donderdag 19 juni 2014

Teuto again

Here's a video of a few boulders I climbed during two visits to Teuto in the past weeks, ranging from approximately 6B to 7B. The most interesting ascent was that of 'Quicky' for sure, which was anything but quick. I tried this heinous sitstart from two terrible sidepulls quite a few times in the past two years, but never managed to even get my butt off the ground. This time I found the way to do it and it took only a few more attempts to catch the next hold. After that the climbing is much easier, about 6C boulder. I also made good progress in a very cool - archetypal Teuto - traverse project, not shown in the video. It's long, steep, crimpy and very sustained. I hope to get back on it soon and I'll try to make a video of it! First I'll be in Berdorf this weekend though. I hope it hasn't gotten too crowded there, but I fear the worst... On the other hand: enough hard potential projects left there, one must be free for sure!

donderdag 5 juni 2014

Woody upgrade

I've been off the radar for a while. Honestly I've only climbed once in two weeks time... I spent my evenings correcting exams and snacking calories rather then burning them away. But that should change now, most of the work is done! To fuel my motivation, an amazing treat arrived yesterday: a great selection of Core climbing holds hand picked for a steep woody by Core co-owner Leo himself. When I told Matt (from Flow climbing) I was quite passively looking for a good set of slopers and pinches a while ago, he immediately contacted the guys at Core Climbing. I wasn't too confident he would succeed in meeting my quite unreasonable list of demands: slopers and pinches happen to be big, heavy and therefore expensive holds and I had quite a limited budget to offer. On top of that, it isn't easy to find a suitable set of sloping holds for an over 40 degrees overhanging board. Nevertheless, Matt was very confident. And he was right: a few e-mails and photos later a hand picked selection of pinches, slopers, small footholds and shiny new allen bolts - all selected for the purpose of setting roughly seventh grade boulders on my steep woody - was sent out. So today I unpacked a huge box stuffed with brightly coloured resin, happy as a child. A big thank you to Matt and Core is in place for their great help, outstanding service and seemingly endless patience in dealing with all my wishes and questions!

The goodies packed and unpacked, plastic-junky Coen giving them a first inspection.
About the holds then. I gave them a quick try in the afternoon and I am very pleased! Some are just good enough for big powerful moves, others are barely good enough to move from at all. Leo from Core has done a superb job selecting exactly the right holds. The texture of the holds is great too, they have a very rough and natural feel. The selection consist mostly of holds from the 'geometric' range: relatively simply shaped, ergonomic training holds. The 'geometric pinches' are awesome, the 'geometric mini wedges' (the red triangles, which aren't anything near 'mini') are brilliantly awkward and the 'geometric domes' are downright terrible to hold on to, as are the 'mini slopers' from the 'core' range. They target some of my weaker grip positions perfectly: I am mostly good at pulling hard from positive edges and none of these new holds come close to being positive. This upgrade of my woody has painfully reminded my of how much I suck at climbing on slopers and amped up my motivation for training hard again. It will draw me out of my comfort zone for sure and has dramatically increased the versatility of my board (and not to mention its colourfulness). Time to lock myself in the attic again, get my butt kicked by those horrible slopers and hopefully come out a stronger climber!

And ready to use!