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Black Diamond’s Ozone harness is designed to lift you to new heights…
Rating (out of 5)
Performance: *****
Quality: *****
Value For Money: ****
Price: £89.99
It’s a stripped out, slimmed down, lightweight monster of a thing! Less fabric, less padding, less clutter! Meaning, you’ve more to give to the cause of crushing!
Sport routes, trad endeavors and erm…no it’s not actually any good for bouldering whatsoever! So tell us more I hear you say…
The Ozone is part of BD’s Kinetic Core Technology range of harnesses. I’ve already reviewed the Chaos and Xenos, however whilst they are everyday all-rounders, the Ozone is more of a racing (or perhaps I mean sport climbing) thoroughbred!
Black Diamond say that the Ozone is:
“Radical in design, minimal in weight and optimized for serious sport climbing, the Ozone is built using Kinetic Core Construction.”
Okay, so the Ozone is NOT an all-rounder and it’s NOT the most comfy harness you’ll ever buy, but that’s not the point. The point is that it offers freedom of movement and lack of weight so that you can concentrate on the climbing and not feel encumbered by superfluous padding and clutter.
The Ozone weighs in at a lean and mean 320g. It’s pretty light, not the lightest but not bad either. It has a pre threaded, speed-adjust buckle. Meaning you can slip it on, tighten up the waistband buckle, tie in and climb. The leg loops are fixed and the retainer straps at the back are simple elastic although the length can be adjusted.
The waistband features 2 fixed, pressure molded gear loops. These are strategically placed so that your quickdraws or rack are close to hand. They hold their shape well under load and each one will easily hold 15 quickdraws. There is easily sufficient room between the 2 to accommodate a small trad rack which could cope with the single pitch outings on crags such as Stanage or Clogwyn y Grochan.
So whilst it is a perfect sport climbing harness, it is not defunct for other applications. I use my Ozone for all my sport climbing outings because I like the minimalist layout, but I’ve also used it for short trad pitches and grit headpoints.
Like I said earlier it’s not the world’s most comfy harness but it doesn’t cut you in half when you’re working a project either. I suppose it strikes a blance. If you want true comfort then try the Chaos instead. But if you need a bit of an edge then go for this. It features Kinetic Core Technology and a bull horn waistband which spreads the load whilst hanging. The waistband and leg loops also feature a breathable wicking liner, which I’ve found to be very effective at keeping me sweat free and comfortable.
So what is Kinetic Core Technology? BD explain…
“The traditional manufacture of climbing harnesses from webbing plus padding was completely replaced with the new KC2 technology. Our process employs several liquid crystal polymer fibres (LCP) distributed evenly along the horizontal axis in the harness core. Those are the load-carrying components. They are laminated between two light taffeta layers and hardened. This construction allows distributing loads over the entire structure of the harness so no more thick padding is needed. Only a light nylon upper and a pleasantly breathable space-mesh lining serve as a cover for the KC2 construction. The LCP/taffeta layers change into normal webbing at the front and allow a normal closure system with a speed adjust buckle. Further details are four ergonomic gear loops made of form-pressed PE tube with an internally reinforced nylon webbing.”
In conclusion
Buy this harness if you want a lightweight harness to take you to the next level on your sport climbing quest. It is well made, reasonably comfortable, swallows large numbers of quickdraws and won’t feel restrictive when you’re climbing in it. It is also fine for trad climbing on shorter stuff as well as sessions on the wall.
However, if you want a true all-round harness then try the Chaos or Xenos instead.
- Read More about the Ozone on the Black Diamond Website.
- Find UK stockists information here.
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