Black Diamond  Vario Speed Harness

I bought this harness for my 10 and 7 year old granddaughters to use on our backyard zip line. The line starts from a treehouse 15 feet above the ground and runs a fast 165 feet so security and safety are very important. The harness goes on easily, rides comfortably and is easy to take off so when the girls are trading the harness as they ride the zip things move along nicely. The construction of the harness appears to be excellent and has worked great for the first two weeks. Cost was also a consideration. Great value.

This is a great harness for indoor and group use. We love the way that the buckles CAN NOT be taken apart or misfed through the course of normal use. Harness parts are very clear and user friendly. Some sacrifice is made in the areas of comfort, gear loops and transferable skills (not a typical belay loop), but trade off is worth it for ease of use and universal instruction. Keep up the good work BD!

I teach climbing courses regularly and keep a set of these on hand for participants in these courses. They are solidly built and very straightforward in design. I like the higher tie-in point in case a participant needs help tying in for some reason, as well as the fact that the buckle's are double-backed and can't be put on incorrectly.

Every part of this harness seems to have been made to fit the needs of climbing/belaying instructors in a program setting. The harness is very easy to adjust and the finished fit is smooth, comfortable, and clean in its appearance.

I am fairly large 6'3 255lbs and it fits me fine with a bit of room to spare. It is comfortable when suspended without any binding/pinching issue as long as you put it on correctly. Good product. Seems very well built.

this harness is a great fit for our program... We have outdoor climbing, climbing wall, and lots of different size new climbers using the Vario.

These are great universal harnesses. I use them with all my scouts when rappelling. Makes it easy when you have so many different size boys.

This is a great harness - easy to use - just one tie in point for climbing and belaying.

The Vario Speed Harness is perfect for educational and institutional programs. Black Diamond’s no frills approach means that the harness is intuitive and easy to navigate for inexperienced folk, as well as being easy for facilitators to fit quickly. Additionally, participants cannot unlace the buckles without considerable effort, which makes the Vario Speed a safer choice for beginners than a more complex harness. The size and the shape of the belay loop is also very convenient for helping students tie-in. The Vario Speed Harness is very affordable, and is an excellent choice for a beginning climber, or someone who climbs infrequently. I work for an outdoor education company in Southern California, and we use the Vario Speed Harnesses for our students in our rock climbing and challenge course programs. For these participants, the Vario Speed is perfect and extremely durable when subjected to amateur users. For some reason, it does have a tendency to lose the back elastic straps, whether by participant removal or snapping. It would be nice to be able to replace them without a doing a home sewing project. The only complaint I have about the Vario Speed Harness is its sizing. While the majority of students have no trouble fitting into it, larger participants, particularly ladies with wider hips, have trouble with the size of the waistband. This is particularly disheartening for these students, who may already be trepidatious about trying climbing. I would like to see a larger size available so that my larger students could participate more easily. The Vario Speed Harness is an excellent starter harness for a weekend climber or for a gym, outdoor education, or challenge course program. It does everything those folk need and nothing else. I highly recommend it.