickdraws wait until you go outdoors

A helmet is for rockfall outdoors, and outdoor belaying explains why belayers wear one too. A rope and quickdraws are what you need when you start leading your own outdoor trips; until then, climb with experienced people and use theirs. A prusik cord, nuts and cams come later still: you need them once you rappel on your own outdoors, or start trad. Multi-pitch usually comes after trad: as Multi-pitch basics found, most Longdong routes marked with two or more pitches are trad, and Taiwan's multi-pitch courses require single-pitch trad leading first.

In the video below, North Wales instructor Jez lays out what to bring when a friend takes you out to second: one harness, a helmet, a chalk bag, beginner shoes, and a belay device with a locking carabiner, while the friend brings the rope and the rack. That matches this post's advice to borrow ropes and quickdraws at first. The difference is the helmet: his audience starts on UK crags, so it's in the first batch; if you're still in the gym, the order above stands. It's one instructor talking from experience with UK prices and no testing, and the personal-kit part ends around 7:30, after which he moves on to trad gear.

Something you can do tonight: list the gear you'll use on your next gym visit and write "rent" or "mine" next to each. The items marked "mine" are the posts in this series to read first.

Shoes aren't PPE; harnesses are

Climbing gear falls into two groups. An article by the German Alpine Club (DAV) safety research team (in German) draws the line: climbing shoes are sports equipment, used mainly to do the sport, with no regulations on strength and the like; gear whose main job is protection is personal protective equipment (PPE), which EU law regulates.

Petzl's equipment-care notes list three PPE categories:

• Category 1: minor hazards, such as gloves and glasses.
• Category 2: serious hazards, such as ventilated helmets and crampons.
• Category 3: major or deadly hazards, such as harnesses, carabiners and ice axes.

So for shoes you can only rely on trying them on; for harnesses, helmets, ropes, carabiners and belay devices you also read the label.

CE marking vs the UIAA Safety Label

You'll see two kinds of marking on gear.

• CE marking: required for PPE sold in the EU. The EN standard it was tested to is usually printed next to it.
• UIAA Safety Label: issued by the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA). The UIAA's safety standards page says it began writing standards in 1960 with ropes and now covers more than 25 types of equipment; it works with the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) to harmonise them, and in some cases asks for additional tests, making its standard stricter than CEN's.

The UIAA's buying advice, updated in February 2026, says to buy only gear bearing the UIAA Safety Label and/or the CE mark. It's usually engraved or stitched on the gear, or printed in the instructions. If you doubt a model's label, check the UIAA Certified Equipment Database.

Standard numbers for common gear

The standards for quickdraw slings and prusik cord are in post 7 and post 9.

For example, Petzl's GRIGRI technical notice (November 2024 edition) classifies it as "EN 15151-1 type 6", a belay and rappel device without an anti-panic function, and states it meets the EU PPE Regulation (EU) 2016/425.

What does passing a standard mean? That samples of this model passed the standard's lab tests. It doesn't mean the one in your hands is still good: it may have sat too long, met acid or been dropped. That's the subject of post 12.

Where the manufacture year is printed

Why look for it? Because textiles and plastics in harnesses, ropes and helmets age, and a manufacturer's maximum lifetime runs from the date of manufacture, not the day you bought it.

DAV's 2010 article on gear lifetime (in German) says that since 2007 textile products such as harnesses and slings have had to carry their year of manufacture. DAV's newer article adds that under current standards, harnesses, dynamic ropes, helmets and sewn slings must carry the year of manufacture. Where to look:

• Rope: the band at each end. The UIAA 101/EN 892 pictorial lists what goes on it: the rope-type symbol, length and diameter, year of manufacture and manufacturer.
• Harness: the sewn label. The UIAA 105/EN 12277 pictorial states that all harnesses shall be labelled with the year of manufacture.
• Helmet: check the label or marking inside the shell; if you can't find it, check the manual.
• Metal gear: not always marked. DAV notes that metal doesn't age with time, so metal items aren't required to show a manufacture year; when they do, it's usually encoded in the engraved serial number.

Some manufacturers encode the year in the serial number. Petzl's care notes give the example "09 365 AB 1234": 09 is the year, 365 the day of that year. Older harnesses may read "99 289 A", again with the year first. Other brands encode differently, so check the manual.

Ropes carry a date in a second place you normally can't see. Petzl's rope inspection procedure says Petzl dynamic ropes have a marking thread in the core whose colour shows the year of manufacture: ten colours map to the last digit of the year, 0 to 9, so 0 is black and 5 is green, for example. Low-stretch ropes instead have a marking tape in the core printed with the year. That colour table is Petzl's own; for other brands, check their documentation. The thread sits inside the core, so you only see it once the rope end is cut; for buying and routine checks, the end label is still what you read.

Something you can do tonight: take any harness, helmet or rope you own and find the CE or UIAA marking and the year of manufacture. If you can't find the year, copy down the model and look up on the manufacturer's site how to read the serial number.

Why harnesses, helmets and ropes shouldn't be bought second-hand

Back to your friend's rope.

The UIAA's buying advice is blunt: the UIAA does not endorse second-hand climbing gear because its integrity can't be guaranteed, and harnesses, helmets and ropes in particular should not be acquired second-hand, because their compromised integrity is especially hard to detect.

The retirement conditions in Petzl's GRIGRI technical notice include one more: retire it if you don't know its full usage history. With second-hand soft goods, you almost never know how many falls it took or whether it sat next to a car battery.

So the answer to your friend's rope is no. Even a good friend may not remember everything that rope has been through.

Buying online and counterfeits

Three more points in the UIAA advice are about where you buy:

1. Watch for counterfeits. Seemingly certified products at very low prices are a warning sign.
2. Buy online only from trusted sources: known brands, the manufacturer, or a reputable retailer.
3. Check the database when in doubt. The UIAA Certified Equipment Database above lists models.

The first thing after buying: inspect and record

The UIAA's final group, "Record and Review", is the one most people skip. Two of its points:

• Inspect on arrival. Look for damage, deformation, incomplete stitching or corrosion; make sure it's new, clearly labelled and not close to the end of its recommended service life. If anything looks questionable, don't use it and contact the retailer. Maximum lifetime runs from the manufacture date, so even a brand-new harness needs a look at its year.
• Keep a record. Note brand, model, serial number, purchase date, inspection dates and usage to track wear and replacement.

A record-sheet template is in post 12.

Something you can do tonight: start a spreadsheet with those six columns and add a row for every piece of PPE you own.

A shopping list from gym to crag

Practice: four scenarios

Answers are under each question. Think first, then look.

1. You've climbed three times, love it, and want to buy shoes, a harness and a belay device all at once.

2. An online listing offers a "brand new, never used" helmet at a third of retail, with no markings visible in the photos.

3. You buy a harness in a shop, get home, and find the label says it was made six years ago.

4. A senior club member wants to sell you a rope: "Only climbed on a few times, basically new."

Next

Your first purchase is usually shoes. Shoes aren't PPE, so there's no label to read; fit is all you have. How tight is right, how many sizes down, and when to resole: that's post 1: Climbing shoes.

Further viewing: gear-testing and instruction channels

The video embedded in this post comes from JB Mountain Skills. The other two channels below specialize in gear testing. They're a good place to keep digging; keep each channel's limits in mind as you watch.

• HowNOT2: run by Ryan Jenks. It started in 2016 as highline safety instruction and grew into breaking climbing, caving and canyoneering gear, plus the Bolt Busters series that pulls bolts out of real rock. Its value is in the cases beyond the rated number: knots, wear, old gear, bad placements. Limits: most tests are slow pulls on a home-built rig with one to three samples, and Ryan himself calls it entertainment, not science; the channel is backed by an online gear shop, and some tested items are sold there.
• Hard Is Easy: run solo by a climber who signs as Ben, a former software developer. After watching a hard catch slam a climber into the rock in Tonsai, Thailand, he designed his first experiment; the channel now focuses on experiments and physics explanations about belaying, ropes, carabiners and belay devices, with several recent episodes filmed in Mammut's lab. Limits: most experiments are his own design, not EN/UIAA standard tests.
• JB Mountain Skills: run by Jez, a climbing and mountaineering instructor in North Wales; lots of hands-on anchor and top-rope setup lessons. Limits: one instructor's experience and UK practice, no test data.

Update Log

• 2026-10-24: The series now gives each piece of gear its own post and compares current models; rewrote the series description in the intro; the stage table, standards table and shopping list now link to the new posts (chalk bag, belay device, carabiners, quickdraws and rope each get their own), and add the prusik cord, nuts and cams; videos are now limited to uploads from 2024 or later, so three HowNOT2 videos and one Hard Is Easy video from 2020 to 2022 were removed, and the rope-core date marking now cites Petzl's rope inspection procedure
• 2026-10-23: Added gear-testing videos from HowNOT2, Hard Is Easy and similar channels, plus a channel guide

References

• UIAA Advice: Ten things to consider when buying climbing gear (UIAA Safety Commission, February 2026)
• Safety Standards (UIAA)
• UIAA Certified Equipment Database
• EN 892/UIAA 101 Dynamic Mountaineering Ropes pictorial (UIAA, 2020)
• EN 12277/UIAA 105 Harnesses pictorial (UIAA, 2020)
• Ausrüstung aussortieren oder weiter verwenden? (DAV Sicherheitsforschung, in German)
• Lebensdauer von Alpinausrüstung (DAV Panorama 5/2010, in German)
• Tips for protecting your equipment: Belay devices, descenders (Petzl)
• Inspection procedure: Ropes (Petzl)
• Technical Notice GRIGRI (Petzl, D0015500K, 2024-11)
• Price list: Wanhua (Tup Climbing, in Chinese)
• How to choose climbing shoe size (Climbing Ninjette, 2026, in Chinese)
• Climbing beginner's guide
• Gym top-rope belaying
• Outdoor belaying