Edelrid
Founded 1863 in the Allgäu — the company that invented the rope everyone else's gear runs on.
In 1953 Edelrid built the first marketable kernmantle rope, and every rope in this catalog — every rope in the industry — is built that way now. That single invention makes them the most quietly influential company on this site. But they didn't stop: the bi-colour rope, the multi-fall energy rope, the first sewn quickdraw, the first bluesign-certified rope. A hundred and sixty years in, still in the same Bavarian town, still doing the thing first.
Edelrid was founded on 13 June 1863 as Schachenmayer & Cie, a braid and cord factory, in Isny im Allgäu — a small town in southern Germany, where the company still is a hundred and sixty years later.
The name comes from two of the founders, Edelmann and Ridder, contracted and trademarked as EDELRID in 1962. Wilhelm Schachenmayer, Carl Ridder and Julius Edelmann started it during the American Civil War, decades before anybody was climbing on anything you’d recognise as a modern rope.
Which brings us to the reason this page exists.
They invented the rope
In 1953, Edelrid produced the first marketable kernmantle rope for mountain sports.
Kernmantle means a load-bearing core inside a protective braided sheath — core and mantle, doing separate jobs. Before it, climbers used laid rope, which abraded, kinked, and had a habit of failing over edges. After it, the whole discipline changed, because for the first time the rope was reliably stronger than the situation.
Look at anything on this site. Sterling’s HTP. Petzl’s AXIS. Every static line in every rope access kit in the world. All of it is kernmantle construction. Edelrid did that, and then let the entire industry follow them into it.
And they kept going
The 1953 rope would be enough for most companies. Edelrid’s list carries on:
- 1962 — Carl Benk develops and patents the bi-colour rope, so you can see the middle mark. Every rope with a colour change owes this one.
- 1964 — the first energy rope, the multi-fall rope, which is the ancestor of every dynamic rope rated for repeated falls.
- 1973 — the first sewn quickdraw sling.
- 2009 — the first rope manufacturer in the world to meet the bluesign environmental standard, which audits chemical inputs across the entire production chain rather than just testing the finished product.
- 2016 — the OHM, a resistor that lets a light belayer safely hold a much heavier climber. Nobody asked for it. It solved a real problem anyway.
That is a company with a habit.
What they bring to a professional kit
Ropes. Statics, dynamics, canyoning lines, and — the interesting one — INTERSTATIC PROTECT, a cut-resistant static for work over edges that would destroy a normal rope. Steelwork, glass, sheet metal, anything with a manufactured edge.
Connectors. The Bulletproof range sets a steel insert into an alloy carabiner at exactly the point that wears through. You get aluminium weight with steel life. It is the kind of idea that seems obvious only afterwards.
Fall protection and rope access. MEGAWATT descenders, the FUSE guided-type fall arrester, VERTIC harnesses, SWITCH PRO lanyards — a complete professional system rather than a rope company’s side range.
Work comfort. The AIR LOUNGE work seat. Sitting in a harness for eight hours is its own engineering problem and most brands ignore it.
Adventure parks and route construction. Smart belay systems for a sector almost nobody else on our roster serves.
Why we rate them
The longest memory in the business. A hundred and sixty years of making rope means institutional knowledge nobody can buy or shortcut.
They innovate where it counts. Kernmantle. Bi-colour. Multi-fall. Sewn quickdraws. Bluesign. Each one became an industry default, which is the strongest form of influence a manufacturer can have.
They took sustainability first, not late. Being the first rope maker to clear bluesign in 2009 — auditing what goes into the process, not just what comes out — was well ahead of the industry.
When the AllEquipped store opens, Edelrid is where our European rope and professional PPE starts.
What we'd reach for
- STATIC LOW STRETCH and INTERSTATIC PROTECT — The professional statics. INTERSTATIC PROTECT adds cut resistance for work over genuinely hostile edges — steelwork, glass, sheet metal.
- Bulletproof carabiners — A steel insert set into an alloy body at exactly the point that wears out. Alloy weight, steel lifespan. One of the neatest ideas in connectors.
- MEGAWATT descender — Work and rescue descent control built for sustained industrial use.
- FUSE guided-type fall arrester — Tracks the line cleanly and locks when it matters.
- VERTIC harness range — Professional work harnesses for people who hang in them all day.
- ZODIAC helmets — Head protection that works across professional and climbing use.
- SWITCH PRO and OMBILIX ADJUST lanyards — Adjustable work positioning that stays exactly where you set it.
- AIR LOUNGE work seat — The difference between a tolerable shift on rope and a miserable one. Underrated category, taken seriously here.
- OHM — Assisted-braking resistor for big climber-belayer weight differences. Not professional kit, but a genuinely original idea from 2016.