How Strong are Arborist Bridges - New vs Old

We broke 2 new arborist bridges and 3 old ones from Nick Markley & Hunter Vincent. They all broke super good enough above 23kN which is much stronger than your back. We weren't sure how to pull them but we decided on doing them in a U shape with a barrel knot jammed into quicklinks. If you pulled to crazy forces on your harness, it would squeeze you silly until it was pulling in the U shape or basket position we did in this test. 1st test (new bridge) broke at the knot where it jammed the quicklink at 25.59kN 2nd test (new bridge) broke at the knot where it jammed the quicklink at 25.85kN 3rd test (old bridge) broke at the knot where it jammed the quicklink at 22.89kN 4th test (old bridge) broke at the knot where it jammed the quicklink at 23.27kN 5th test (old bridge) broke at the carabiner at the load cell!!! at 26.23kN We broke some 1/2" rope, new and old in this other episode Behind the Scenes I originally sought after cores shot ropes and an arborist said he had some, sent me "well used ropes" and then sat in the queue for almost a year. I broke them to get them off the to do list and I was surprised such a large diameter rope broke so low. Then I did the VT Prusik VIDEO and Cory said he had some new rope of the exact same type so I thought comparing new vs old would make for a super good enough video as I explore HOW i want to make arborist videos. After Publishing Thoughts I feel insecure about making videos on a discipline I know nothing about but then the comments show me how many questions arborists have about their gear that takes an over zealous independent break tester to answer. I think really understanding the gaps and trying to fill them is the magic sauce. Also, it was interesting how many people brought up how tying figure 8s wasn't a standard thing in these ropes. I assume that is true, even before tying them, but it was nice to compare them to all my other rope tests which are tied with figure 8s. Splicing is a deep topic and I hope to do entire break test series on that, and of course testing all sorts of knots. It is nice to see how engaged the arborist community is.