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The Bottom Line
(5 / 5)
The DMM Renegade is a multi-purpose alpine climbing harness that’s equally at home in the gym and at the crag. It has plenty of gear loops for all your equipment, but doesn’t have much padding. Oh and watch out with the sizing – it’s bigger than you might expect.
Purchasing
The best way to get the Renegade is direct from DMM. That way the folks who design and make the gear get more of the money you pay! Of course it is also available from other places – my favourite UK retailer is Dick’s Climbing. Many other places will stock it too: it goes for around £70.
Features
The DMM Renegade is an all-round climbing harness (sized for men). I find it really comfortable to wear, even for long periods of heavy belaying (I have often worn mine for full days of teaching, leading and belaying at crags around the UK). It is pretty durable (I’ve had mine for three years now and it’s doing fine, with no obvious signs of wear), and has a pretty standard, no-faff build that makes it easy to adjust, with good quick-adjust buckles that don’t need to be doubled back manually.
The standout feature of this harness for me is its gear loops – seven of them! Many harnesses – such as the Black Diamond ones gaining popularity at the moment – have up to four, but I have rarely seen this many on other climbing harnesses. Having so many of them means I never run out of space, even when carrying 20+ quickdraws plus miscellaneous other hardware on really long routes – it is fantastic.
One criticism I have heard of them is that they aren’t shaped to stick out – they just hang flat against the harness. Some people found that this makes it difficult to clip gear to them – but I’ve never had the issue.
Comfort
The DMM Renegade has considerably less padding than some other harnesses out there. Despite that, it’s built in a way that still keeps it comfortable to wear (I find that very padded harnesses never sit right anyway). As I mentioned above, I’ve worn the DMM Renegade for long periods and never felt uncomfortable – when well-adjusted it performs well. The padding on the main (waist) belt of the harness isn’t fixed in place, so it can slide on the webbing. This seems annoying at first but it’s actually a really great feature that many harnesses are missing: it means that, however tight or loose you need the harness to be set to fit you well, you can make sure that the tie-in points and the padding are both centred on you. In other words, you’ll never have all the gear loops way off to one side in order to get the tie-in points in the middle.
Summary
All in all, the DMM Renegade is a really great harness. It’s a little bit more expensive than some (for example the Black Diamond range), but it makes up for it by being simple, easy to use and convenient. It has loads of gear loops to carry all your stuff. And the sliding padding keeps it comfortable at all sizes.
If you’re on the market for a belay device, you might be interested in our reviews of the DMM Mantis (an ATC-style device), the Petzl Grigri, and the Edelrid Megawatt. Or a pair of Scarpa Vapor V climbing shoes. Even more climbing gear >