Harper wrote:You know how some guys run around with the first few feet of their winch rope run out and hooked onto a tie-down point or recovery point.... It's handy to have it out when you are going to use it, but in the mean time that first bit of rope is exposed to UV, weather, dust, and everything you don't want it constantly exposed to.
How much do you reckon this shortens the life of that part of the rope?
I don't have a number on how much it shortens the life by, but the way I look at it is, why would you do it at all?
Leaving a run out like that seems like a statement to me, 'look at me, I have a tough 4x4 with a winch'.
There is no reason not to run the whole line in. It takes 1/2 extra second to do it.
99.9% of the time your line will be wound up doing nothing, why wouldn't you protect it as best you can for that time by just running the whole line in.