beastmakerblog

The new home of beastmaker

2011-11-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

www.beastmaker.co.uk

this blog is ceasing

2011-03-23T04:27:00.000-07:00

We've moved our blog back onto our new website, so all new posts will go through that, if you are subscribed to this blog then you may wish to subscribe to the wordpress one, we have set up an RSS feed on the new site so you should be able to subscribe directly to that.

sporadically slippystones

2011-02-18T03:14:00.000-08:00

Pic courtesy of Mark savage

I Managed to get back to slipstones the other day after heading up the previous week to try cypher with Ryan. I first tried this in 2005 with steve (dunning) and Kev (Avery) from memory, i got upto the jump that session but didn't hold it partly through punting and partly through intimidation of the line. I went back not too long after and split a tip warming up! so didn't get anywhere. 6 years later and 1 aborted freezing session in the interim i got round to trying it again. I called in on my way home to carlisle and quickly stuck the jump off a stepladder. I then headed back last week with Ryan and we were both giving it a good wallop. Ryan crushed it in an amazing display of multi talented finger strength, boning the initial pocket to kingdom come and fully booting round to snag the hold as a mono! I had just done the groove at stanton that week, so my cries of lack of skin could barely be heard above the flapping of my billowing skirt on the moors. Next session and with a good team i got it 4th try, almost first try of the day. Difficulty wise It's not too bad really just pernickety and abrasive. Quality wise it is world class and there isn't much better than feeling strong on the pinch and the undercling as you arc your leg back getting ready to "boot it" (marra joke), then the catch takes a moment to sink in as you swirl about a bit arguing with gravity.

Its funny how things work out sometimes.

Mark Savage came out and scarred his shutters with our ugly mugs. He's put some lovely pics up from the day here

Stanton Delivers

2011-02-09T03:41:00.000-08:00

Two years ago when i was just beginning to feel out the more esoteric peak venues, i came across Spare Rib and its accompanying boulder, and whilst this is undoubtedly one of the best problems in the UK it had no other straight up problems on it at the time, the other arete on the opposite side of the block was a prime example of a sitting duck project and on a return visit i mopped it up at 7b+, I then turned my attention to the arete to the Right of Jon in the above pic, i battled up the lower section and found that it leads you into the groove. with the top section of the arete being nigh on impossible and the groove being a stunning feature (albeit visually near spare rib.) I set about this. A session later i was tickling the hanging crack and i thought it wouldn't be to bad. So i left it for 2 years, which seem to have flown by. And after mopping up several other personal projects in the peak this season this rose back up the list. Heading back with Ryan the other day i managed to stick the crack but fully stretched and with no idea where to go, next session i abbed the top moves and sussed out the sequence. Which looks like a wholly undramatic affair when observed but from within a gossamer tension can be felt which is about as comforting as running across a newly frozen lake. the last foot of height takes alot of reeling in and my mind and body repeatedly crumbled on the foot moves. My mind wasn't crumbling from fear, just demand overload, too many minute movements were needing to be monitored at once. Bit by bit i pigheadedly pushed my kinasthetic dullardness up the problem learning more and more micro beta, which other people just do naturally or won't need. And after a little break a brew and a flapjack i jerkily overpowered my way to the top, 3rd session this year.

Stanton Deliver 8A+?

It gets hard from here... (pics are stills from a film shot by Nick Brown)

The problem starts from standing at the foot of the arete with LH on fairly obvious slopey crimp and RH on a pinch on the arete.

click here for a bigger res pic.

Between this, Pink Lady- Dave Mason's new 7c+ stand/ 8a sit. Golden egg- Jon Boys new 7c+ (and Ned's 7c+ variation - Furry Egg)

There are alot of good things going up in this area and i bet it's not long until an 8b is sniffed out.

To Celebrate i whipped over to cratcliffe and RHS with Nick and did Musclin' man (bransbys way) and my prune (stunning) My prune was a bit interesting as it was getting dark and i was getting tired and the last bit heading leftwards strayed a little too close to the bone.

bring out your dead...hangs

2011-02-01T06:24:00.000-08:00

me doing a reasonably ok 1 armer on the 35s (no thumb, no nestle)

35s 1 armer from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

meanwhile on the other side of the planet...

Sam Edwards larking about on a beastmaker during his first session!

This concept has been in the pipeline for a while and with some renewed psyche brought about through the making of a new website, which'll be much more training/user friendly we'd like beastmaker users to upload (or email me) videos of easy-hard feats of strength on the beastmaker (please tag the videos with BEASTMAKER and DEADHANGS), they don't have to be desperate, anything off the old records page'll do. we'll then incorporate all the vids onto the new training section of our site, if feats are impressive enough we might even dole out some prize money!

The idea is to gradually build up a library of beastmaker waddage, which anyone can watch to get psyched for doing a bit of fingerboarding, and as a result get some stronger digits (provided you don't get injured) we'll tier the vids in stages of advancement so please even if you think what you're doing isn't cutting edge it could still be useful so get it uploaded. Even full sets of reps or timed hangs'd be nice.

In other news Ned won the BBCs again to become a triple champ and reclaim the title from the crimping Irish. He let himself go a bit after the comp mind when one too many belgium waffles got the better of him. Still there's nothing tastier than a natural weight belt.

pic, ben morton.

Things i've learnt this year

2010-12-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

One thing was for sure in my mind coming into this year, which is that i didn't want a repeat of last years bi polar year of injuries and sporadic ascents. Consistency was something i wanted from this year, it's no use getting stronger from hours of droll hangtime and not using it outdoors. This year has succeeded by being very different to last year, after a brief but effective (for my fingers atleast) training spell at the start of the year which ended with a shoulder niggle i chilled out, cashed my training cheques in the problem bank and sought about spending them in good fashion on nice lines. On the whole i've had the funnest and most consistent years climbing of my life. However i caught a glimpse off what success would feel like on a few harder projects this year whilst whistling through the days. Things which, had i gotten more deeply involved in them, would have drastically changed the way my year panned out. Instead i just bobbed along going for quick ticks, avoiding delving into the depths of top end problems and the potential injuries which come with it. This was a much needed change from last year and as a result i'm now content that the knawing rat of success is fat enough to tackle some meatier game. In terms of training the weak scraggly bits in my body which have failed me, and the harder lines which exposed them.

So basically i've learnt that every socko problem is fun when pursued with the premise of it in mind, but change is key (especially after a year), wow thats a new epiphany to the world.

Pic courtesy of the mighty Savage

I know i had the most fun on Ivan Dobsky, It climbs like a dream and out of the 30ish 8's from the UK this year it stands out as a cherished favourite.

What else...

The county remains one of my favourite places to climb in the world, but this is only after spending years getting to know it. Like the fact that, regardless of the time of year, if i leave any crag just before sunset i will spend part of my journey home along the military road chasing my favourite view in glorious technicolour

I also learnt that my average time for doing 8's dropped dramatically as soon as i got off the ferry and it went from zero in cornwall despite good conditions and attempts on projects to 1-5trys in brittany to 20mins in font, then upto nearly 1 session in germany, then back to 1 session if very lucky (or if they're not 8n) in the UK but usually 2(as it should be without being handed all the beta on a plate). I also believe that we have had the best weather out of most of europe in the UK this year. This doesn't necessarily say anything of course but it should say something. I think it's partly due to the massive variation in styles of uk hard problems, so you can't just cruise a bunch of things which suit you, you have to change tack and even strengths forced by different rock types in low quantities.

Some UK venues are definitely reaching the end of their potential in the high 7s-mid 8s, even st bees (the predominent lakesbloc news fodder of the year) is beginning to loose the secrecy of its deepest nooks and crannies. Whilst whole crags remain relatively undeveloped in other parts of the country

Peak Grit problems definitely get shitter in overall quality above 8a except for the odd exception.

Peak limestone problems get infinitely better 7c and above, except for bigger belly, which is shit (but even this has more character than work hard).

Fiveten Anasazi velcros can literally climb anything, especially on grit, the rubber on top of teams is wank for toehooking, baggy mocassyms are worlds better. But teams are great for footlocks, heeltoes and crawing (the art of scumming your feet round aretes). jet 7's got made completely redundant by teams IMO.

Dry bags by far make the best bouldering chalkbags (i knew this last year too but my drybag is now so manky it wont get confused with others if there is a buying flurry after i write this)

back in business

2010-12-16T14:52:00.000-08:00

Dave and Elsie have pulled off a phenomenal bit of engineering today and we have a working machine again! it's catch up time

Gremlins

2010-12-15T03:16:00.000-08:00

Our Machine has been down the past 5 days (and it was kicking up a fuss prior to this, hence a new spindle was ordered) due to both our spindle and servo packing in simultaneously, unfortunately this has eaten through our stockpile and we have bottomed out since monday. since then there has been a christmas rush for 1000series boards. We will update again as soon as we are up and running, until then here is a vid of some nice st bees problems that were previously undocumented.

to watch it bigger or in full screen click on the link through to vimeo.

St bees, Fishermans steps from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

they may have been done before. With floating points being the only known exception as this was a known project and it turned out to be much more amenable than i thought, as well as being a superb move. Swept away is a problem which i technically didn't do 2 years ago as a wave came in whilst i was on the top section and we (me Dave and Paige) had to jump on/grab pads and bags to stop them getting swept out to sea, the 7c grade went in the new guide to give people an indication that it can be climbed at that grade. Anyway i reclimbed it yesterday for the sake of completion and felt it warranted a name, in the absence of one, as it is a great boulder problem, as with most things at st bees. Katy managed a tired ascent of the classic arete too which was dispatched with some cool technique.

more cloud formations

2010-11-25T01:18:00.000-08:00

Another blue sky day warranted a roaches trip again yesterday. This time to Nth cloud and skyline. We warmed up at nth cloud and i had a couple of meek attempts at a project i'd tried last year. In fact upon returning to try again it last year i'd been sunned off it and that's when i stumbled upon the prow which is now The Darkest Cloud. Today was looking pretty similar, blue skies are lovely but bad news for small grips. And with Caff and Neil running out of eliminate warm ups to do on the 6a's we went and did art nouveau. It was baltic up there and after Neil'd seen off a swift onsight of Entropys jaw. The clouds had returned to save the nth cloud from the November sun. A big fat cumulo stratus infact, so the sun had no chance. After getting going again it was apparent that conditions were way better, So atleast i'm finally old enough for a tiny bit of wisdom to have crept in. Neil and Caff quickly got stuck into the LH project Which looks nice but climbs pretty thrutchily and with no distinct line compared to its looks. I'd come back for the RH line, whilst this is marred a tiny bit by the swivel finger arete visually it is a far better line climbing and hold quality wise. But then again these projects have been known about since atleast 2004 if not earlier, which speaks for itself, basically they're good but remote enough for no one else but a loony cumbrian to bother walking up there (marras were in the crag majority yesterday!).

The Rh Project has no footholds, just naughty smears. Which have a habit of ripping off and i think they are pretty boot dependent (i went for a good worn in pair of Sazi velcros) You basically pull on and undercut the only usable hold, which rags your pinky, Use a half pad mono to stretch upto the Gaston of fury, I'm so stretched when i get this that i can only creep 3 fingers on and my feet often blow. If they dont you snap some lock in your arm then fire through an amazing move to a lovely 3 finger slopey dish (top photo) then a large juggy LH crimp leads to a final lunge upwards for a good drag. From the last good edge it is possible to match and skulk left into the corner via a big but easy move, but this is not the line nor the problem.

Yesterday i had the rarest of bouldering moments. A perfect go. I'd had several shit attempts at getting the initial gaston and foot poppage was bugging me. I decided to just pull really F-ing hard and see what happened, luckily everyhting clicked, i really yarded down on the mono and undercling and finally got the gaston nicely with 3 fingers, a full on emergency crimp and gutteral growl got me through to the dish and still on i lunged for the top move, which is still droppable but a bit easier, i caught it in a good drag and kept over gripping to get the top. Brilliant. I could barely repeat the crux for video which adds a dilemma to the grade. As it felt fine when it went but hard. Then it just felt sharp and hard after. But then doing something this fast means it cant be too hard. For me i think its 8a+ but i can see taller people getting the gaston with 4 fingers and being much better set up (my 6'2" reach was pretty maxed out), so maybe 8a/+ is more accurate. I couldn't be on much better form board wise and this project is pretty basic, which also adds complexity. Thats more than enough space for grade talk anyway.

I decided the Nth Power would be a nice name for obvious pun reasons. And i am fully made up at flooking such a nice project. There are 4 more projects on my little whiteboard list that i'd like to get done before the new guide comes out, it's a nice incentive anyway to make more work for Cofe and Ru.

The Darkest Cloud

2010-11-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

Pic courtesy of Nick Brown

I managed to see off a mini project on tuesday with the help of Ben and Nick. Its on the Arete on the back of the 5th cloud. Lovely moves straight up a blunt prow. SS from double undercuts and quest upwards to glory. This supercedes a random route called Ride the Lightning E2 6b which pulled on near the top of the arete off the hill behind. Its called The Darkest Cloud and creeps in at soft 8a at the mo i reckon.

Its north facing so is a good escape from sun and sweat when other problems are out of good nick. The landing is a bit technical with it being a grassy hill, decent sized tent pegs are recommended to prevent pad slippage and erosion.

There is a 7c+ to the left too ( which is worth doing, details on peakbouldering.info to follow.

bigger belly

2010-11-12T04:18:00.000-08:00

A Bigger Belly is a tiny little squeezed in problem at Rubicon, revolving around 4 minging crozzly crimps. I had spent a bit of time trying it with Dan before he made the first ascent a couple of years ago – very impressive to watch. He “gave it” 8a+ at the time, its generally considered to be pretty hard – not many people can even pull off the ground, let alone do the moves. This is exactly the style of climbing that I am bad at – snatching between tiny death-crimps, with a dynamic last move to a “jug”. For some reason I had to do it. Fortunately I have bendy legs so I was able to use a heel hook that Dan hadn’t – clearly cheating,this made the first few moves much easier for me but it made the last move a lot harder.

Still one hard move is better than 4. Last summer I had a couple of session falling off the final jump move, and I hadn’t gone back to finish it off since then (a combination of not wanting to go to Rubicon, and having ruined a pulley in my middle finger). Although this problem is one of the worst and most minging things I have ever climbed on I needed to finish it off.

In September had a session on it for the first time in a year and felt much stronger on the tiny holds. I also got a new bit of foot beta which made the last move ever so slightly easier. Still, I had another session falling off the last move! I had invested too much skin into this problem, I wasn’t going to leave it. After a couple of rest days I went back on a cold(ish) morning and finally held the swing! Pretty satisfying as it means I never have to try it again! Although it’s the longest I have ever spent on anything (6 or 7 sessions I think) its not the hardest as the climbing totally doesn’t suit me, and each session was always cut short by ruined skin, rather than tired fingers.

After this I went to font. I might get my arm twisted into writing about that, or you might be spared.

Ned

The Young

2010-11-10T04:17:00.000-08:00

Ever since the start of the year there has been 1 name scribbled on the top of my little whiteboard ticklist. The Young. I have wanted to try it for years after hearing tales off springer about its quality. Last year on a plus 30 degree day we were driving back from back bowden after pottering about sun dodging all day and we decided to walk in to have a look, it was near the longest day and the forest was carpeted in blueberries, you could literally eat your way there! And whilst the walk in was long and hilly with pad raping branches. It was worth it. The Young is one of the most incredible pieces of sandstone i have seen in the flesh, a perfect tablet of stone situated in the forest with an incredible view, soft grassy landing (with even the slightest rock or root this route would become alot scarier). Andy first did it in summer 2000 and a picture which gives nothing away appeared in the new route guide, other than andy looks like he's trying hard, which is good as that means its probably quite hard. Springer had mooted font 8a/+ about with andy's sequence. This route was a phenomenal effort back in 2000, it'd equal any hard grit route in terms of difficulty and boldness, infact this route is more like a slightly higher high fidelity in terms of its niche, easier of course. unprotectable and high. that said the landing on the young is perfect soft grass so it never quite feels too serious.

the bottom of the route is obscured in this shot, its a bit below the tree's shadow, its only just dry!

That day in 2009 i had a quick punt ground up and got to the large juggy patina just before the crux at about 1/3rd height, its about font7b+ to here or there abouts i think.

Arriving on Sunday with Mark we were blessed in that either side of the route was wet due to the last nights rain, but the route itself was dry. The top was wet too but i figured i could work most of the route and atleast get a feel for it. I had resigned to top roping it first as basically i wanted to do it, climbing in the county is alot more effort than in sheffield where pads and spotters are easily available, and the walk in to this is over a mile and hilly so lots of pads are ruled out. I carried 3 in which nearly killed me, however Mark always manages to win on the sherpa challenge and he lugged 50kg of camera japery in.

So after a quick clean on an ab, and writing off Andy's sequence as having FA blinkers i decided to use a small RH pocket he must of missed, this let me flick out to where he crosses over to a pocket, as a mono and with a bit of dainty footwork i could launch direct upto the first of the dinnerplates (big patina blobs, they are so cool!) this sequence was quick, safe as it kept me going straight up above the pads and i had no spotter to move them, and ridiculously fun. What follows is 8 moves of some of the most amazing climbing i've done.

nothing but blank wall and slopey dinner plates to come (stick a dinner plate so the bottom faces away from a wall and you'll see the similarity)

Flicking, popping and locking between the slopey patina dinnerplates and badger heads (bigger and more round than chicken heads) All the moves are do or die though and hanging around isn't a great idea, the route is also inescapable. That said it is only low font 7 climbing so compared to the lower section it is alot easier. I'd managed to clean two jugs enough at the top to make it worth going for. As a compromise Mark knotted a rope for me to help top out once i'd reached the jugs as the grass and tree roots were wet and lethal. On my actual go once i got the top jugs i monoed the bottom knot in the rope for security, upon pulling on it it stretched and i found myself with 1 finger in a mono below my shoulder and my other hand on a wet flat jug, there was only one thing for it, teeth, in a spur of the moment i bit the rope weighted it so as it wouldn't unstretch moved my LH up and topped out over the grass and tree roots. Top roper and aid climber!

one of the tricker moves into the mono (you can 2 finger it but it felt better as a mono to me), Andy gets this hold with his right using his stronger sequence.

I spent the rest of the day lapping the best boulder route (boute?) i've ever done anywhere upto where it gets too scary to jump off. This route was totally worth the wait, it is a stunning bit of climbing and phenomenal effort by andy 10years ago, especially via his original sequence as it was an even harder proposition. With my sequence it feels like a highball font7c+, or a route 8a solo, i believe my sequence is very ground uppable for someone with the balls and this would be an awesome awesome route to ground up, very pure too as there is no gear and no rope. That challenge still remains. As i didn't ground up it but it feels weird commenting on the trad grade but my gut feeling is that this is well worth E8 for a ground up or onsight attempt, and i think atleast 1 fall would take place from the top section unless you had perfect beta, which would be a big fall, a long very awkward way from help.

Even though Andy is widely regarded as one of the best boulderers in the UK i feel his trad routes are mostly overlooked nationally and heavily under rated, despite his hard trad routes being amongst the best in the country of their style (short (10-16m), bold and hard) Apart from this, (which went unrepeated for 10 years) only Endless Flight Direct has been repeated of the E8s and harder (by Graham, Fielding and Watson). Neither has been ground upped. Mark Savage's routes, even bolder often but not quite as hard technically have also seen few repeats (i'm guilty too, sorry Mark) if any. Sadly most of this is through lack of attention from anyone but the locals.

The Young is a beautiful wall (it actually overhangs by about 2 degrees), and deserves its place amongst the classics of the country rather than some obscure side note at the back of a guide somewhere (its actually mentioned in the bouldering guide if you look at the very back pages)

All pictures Mark Savage

Price change

2010-11-08T06:44:00.001-08:00

face 1, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

Unfortunately due to the VAT changes coming in January 2011 and the effect this will have on retailers we are moving the price of the boards to £75, this will take place from the 20th of November.

close comfort

2010-11-08T03:45:00.000-08:00

Since i got back from Germany i've been just as keen for getting out as ever, if not keener, which is unusual as usually after getting back from a holiday i'm up for putting my feet up. I had a crack at a few projects from last year and felt much better on the whole, after splitting a tip on one i took a walk round wyming brook before heading home to train. Wyming brook is 5 minutes drive from my house in sheffield with a free car park and a 1minute walk in to the rocks. It has no decent recorded boulder problems. until now! (actually thats open to opinion but they certainly seem good)

That's not to say it has a lot of boulder problems, yet, or ever will have. But when such a nice venue (peaceful woodland with a stream) and good problems lie so close to sheffield it really is worth the 5 minute drive if you live there. If you don't live in sheffield but 7b is a tricky grade for you then the above picture of, Superbrook 7b should hopefully encourage you to check out a nice problem to try. Its called superbrook due to it being a smaller easier version of superbloc on initial appearance.

We also climbed a nearby problem (named brookside 7b+) under Matthew Thompson's route, parthian shit (great name) it takes the arete right of the crack on its RHS with the crack being avoided for hands and feet. We (me nick and ben

Another nice arete lies on the opposite side of the brook, on the isolated slab, it takes the overhanging LHS of the arete upto the ledge at about 7a and is called the Rhyming Book

All pics Nick Brown.

i'll put these up on peakbouldering.info soon with directions for people to find easily

2010-10-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

Kerlouan.

There is alot of great free info on this venue. And i had seen a video of some strong frenchies like Loic Gaidoz putting up stuff here (there used to be a good video on the french solomon website but it seems to have disappeared??). Anyway, the Brittany coast seems to be a place where they know what wind means. Lamp posts and flag poles tin out a hypnotic tune in every town and large hedges surround most gardens. fortunately this means it is a nice place to climb in the shade in summer. It’s easy to find a breeze at kerlouan when you need it. The rock is incredibly rough but mostly through lack of traffic, Its pretty tacky granite really, the type you’d buy in bulk from netto rather than the smooth expensive swiss stuff. But its had a bash anyway, with a heck of a lotto’ massif on the coast some of it inevitably ends up being good, really good actually. With some of the lines like aeroplane blind being total classics. There is also an amazing 8a called Ah Men.

reading the topo also has one distinct advantage in that the sea is on one side and land on the other so we're talking vectors rather than raster for boulder searching. Kerlouan itself is a bit of a windy ghost town after the school holiday masses leave at the end of august. Our municipal campsite was €3 a night and was 50m from a beautiful quiet beach (out of season). There are tons of problems to go at in the 7’s and a handful of really good 8’s with potential for much more. We only had 2 days there but it felt much longer, I climbed as many amazing looking classics upto 8a as i could until my skin was screaming to stop.

The highlight of this area came upon finding this amazing world beater of a line, after searching it out i sieged it into submission and got a rather incredible feather in my cap which i'll cherish forever more.

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=au8ugL6ii4U

My main regret from here was not going swimming, the lagoons are really clear and would make a perfect rest day or end of climbing day activity.

more info (mostly in french) looks like they are starting to write the new topo for kerlouan too.

http://krimpadenn.free.fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&Itemid=46

http://www.escalademag.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1006&Itemid=61

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/France/West/Bretagne/Kerlouan/photo300745.htm

Bretagne bloc from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

the bad technique is due to it all being flashes, except for bruit du frigo which is nails when you try and climb it like a muppet

In Comparison i though ploumanach was pretty rubbish to climb on and very underfeatured but amazing to look at. Parabola is the obvious exception to the rule here and it is one of the purest boulders i've seen anywhere and an incredible line/climb, certainly an obscure Fred Nicole tick aswell. There is a sitter to this which would go (it was in the high 20's when i was there and still so i didn't stick around for too long after doing parabola, when your pits are sticker than the holds its time to move on!)

cornwall vid

2010-09-28T04:14:00.000-07:00

Cornwall from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

some thoughts on cornwall

2010-09-21T03:55:00.000-07:00

this year I ended up agreeing to go back to the amazing Frankenjura for another limestone holiday. However it seemed a shame to go straight there especially when we had a cornwall visit planned for a week also. So after a bit of research and some good advice off a well travelled Mr Adams a bit of a road trip was planned. Cornwall to kerlouan to ploumanach to font to frankenjura. A bit of a dogleg, Yes, but a scenic and less travelled one which breaks up the drive rather well.

Cornwall was good, amazing in places and very distinctive. Paying over £7 in parking on our first day in Cornwall was a bit of a piss take though (multiple venue days are not advisable for the wallet down there) still thats why its the south, its the bit you end up seeing once your fully doubled over from jumping through all the rule-a-hoops. We checked out Godrevy first but the tide was well in so we only got an hour of excellent bouldering in the main cave. After being pushed out by the tide we headed for Clodgy. After stupidly parking in st ives and only being allowed 2 hours due to monetary restraints we hot footed it round the coast to clodgy point and Mikes sitter to Barnaby carvers excellent problem The Groove. Sufficed to say that this was the only thing at this venue i really wanted to climb, although Salad fingers and boomerang are both excellent, being on nice holds, the rest of the venue is massively lacking in inspiring 7/8s and lacking in potential for more.The rock is overachieving in that British past time of falling apart in most places. Horribly angular and shattered it struggles to form any sort of stable overhang. Basically i thought Clodgy was more of a locals venue, mind you it has never been championed as anything more than this . After doing the groove stand after warming up (a crimp snapped on the flash) and figuring out the beta on the sitter it was time to get back to the car to avoid being clamped. The next climbing day I worked out that if you park at helesveor farm the walk in is the same and you can park all day with no clamping worries (i offered the lady £2 for her troubles). Half the arete holds were pisswrapped thanks to the gully to the right being full of soil from it having tipped it down the day before. (if this was my project i’d clean the soil out the crack off a ladder to stop this seepage) After a bit of a moan i manned up and did the sitter in a couple of goes, with some serious hold towelling. My sequence was much easier than Mike’s (i did the moves on mikes sequence and i’d have definitely given it 8A+ if i’d used that) That said the boulder is generally exholdiating so i can see this problem changing grades alot if it gets lots of attention over coming years. For the sequence i used (will put a video up when i get a decent connection) i’d feel bad taking more than 7C+ for it. And the stand up seemed fair at 7B after using the sequence on Barnaby carver’s video.

Aah Godrevy how i wish you were a bit further north. I really really rate this venue. I feel the rock makes what is there 10X better than it’d normally be. rounded slate slopers have got to be some of the greatest holds on the planet. We spent 3 days here in total and i liked every problem i did and i did as many as i could, except for controvoscopy which was a bit buried under pebbles i think? details on start holds?. I did some nice projects too (tbc) which i got on video. Infact there seemed to be projects appearing out of nowhere. on my last day there I got ooh so close to a nice and hard roof project which was hidden in plain sight, oh to have 1 more session, this would have been hard 8a/+ ish and it has a great leftwards extension at 8b/+ish for sure. thanks to the blankness of the slate alot of the climbing here can be brutally basic this project has a great (almost) 1 armer in (Leo you’d crush it). Again its on video so i’ll whack it up at some point. Providence was also excellent and the dyno drive by move is a real keeper for the memory banks. This place has got to be due a new guide soon to do it justice? just some photo topos’d do the trick. Or maybe Greg just spoils us up in the lakes.

water proofing

2010-08-17T07:12:00.000-07:00

This is something i've wanted to do in the peak for ages, never mind future proofing. Since coming to the peak i have yearned after climbing Monumental Armblaster and Sean's roof. Two of the finest examples of routes in their style that the peak has to offer. Both, however, seemed to be under an ever deepening clag-olith of depressing gloop. That was until this year that is, and the gloop turned to crust, from which holds revealed themselves. With Sean's not having been climbed in a decade, and quietly having shed some holds (haven't they all!) there was a fair bit of beta to be procured. The start was all easy enough, it just involved a bit of elbow grease and for the rock to be dry enough. But sure enough within a session it was only the last move stopping success, and the go before this one:

Dan Variable faceplant from dobbin on Vimeo.

I'd stuck the last move with this beta. But after that fall and a weeks shoulder stiffness I decided there must be a better way to boulder it out. With a rope taking the swing off the jug is better beta and i can see why all the old guard say the start is the crux and can't remember much about the finish , and rope tension certainly plays a role in this too, providing a nice grey area of uncertainty as to whether you received the tiniest of helpful tugs. A few sessions, and an swift & impressive roped ascent from the daddy Adams, later (his first route since pretty much forever!). I still couldn't match the finishing jug without the face in road beta, but gradually some fun beta arose from cutting earlier off the smaller crimps and doing a hard move to get the jug, which then turned into a brilliant heel hook move once Ned'd refined it. And voila Sean's is now a fantastic 8a+ boulder which won't get you run over on a bad go. It'd be my vote for the best of its kind on limestone even if it is barely ever dry. Boulderers debolting a sport route, that'd send a clear message to the sport gods to stop stealing all the boulderers. Its not something i've ever heard of but this is a prime candidate ;) It's not like its far from the road, infact its a bit too near it really. you could bring a high jump mat if you wanted, but 3 mats is perfectly adequate with this beta. Leo 'mojo' moger (he don't know nothin') also put his mandible crimps to their usual STRONG use even after a crash diet of steak and beer.

To top the day off a rogue cyclist accosted us with a short ditty. C'mon lads you're better than that, think of your heritage think of your past."

Sean's roof from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

...Indeed, perhaps i should have explained that we were training for quietus. He clearly hadn't seen one summer anyhow. This was an awesome solo effort by mark leach.

I think part of the reason for sean's struggling to dry out these days is due to tree growth on the opposite side of the valley above the red or dead buttress, this means the sun only comes in the cave for about 3 minutes rather than around 30-50 which'd vastly improve drying.

plenty more been going on too sheffside, just need ta pen it down

A Dark Hour for Bouldering

2010-08-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

That's right, it seems as soon as the weather takes a couple of turns for the better. Which lets us look up out our soggy downjackets. We get all wistful and cocky with ignoring forecasts, and digging out harnesses from the back of pad stores, next thing you know the boat has not only been rocked but driven to the point of the mary celeste. We've been hemorrhaging core boulderers for the last 3 months, some have fled to the mountains and coasts with their harnesses and gear. But most have been seeking the sanctity of bolted cliffs. Luckily mike adams has been tending the fire waiting for others to return, with some inspiring new lines like the seldom seen kid, and hard seldom climbed lines like Sean's roof. Fear not Mike we shall return.UKC's hardest lists, show the extent of the situation. With the boulders list being over a month behind the routes in volume. And it'd be much worse if it wasn't for the stirling efforts of brothers Freeman, boldly listing and adding many a 7c-8a (a plethora of sends infact). The Stone and south lakes limestone link ups can't be tapped forever and at somepoint we'll need a powerful meme to be sewn to bring back regular summer ascents of things in parasellas, the pass and possibly even in sport strongholds like yorkshire and the peak.

I feel the loss of Big Malc to sport climbing early in the season prooved to powerful a blow. with 9a's emerging from blank stone after he got his fists on the Anvil (how manly a crag name is that!), only the iron willed boulderer could ignore the calling of the ropes. Now, I fear it would take a resurgence of The mighty G to stem this tide of ropes, or possibly a sacrifice of gary gibson to the bouldering gods.

I've even found myself bolting in the last week, with resins, it'll take alot of confession time to amend these sins. At the minute i'm kidding myself that i'm just bouldering on a rope, breaking moves down into boulder problems, it

feels less dirty that take. But with every shout of take and the tell tale signs of harness rash, i become more and more of a lost cause. Ned and I have been ticking routes down the dales from 8a+ to 8b+ all of which should kept hush so as to try and not make a bad situation worse.

I've also managed to track down a picture of the mental state of mind Caff is in whenever he pulls on (if you think its the man, think again...) well inspiring to say the least.

In many ways its been fun this year to do a few more routes. And when the veritable atlantis of crags, that is the cheedale cornice, surfaces it's just rude not to sample its fine underclings and soaring tufa lines (ok that bits made up) soaring sika lines is a bit more accurate. But bloody good anyhow.

Hopefully once i get shot of a few more routes i can get back to the boulders and start making amends.

Ivan dobsky & lupino lane pics

2010-07-20T03:53:00.000-07:00

A fortnight or so ago I was fortunate enough to manage to slap my way up a nice new problem up at Ravensheugh and Mark Savage was at hand to capture it, he's compiling a book of county climbs and blocs and is really going to some effort to do the area justice. Often climbers keep busting a gut well after the good light has gone, so nowadays Mark simply busts out a special array of light emitting gubbins to be able to keep shooting unique pics, where most photographers would be forced to pack up or plunder a stupidly high iso (these pics were shot between 9 and 10.30 at night).

I reckon the problem comes in at soft 8a+ish as an initial guestimate, and it is utterly enjoyable. In a time when boulderers are beginning to settle for doing new link ups at old crags i cannot recommend enough going to that bit more effort to find proud independent new lines. With lines like Hispaniola (infact this is just 1 of many great looking problems Mark has put up in the 8's this year), Preperation H, Ironhide, Groove is in the Heart, and The Tracks all being excellent examples from the past 8 months. Its pretty hard to stay positive if the future of british bouldering lies in people driving for hours to link limestone problems up, or for me it is anyway, it's nothing other than chasing points outdoors. Boudering is almost beginning to seperate into traditional bouldering, and what used to be called training outdoors, but is now the art of writing up every single new addition/alteration to a problem without them ever being superceded. Not that any of this is a great crime, but it never hurts to check priorities once in a while.

If you don't know who Ivan Dobsky is then a bit of youtubleing should amend the fact that you missed one of the greatest cartoon series to have been on tv in previous years. Very poignant with the recent affairs near rothbury!

I also managed the 2nd (ttbomk) ascent of Nick Dixons Lupino lane which bizarrely gets 8a or E2 7b but is probably best celebrated as just how varied "climbing" can be with this one lending itself more to parkour than bouldering. you basically leg it down the hill jump on top of the 2 boulders in the picture then kick up the lower smear in the pic and onto the higher one (which has some dubious chipped texture on!!!!!) then double dyno sideways about 2m and catch opposing sidepulls, which is then the start of an E2 arete. I've mentioned it in a previous post but this pic of the go i did it from Mark does it a fair bit more justice:

english 7b in daescents!

the rough and the smooth

2010-06-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

I've been climbing outside solidly for the last 2 weeks as a kind of summer break from training and just a general chillout relaxo time. Its been great to make use of the stable weather and get up to the highergrounds. One brilliant session (more so than usual) was last wednesdays. With our bunch of overpaid, undertrained ball chasers distracting much of the paunched population from leaving the house I made an afternoon sortie up to Ravensheugh with man of the match, triple daddy, Rob Fielding (hi Rob!) robs new approach is to fit a weeks worth of climbing into his 1 free afternoon and he's recently been taking up the torch in the inspiring lines department.

check this shid out:

I can confirm, despite the heat flies and midgies which would normally have sent me home, that this is a cracking bloc, it climbs like you want everything to and the hold texture and curves are like a sandstone Nigella Lawson.

Anyhows we busted upto Ravensheugh, the Ceuse of the county, as i had an eye on a line i'd tried months ago with Ned when there were snow drifts on the ground. We arrived to a belting wind and cloud, which provided some poff like conditions. It took me ages to refine 1 move in the roof the rest of the beta coming from my previous brainstorming session with Ned. Which was handy as this move was hard, if i was just a bit taller and stronger and my second name was Adams then i might have been able to stretch off a good foot way back, instead I ended up smearing in the roof and slapping off one vertical sidepull into a slopey dish, the only thing keeping you on being a slopey heel. from here a series of 1 foot slaps between boat keels and letterboxes get you out the underbelly of the 9ft high roof and established on the lip, with 1 arm, a big lock off out left then sees you on a small but ok hold staring the last moves in the face. After tweaking the beta and shifting up a gear i found myself at the end move again and again with a wilting lat and some strange noises coming out my mouth. the sound of weakness. Gaskins just squeeks, no sound is strong enough to fully escape him. I was howling away and back on the ground. The two being correlated. I pushed on and emptied the tank, whilst having the most fun i'd had in yonks, about 3 goes after I shouldn't have been able to pull of the ground i was still getting to the last move and wilting. I'd given it my best shot and it'd won, i worked the end moves, found better beta (as is always the case) and returned on saturday with bullit.

where by i got hot, shutdown and fustrated at not even sticking the dish for a whole hour. I sacked it off cleaned up billy biscuit a cracking E5 (which is now climbable rather than being a gallery of lichen) and it gradually clouded over and rained. This cooled things off just enough for me to be able to stick the dish, 3 goes later i was dragging the last 2 holds swinging out, silent and possessed by pent up expectations. Job done, it was more like a job on saturday than wednesday too, wednesday was fun and frolicks, saturday was pressure and grease. I finished off by ground upping billy biscuit, although after cleaning the holds on the abb that term is a bit loose but i had no other choice the route was unclimably filthy.

The next day we decided to mix things up a bit and remind ourselves why the county is so good. So a long steep walk in was called for and a venue with yawning chasms for landings and rock with the texture which could only be replicated by mixing a tray of concrete and chucking in 2 boxes of assorted screws, smashing 5 champagne bottles into the mix, and about 3kg of rust shavings. Which is a shame because the lines at the Lad stones are stiking and compelling and the situation alone is worth the walk if your eyes appreciate being massaged.

I had a fairly decent day anyway, did groove armada ground up, and had a bit of a "moment" turning the top slab, would have been useful to have the holds chalked and looked at after an ab but instead i ended up crimping bits of fossilised broken glass and embracing the security of searing pain before cutting and getting my foot up, where after all the holds revealed themselves from their hiding places. Tom's new additions are good fun too even if the pockets on smoking guns are proper dog mouthers. I might have added a new line... not sure, it was quite nice though on small pockets (again sharp). I think i'm addicted to the smell of cordite, which certainly helps with patioing :)

warstarter font 7b+ from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Escape to the county

2010-06-22T04:11:00.000-07:00

Northumberland is without a doubt my favourite place to boulder in the country, It embodies nearly all the reasons why I like bouldering outdoors so much, with striking lines beautiful scenery, skin friendly holds which tease the layers off gradually with each failed attempt rather than ripping away big chunks all at once. The weathering of the features produces some incredible formations too. I've been revisiting queens this last week, trying to mop up the last of the lines I want to do which'd burn a hole in my mind if I sat back in sheffield leaving them undone. Of all of these the Crackline on the main crag at Queens stood as the last of the big 4, It is also by far the biggest at just over 8m. It is a fantastic feature, a meandering crackline flows down from the top of the crag before completely disappearing at about 4m, leading up from the ground is another crackline and a micro break stopping at about 2.5m in the void is a 1/4 pad sidepull, and it looks at you like it is being generous for leaving you anything, basically the problem comes down to using this sidepull and putting your foot in your armpit on the micro break and rocking it out until you can jam your thumb in the bottom of the crack, the climbing after this is still hard, but compared to a 1move 7c+, it is alot more do able. This would have been a hard trad route years ago, especially if it was housed in a trad crag of other E numbers. But i'm claiming this one for the boulderers. "the Crack in the shadows" highball font 8a to ground up I imagine and a good representation of the height standards can be pushed to. Unfortunately I had to clean it on abseil or it would have still been unclimbably scrittly as much of Queens lies dormant in this state, but I kept working it to a minimum on the ab rope. Queens now has one of the best wall problems (it doesn't climb like a crack as there isn't a proper jam on it) in the UK, as well as arete, prow, groove (how soon is now), and lunge (slot). Which isn't bad for something so small in length.

The Pic shows the arete of glorius which climbs up on the LHS of it in its entirety from its base, which arguably supercedes a fine (glorius) E5 from last year which climbs the E2 gloria on the right arete on the right for 1/2 and uses gear on this before turning the arete to finish. On the left all the way it is a magnificent new school 8m high font 7a+ highball (it's protectionless anyway) The crack in the shadows is takes the centre of the shady wall to its left all the way, this pic doesn't even approach doing it justice but should help to place it

I also climbed a nice new 7bish thing out the roof near the wall staying on undercuts the whole way until a pinch is reached on the lip where you come into a flat undercut and lunge round to a nice edge

In other news, Cumbria's fastest fisherman, mr Bullit, nabbed an ascent of queen kong whilst it wasn't looking. Immediately he questioned the grade (Rob only ever lets himself climb 7b+), it certainly is a lot cleaner these days and could quite easily be 7c+ (I think it is). It seems pretty hard to regrade anything these days without getting branded a willy waving sandbagger or spoilsport etc. The fact is that the problem is about 75% cleaner than it was 5 years ago when i first did it, and it was originally done with double toe hooks by me and chris where as nowadays heel hooks on the crux make it a lot higher percentage, new beta (if it makes a difference) should always lead to a new grade otherwise there is no point in grading something for the easiest sequence, bradpitt is the textbook example of this, if someone did it with a heel first and gave it 7b+ it'd be a completely different problem historically.

a bloccy exit plan

2010-06-16T03:09:00.000-07:00

First of all thanks to the army of adoring hot asian birds who have left comments saying how amazing their new beastmaker is (I cant read the comments but I reckon that's what they're saying) but by feeling the need to make us feel insecure by hotlinking to some cheap viagra site, you've gone a step too far. Anyway thanks to this spammy crap i've disabled comments except for blog members.

We've been having some right good weather lately. And whilst it has been a bit waarm some days it has mostly been an awesome year so far. To top it off Swizzy and central europe have been getting all the crap weather we normally get as the mighty Icelandic high has been funneling all the wet lows into an already warm central europe. I've heard the Jura has been consistently rainy and magic wood looks biblically wet from the blogs i've seen. GREAT, now they might realise how lucky they are most of the time, maybe they'll learn to knuckle down and do some hardcore training rather than climbing endless amazing font 8s. Come to England foreign wads, it might be a little off Fred Nicole's radar but at least its dry. Our holds tend to be smaller so they don't get as wet so easily ;) (both those facts are way off the mark mind)

I've mostly been hunting down new peak blocs in the last month, and thanks to some great finds, my brain seems to be more psyched to get the last few (cough several) lime boulders i haven't done in the peak finished off. In hindsight I think the reason why I was leaving a few things is down to not knowing what to do if I had've got on them properly and done them (yeah bullshit excuse i know), so instead i've always dabbled on things like superman and keen roof with the odd sporadic session a year, yet always lacking the drive to actually see them off. It's like the brain needs an exit strategy or it'll just fizzle out of motivation after you tick the last thing you care about doing. luckily for me I'm not too picky so long as its either good or hard or independent. It doesn't necessarily have to be both. So I'd like to climb everything which isn't a linkup or traverse (unless its a great traverse). there are about seven 8's left on my peak list which i'm hoping to see off in July and August but we'll see.

Now that I have a bunch of new blocs to get spanked on hopefully I can see off these old "nemesises" quick smart to give me time to start anew, but who knows or cares for that matter, at least it keeps me busy...

lager lager lager

2010-06-01T05:58:00.001-07:00

lager lager lager, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

recent movements

2010-06-01T05:38:00.000-07:00

We've been busy of late. Ned's in worldcup mode and has been on the plastic, but his fingjury isn't helping things much.

I've been getting out a bit here and there, and finally found a nice way of climbing keen roof, as this problem has annoyed me in the past by always feeling dicky for my height and like i'm missing something. No proper tick yet though as i'm starting from the ben's roof sit like a good boy, then going straight into keen roof via a big move like a logical person might. Hopefully my exit strategy for peak lime bouldering will all go to plan and i can just be on projects by the end of the year, fingers crossed.

Whilst heading back up to Cumbria the other day I met up with luke and finally managed a visit to Earl crag, which has been the most glaring omission burning a hole in my bouldering crag ticks. Luke was an awesome guide and we just ran round in the belting wind like kids in a playground doing classic after classic, it was one of my funnest evenings bouldering in a long time despite totally randomly opening up a massive flapper on my index finger on a crystal in the start hold of lager lager lager. This was nice but i preferred close range and underworld on the whole as the moves are better and the blocs bigger. It's a fantastic crag though and what it lacks in big lines it makes up for in quality moves and wall climbs. Ned's off in vail hucking for some sickrad fully awesome crazy holds next week.

Tamora

2010-05-06T02:58:00.000-07:00

Andronicus cave from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Down at Nigga rock...

2010-05-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

The temps dropped right off on sunday and the cloud was loitering about the sky like chavs in a bus stop, it looked like things would just about stay ok but things could have kicked off at any time. I decided to hedge my bets and try a problem i'd run past for a few months now and admired. So i hooked into my whip and kicked through a few gears down the drag, screaming through the rough suburban neighborhoods and perilous gang land of Hallamshire golf club, where many a clubbing has occurred. skirmishing through the trees i arrived at the treacherous gangland destination of "Nigga rock" (formerly known as Bell Hagg) see pic below, believe me i wish i was making this stuff up.

I wanted to try the whippet (Mike Adams fine addition to the crag) and quickly found out that i was strung out like a banjo trying to keep my feet on the back whilst compressing the crap out of nothing, this way is at least hard 8a+. So i turned to a heel on slightly less than nothing too and worked the angles, 20+ attempts later it stuck and i managed to keep it together on the 6a top out and propped a crap in its ass, or whatever them gangsters say innit.

I thought this was a great problem and with it being 1.7miles from my house it's not like i had an excuse!

Dance your cares away,
Worry's for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Nigga Rock.

Work you cares away,
Dancing's for another day.
Let the Fraggles play,
We're Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober, Red.

Dance your cares away,
Worry's for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Nigga Rock.
Down at Nigga Rock.
Down at Nigga Rock.

for some reason i had a east coast hip hop version of that in my head all session, and thought i'd share it with you :)

Ironhide sds

2010-04-28T11:25:00.001-07:00

Ironhide sds, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

nice pic of a really nice bloc i got up last week

you call that a line?

2010-04-25T04:28:00.000-07:00

an day at rocher tosson from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Feet of strength

2010-04-21T12:47:00.001-07:00

Feet of strength, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

An old pic of Jonesy on what became "feet of strength" Ned's new 7c/+ at queens from a few weeks back

keepin' on keepin' on

2010-04-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

So after forgetting to fall off a bunch of stuff last week I thought I'd try and build on the previous weeks 8ertainment and sample some more low 8's. First up was a spur of the moment decision to get on Solomon's seal, a problem that must just about win the award for sitting on my must try list the longest. I sat about until 5ish then launched my machine Stanageward. It was still stinky hot but just about ok and after about an hours worth of pottering on some solos (Anniversary Arete is amazing and now vies with Queersville as my fav Stanage solo). Golden hour was starting and it was time to sharpen my teeth. After dispatching the stand fast I hopped straight on the sit, after half persuading myself that it went from there anyway. After about 15minutes i had a rough sequence and had done all the moves, but it took another 25 minutes or so to refine it down enough to be able to drop the 2nd last move twice. This seemed to have something to do with a weird kind of smeary juice coming out my fingers by the last move one of Stanage's grizzliest small crimps. 15 minutes of chilled out pottering and sitting about seemed to have cooled things off for one last go, having basically already admitted defeat this was a one for the road. Then that elusive ladyluck stepped in and I hit stuff grain-perfect and found myself at the last move and luckily I seized my chance. I'm not normally one for renaming sitters unless they're in keeping with a rough theme of the stand. So if Solomon Grundy sticks then that's cool. It adds some hard moves and makes it a nice mid 8a I think. A brilliant session though and one to remember next time I'm grumbling.

In the rest of the week I nipped up Banana Republic and just about managed to keep my skin intact, but then an unfortunate broken leg from another very unlucky boulderer stalled the days antics somewhat. After taking 2 days off to sand 70+ beastmakers and develop a few things. It was back to the blocs and a meeting with a hideously strong bugger of the yorkshire persuasion, Mr Mark Katz. After seeing him make full power look easier than falling over when drunk I thought i better pull my finger out and give it a stab whilst Mark was trying 8ball via a look how stretched i am, cheek against rock display of body tension, good job too or else it'd be a party piece for the guy. The send train picked us both up after about 25minutes of waiting and we whisked ourselves off to Moorside. Where Katz found another much more impressive project which didn't seem to kick up much initial resistance, but then a wild Jackie Chan footping tomb stoned him onto the pads, and nothing puts a downer on a good session like horrendous whiplash. We moved onto the sausage king of meersbrook and rumours of 8a-ness. For my height this is more like Ian's original grade of 7c and a few footlocks later she was on board the send train too (great problem this and well worth hunting out). The weekend saw another illicit lime visit and an 8 with a bit of everything. That took me upto 9 in 14 days with a few 7cs, the odd training session and two 10ks thrown in there too. I've stepped things up a bit for the next months list, i'm also on the lookout for some slightly opto projects, unfortunately there isn't a match.com for that sort of thing, just alot of legwork and thinking/ training.

we're starting to work and train for our beastmaker vid too which should get people keen. We're going to round up all the beasts and their beastly feats who are keen for a bit of dangling and show people what can be done if you can be arsed to dangle and watch tv rather than sit and watch tv.

A Law of Averages

2010-04-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

well it's been a good week of weather! and with the evenings getting longer i've been getting out and about.

Friday: Borrowdale volcanics

Before coming back to Sheff I nipped in to say hi to the Bowderstone, it was still there, and so was the hold that bust my finger, i'll be giving that project a few more months I reckon. I had decided it was time to tackle sidekick, the last thing i really wanted to get done on the stone. After getting slapped about trying to ram a sharp bit of rock through my knee for about an hour I figured out that i only needed it for a split second and good old fashioned burl could take care of the rest. This is a brilliant problem and probably the best 8 on the stone. I remember seeing Glenn wilson try this with his half red half yellow hair(when it was v9 and still a project) back in the day in my first year of climbing! The consensus seems to be that its a tough 8a or more like a soft 8a+ and it's certainly harder than special cases. In the end i got it near the end of the session and had to try pretty hard, especially as the oxygen depletion to my brain stopped my feet working properly and my Jet7s turned into clogs before my eyes.

Sunday: Yorkshire Grit

I was driving back down the country so nipped in to see my good mate Kev in't Bingley town. Now I think i've only been to Caley when Kev's been there and I've only been 3 times, and none of those were in the last 3 years! I think i'd forgotten just how awesome it is (except for the prolific victorian chipping) There are loads of things that I want to get done here but an obvious one was the striking line of Ranieri's Reach. After declaring it piss on my third go i then got bored of controlling my limbs properly for the next 30minutes, including dropping it after the crux 3 times, after a bit of a break and a re-warming up of the support team as well as a cameo appearance from legend of the lakes, triple-daddy, Rob Fielding. I gave myself a good talking to and made good on my original declaration. This was much easier than Sidekick and is kicking a good sized hole through the ceiling into the realm of 7c+ . After that it was skin loss time on nothings safe, which went from being painful and jerky in my mind to eccentrically brilliant, especially with the top move being a good value pull off a pinky mono! Now bellies were growling by this point and Kev's easter egg was a distant memory so binge o' clock was called.

Wednesday: Peak Grit

my next chance to get out saw me tired from training but lapping up a bit of afternoon vitamin D at Curbar, i thought i'd check out what the low roof hoo haa was all about. It looked less low than i remember but it looks like some sterling patio skills have been put into place (effort!). After a good chin wag with the a nice Mr Marek whom was there also. I got stuck into la musee. I quickly sacked off trying to use the jug as the ridiculously dabby move spoilt the problem for me (as did the jug). I worked out a slightly harder (physicaly) but less dabby way of not using the jug at all by keeping the toe hook in whilst nipping along the slopers. This flowed nicely and was much more enjoyable. 5 minutes later i linked it up and found it much easier than Sidekick and Ranieri's. To me it seemed to be no harder than ben's roof (at the Tor) or columns at the roaches So soft 7c+ seems about right. I was getting tired by this point but went 1 foot further back to the newly extended start. After working out how to get my leg out of the massive, and slightly painful kneebar without my fat arse touching the floor (this sequence takes you straight into the start holds of la musee) I was getting through things ok but had run out of juice for the full thing. And by this time things were getting pretty sunny under there, so I packed my bags and shot off home. The line from the back is the full line though and a good addition to peak 8's, very unique climbing for grit too.

Friday: peak lime

I nipped out in the afternoon to make the most of the good weather. Cough. really horrible still warm conditions. Cough. My chosen sweat box was Dark Therapy, the perma goppy holds are bloody well annoying on this. Despite that it is a truly great problem slightly marred by greasy crag acne. after battling the grease for a while I had a good go where I didn't slide on the holds too much and luckily ended up on top and not on my back. For me I reckon this is a benchmark 8a, although it is a bit morpho and conditions dependent (if you ever see the start holds bone dry then get on it!), I really like the unique bulge climbing on this and it features a good candidate for legitimately busting out a 1 armer on the last move. After that i spent 45 minutes on another problem reminding myself that i have lost a lot of nouse and now have to compute hard foot moves like a commodore 64 faced with endless lines of code whilst my upper body hangs there waiting for something useful to happen. Basically I can't wait to be able to turn my brain off and just climb again!

So there we go four lovely British "8a"s and all of them completely different to each other in rock type and style and grade, yet apparently all the in the same place on a scorecard.

april fools!

2010-04-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

you'd think the first of April would be a safe time of year to head places without getting snowed on. I've just about had enough bloody snow to fill my snow boots. I thought i'd celebrate spring by nipping upto scotland to get back on some nice lines which i didn't quite manage to join the dots on last time. to sum up a long horizontal snowfall filled story I basically I got 1 days climbing in 4 and so left early. That 1 day was brilliant though and i made sure i climbed from sun up to sun down, trying different projects left right and centre along with repeating a few lovely additions Mr Betts the sharp eyed local.

I got one done which i'd noticed last visit, coming through the roof right of "a fridge too far" featuring double toe hooks some lovely quarter pad crimps and then a powerful throw off them round the lip to a drag and a hard front lever-esque foot move. i'll get round to naming and grading it soon (not that it matters it's there either way). Mind you it seems like 8C+ and red tags are the headline grabbers of the moment anyway or (in reality) stirring up storms in teacups with keyboard commandos doing battle for their chosen trooper, along with a good old bit of willy waving on the side. I'm amazed there isn't an RSI injury climbing blog help site somewhere... or maybe that'd be a touch too ironic

Ned bailed out of another likely wet trip to font so stayed and worked last week despite the temperamental weather in the last week i reckon this year has been pretty special so far. Certainly distinctive anyway.

We're cracking on with designing a new machine at the moment to help more people get their sweaty mitts on our boards. we've also been tinkering a bit down the garden shed if you get our drift... Trevor bayliss'd be reet proud.

Oh and i went to the depot for the first time in ages. G-bus C.H.Rist that is a crackalacking wall,

i know we built the board so are slightly partisan but it is heaven in your hands to train on... they should put a vomit bucket at the top of the big roof though, just incase any boulderers get up there and feel the after effects.

ttfn

ideas of march

2010-03-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

So since our little county visit i've been getting oot and aboot in this gloriously stable weather. We don't often get such prolonged periods of being able to straighten out our necks and look up into the sky without being spat on by a thousand droplets or by the wind knocking us over. England is ace when the weather is like this, it starts to feel like a normal climbing destination where you can just head out and try what you want when you want without a worry or second thought as to whether it's dry or not. Ned hasn't been so lucky, since the CWIF is in 2 days time and we're hoping to sport the best all UK team he has switched over on the training polarity scale, so now it is easier to mention when Ned is not training. I thought removing all his bed slats except for the two behind his head and his ankles was a step too far, but he assured me that training core in his sleep was the next logical step, the sand filled duvet was my idea after he slept through the night with pleasant dreams. This quick adaption was a good sign we thought. It looks to be a fun comp anyway, and you can watch the semis and finals live from the works homepage, so get screaming at your pc if you can't make it.
Really i think all foreign competitors should be made to climb hard on the grit the day before to equal out foreign skin advantage. as resin is far too easy to crush without massive giblets of skin missing from your tips.

So what else... i've being weighing up whether its worth the time and effort trying to ground up solo hard grit routes, as i appear to have found my mind crumble limit for hard moves (currently at about 8.5m) (the hard refers to tech grade there i.e. 7a and up with ok gear, rather than a font 6c with an iffy landing) as the extra effort required is ridiculous and basically i'd rather just go normal bouldering. Superstition (i didn't do it if your just on a success scan) started this all off... or actually snow balling did. First off i snowballed a bunch of things which i didn't fall off. So i thought i'd step things up and try to use the drifts to my actual advantage. i started to punt about on superstition at the end of one day ( a Gibson route being the obvious choice as you're guaranteed to get slapped about). Ground up beta finding is hard work, especially on a route as you only get half a second to make up your mind and try something. Its even harder when the climbing is at least font 7c (i think at least 7c+ to ground up) and when the only other top ropee beta involves things which'd be suicidal foam up (ground up with foam), like dynos or hurrendous undercling moves which offer the chance of landing on various angular objects from a height with any possible body part. So slow static progress it is then. By my second session i was tickling the last move. But the ridiculous sharpness of the line meant i only got about 6 goes before splitting a tip. So 5 days of healing and snow melt left me on my own with just a few pads and getting to here

Now that is a pretty distorted wide angle lens so i look a lot nearer to the pads than i actually am, anyone who has seen it in the flesh can picture it anyway (basically at the top of the promise) i sat up there facing the last 6aish move of rocking onto my left foot and locking to the top (no jumps here) for about 30+ seconds. guaranteed to be hitting the ground either way whether i committed or not. The coward in me won and i whistled down onto the pads. The fall is actually fine, as long as you take it properly. and here in lies the hard part, the higher you get the more in control you need to climb and land. and even though this is when the johnny big bolloxes of the world go for stuff they don't tend to be doing it on routes like this. So is it worth even bothering, are standards being pushed here or am i just kidding myself? I think i could train up to get better at pushing through the ~7m barrier but it is a risky game. It feels like i've completely missed the ground up with gear stage of the game. But why bother with it when hitting the ground from the last hard moves is fine (i got even further a session later and rocked onto my left leg before the crumble hit). it also removes the massive grey area of gear and rests when ground upping as retrieving the gear never really happens after attempts and many people are content with a quick play after they fall off. So in this sense it is very pure. But still why don't i just ab it get it dialed and send it first HP? and then do another 2 similar routes the same day. Lordy knows thats what i really want to do. the two weigh each other up in my mind but ground up always wins for routes like this (i'll be the first to admit that i've worked hard boulders off a rope, and cleaned many a problem) but as far as repeating routes goes. landing permitting. I'll always choose this style. for the same reason why i solo easier routes if possible and why i love bouldering and DWS. Natural unencumbered movement on rock is unbeatable whether it is above sea or foam or a sea of foam. It's just that the foam part hurts a little right now, nevertheless things like this are to be savoured and not consumed in a slurry of numbers and ticks. That said i don't think i've got loads of attempts at routes in this style in me, nor do my ankles. Which keeps things like this special. Its pissed me off alot this route as it's exposed even more weaknesses which i didn't know i had. And it is so sharp it is barely fun.

One bonus is that normal highballs are starting to feel smaller. The major draw back is lugging all the pads out to the crag. And that repeat visits are worse for the environment.

whilst the sun shines

2010-03-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

Last week was forecast to be amazing up in the proper north. Luckily we had a few jobs to do up there so a plan was hatched to head up the road to the county for a few days. On sunday i pulled Ravensceugh out of my venue choice. A bit risky early in the year but the lack of wind made it look like an ok choice, plus we both had things to get on up there. after walking through about 1km of snow drift we arrived to a dry crag, aside from the odd top out and drainage streak). Even if one of us had ice blocks for feet (Ned finally found the limits of the Vans slip on as an all terrain shoe)

I love Ravensceugh, it has brilliant rock, one of the best views in the county and it still has alot of potential for boulders. Alot of it was looking like it hadn't seen any chalky digits for a good 5-6 months mind. But most of the countys quiter venues fall into this state. We spent a while warming up and pissing about on the sunny warm up walls. Then it was over to the Magician, I cleaned it as best i could from the plumber but the top rooflet was very Damp on top, turning the VS topout into a risky proposition at that height (10m)

Ned did the plumber and proceeded to attempt the top out for 15minutes of scrittle, small movement, crap pants, back off, recompose and go for it. eventually he ended up with 3 limbs and a chest over the top bulge on damp slidy holds unable to move up or down. After a bit of a hand to get over the top we decided that was enough to deter another top out attempt in the day. I demoed the magician and Ned promptly flashed the hard part and got greedy on the last tricky move, throwing hands and caution into the wind and onto a slopey edg. Unfortunately the previous nights chocolate pulled him backwards and it wasn't quite to be, 5 minutes later he was on the upper section but traversed off rightwards to avoid the slightly macabre sandstone scrittle travellator, even traversing off involved a bit of sketchy footwork on dirty rock. One for later in the year we decided. After that i opened a long overdue account on something i'd seen a while ago, but the sun seemed adamant on setting just as things were coming together. So it was back home to food, more food, and stretching

Another morning and another perfect day. Queens was Neds shout this time, although i still have many projects there. Ned'd had one fleeting visit a year ago and came away relatively empty handed. This time round things we're rather different. we warmed up around the rabbit stone and after a fair bit of brushing (again) things were looking up. After taking ages to do and clean the 7b warm up left of arc royal (which arc royearl links into) we decided after all that effort it was worth having a punt at arc royearl, Ned quickly got through the start using the better beta and was just popping off coming into the finish of the warmup he'd just done. 15minutes later and after a bit more brushing he'd whipped up it. The climbing on this is really fun and ground uppable, but it isn't arc royal, in the same way that doing the bottom of careless and finishing up not to be taken away isn't careless torque, its probably the easiest of the 8's at queens now too. Which we can safely say as Ned went on to dispatch Queen Kong and Red Dragon on the same day. which was a good laugh, there was even enough light to finish cleaning a project i'd started cleaning last year and to send that packing. (more on this later). Then it was back home to the fingerboard/ make that garage full of fingerboards, some people would be made up with 3 8a's (or there abouts) in a day, but for Ned it's starting to happen in the more oftens than the nots, and if you just see things as great blocs, and you still feel fresh when you get home then there aint no reason not to try and get a bit better at this climbing malarkey.

queens 2010 from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Font

2010-02-25T07:59:00.000-08:00

So thats it. We knocked it on the head and left font a week earlier than expected. The weather wasn't great throughout, we had a lot of rain and a week of snow. In total we had 3 perfect climbing days (blue skies, cold weather and everything dry) and i climbed on 16 out of 35 days. Most of these involved some drying or removal of snow from the problems before they were climbable!

Photo Dave MacFarlane

Because the weather was so unpredictable i only allowed myself one session on anything. I didn't want to waste a rare dry day going back to a problem when i could be trying something new. Although this meant i didn't do anything really hard, it did mean that i got quite a lot done, and often these were world class problems.

I promised a ticklist when i got back so here it is. I really dont understand grades (as anyone who knows me will agree) and climbing in font left me more confused than normal. Rather than listing the problems in grade order, they are in order of how hard i found them. Bear in mind conditions were not always ideal. As you can see, grading can seem pretty rediculous.
[probably best to take this with a pinch (or 2) of salt]

[W]= Wet
[D]= Damp
[S]= Snowy

L'Apparemment
Control Technique
Partenaire Particular[W](bottom half was wet, hard to keep feet dry for micro edges)
Karma[S]
L'aplain du Gain[W](The wettest thing we climbed all trip - not fun but everything else was unclimbable)
Gecko
Michel-Ange[D](so hard, especially when top sloper is wet!)
Le Batard(Between Big Golden and Atresie, in my opinion its a better (and harder) problem. If it was on its own boulder/climbed before the others it would be a 5 star classic)
Tigre et Dragon[D](Damp top added to the spice)
Partage[S](3rd go in the snow. Top out was death)
Atresie
Le Mandarin(eliminate but amazing - the power palm is a wonderful move)
Big Dragon[S]
Coeur d'Alien[W](very wet top, felt desperate)
T-rex assis(Don't think this is as good as people say, ok, but not amazing)
Surplomb de la Mee[D]
Direct du Surplomb[D](2nd go. Dropped lip on the flash)
Big Golden[D]
Synapses
La Mandarine
La Gaul[D]
Hypothese
Antithese
Appartenance assis(adds lovely section to the start - very worthwhile)
Megalithe
Supplement d'armes assis
Apotheose(1st go, but had been on it very briefly in 2007)
Tristesse
Big Boss
Misericorde[S](2nd go, but i had been on it brefly in 2008 when Dan did it)
Flagrand Desir[W](Damp and dark! see pic)
Vandale[W](flash)
Irreversible[W](top out soaked - jugs = puddles!)
Dosage
Conrol A

font part 1

2010-01-25T10:57:00.000-08:00

We have been out in font for a week and have had a total of about 5 hours on dry rock! First day looked promising, blue skies and sunshine were just what we wanted. It was straight off to the big 5, where better to start? Most of rampart was wet so with a hasty warm up we jumped on tristesse. After a few goes getting the feel for the big move, it was in the bag (Tom crushing it straight after). Next was big golden. After pulling on and getting lost somewhere near the first gaston a kind French man suggested a sequence that was much more promising. In a couple more goes this one was in the bag too.

Finally it was on to atresie. I knew there was a crucial kneebar, but I just couldn’t figure it out. I spent half an hour playing about with it but I couldn’t make it work. I was getting pretty sacked and was about to walk away, until lee suggested “stop messing about and put your knee in”. Oh right, that’s what you do. One more go! This time the knee worked so much better and I found myself at the last move, only to find that it was the crux move. In a few more goes I had it sussed and lurched through to the finishing jugs! 4/5 in the bag (I did fourmis rouge last year). This was a good start to the trip. Then the rain came. It rained a lot.

The only other climbing we have done since then has been short sessions at cuvier and rampart seeking out any dry rock we can. I have managed a few more problems, including big boss (which was finally dry), finishing off the big 5, a goal of mine for years! I will aim to put a full ticklist up at the end of the trip, until then I will leave you guessing what else I have been up to!

Weather is looking to improve in the next few days. I hope it does. We are going crazy. Lee has just lost an arm wrestle with himself. I think we need the rocks to dry.

snowed under

2010-01-14T07:04:00.000-08:00

Well January has been pretty non existent in terms of hard grit sendage, except for some froggatt action. It seems that most people are house/ wall bound in all this snow, a good time to get a fingerboard indeed ;)

We've been training hard in sheffers for sure, Ned is off to font on Saturday and will be scribing the odd holiday yarn on here over the next 6 weeks. He's on good form so some good ticks should go down. They're armed with many a font DVD and hopefully the weather will lend itself to bouldering rather than sledging or canoeing.

Meanwhile over here i've been (and will continue to be) fingerboarding and on the board at the works, which now has an only topo in the form of a wiki. Which is helping me to gradually get back to some good form.

A little part of me cant help but think that with a little organisation, and brushing some snow drift hard grit could go down in brilliant fashion, with pads being the hard part of landings. that said most sane people are getting up early and heading out with axes at the minute, not brooms.

A Red christmas

2010-01-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

No i haven’t been reading too much Karl Marx, it just sums up the only place not plastered in snow this christmas period; St Bees. I love this venue anyway so being forced to visit it 4 times in 1 week is no bad thing. My sessions on Clash sitter have been sporadic at best over the past year or so, with 1 session every 6 months not being enough to remember/ figure out beta before getting too tired to link. I finally managed to wrap up Clash of the Titans sitter (or as i nick named it Clench of the TightArse) on new years eve after 2 previous sessions of dropping the last moves over 8 times thanks to slippy holds and weak arms (lakesbloc.com). On the last day of 2009 the air could have been diced up and used as prisms for this, and the rock had been fluffed into a grippy torpor by the dry air. With its defences lowered i snuck in without all the podge and circus-farce of the previous session. Which was nice. Due to the fact i haven’t had working fingers for too long the grade is a bit more of a guess than usual (I.E. it could well be 8A), it certainly seems hard though, and the crux right hand “bearpaw” has got to be one of the coolest holds in the UK as far as uniqueness goes.

One thing which is of interest is that this and all the problems at St Bees will likely be underwater by 2100! So get those repeats in quick. That is only 3 generations of boulderers time, which considering climbing has taken place in the lakes since the end of the 1800s, isn’t actually that long. Either way i really like this boulder and it has something indulgent about it, you can try it for a full session (if it takes you that long) and only get tired on it. it comes into the sun late which helps with friction but keeps it temperamental with sea spray and glooge (weird st bees green/black slippiness). Basically it has character beyond its grade, whilst still being about pulling hard.

Getting it done quick in the session left me time to explore projects i’d looked at in the summer (most of which had winter runoff down them) I tried the best dry one for an hour or so, along with cleaning it, but after coring my rope (it is too high to break bones on what has already been an injury riddled year) i sacked it and went exploring up to the old buoys circuit, it was getting dark by now so i settled on trying Peckitt’s nice new addition to the crag, and whilst the landing is a bit of a bear pit, the moves are really nice and flowing. Things got too dark after that so i set off straight back up the hill (big mistake) if you go here remember where the path is, 30mins later and a number of close calls/lost legs down with boulder voids (not funny after the 3rd time) and a few deteriorating shrubs i found the path just in time to reach the clifftop. Still i got to see the lighthouse working, which i’d never seen before.

The day after (1st Jan 2010) i went to St Bees south to check out the new/old problems there as i’d never been. and whilst conditions took a turn for a worse (snow at sea! madness!) This meant that that most of the day was turned into a coastal walk to check out a wet Iron Hide. Which looks really good in person with great moves/rock. I eventually returned to a project which i’d slung a towel over when it started snowing. It is basically a harder version of the Pinch at Sheep Pen (in that it sports a lush pinch for the right hand and is pretty short). This felt ok at 7B+ish after i took my blinkers off and got some heel japery on the go, that said keeping feet low on bad feet and just belting for the top board stylee is a great move, but someone else was only going to climb it with technique and point out that it is in fact facile. The length and breadth of St Bees in 2 days/ 2 years.

Happy new year everyone, and get to st bees in 2010!

round (up) 2

2009-12-31T10:28:00.000-08:00

Time flys – its nearly 2010! Following on from Dan’s post, here are my top 5(ish) moments of 2009.

Font is the best bouldering venue in the world, no contest (for me anyway). It is hard not to have a good trip to font, especially when you have just finished some exams.
The most memorable moment was Noir desir. I remember looking at this on my first trip to font and thinking it looked impossible. This time when I looked at it again (complete with puddle in the finishing jug) I got the feeling that it was going to be easy. I don’t know why – I never usually feel this about any problem. Sure enough, after warming up (a bit of arm windmilling) I pulled on and found myself hanging off the finishing puddle/jug. I love the feeling when it just works. You have no idea why, or how, but it works. I guess this is what Dawes is on about in Stone Monkey.

The exact opposite happened on Imothep. First session (albeit on a hot day) I couldn’t do the first move. 2nd session I dropped the last move a couple of times. 3rd session I did nothing but drop the last move! That was until my absolute last go. I had nothing left to give. No skin and no energy but a small drop of motivation which I hadn’t yet sweated out of my red raw fingertips. The only thing keeping this in was the layers of tape covering 5 of my 8 tips!

I set off knowing that this was my last go, and although things were far from going to plan I kept battling, refusing to give up. On reaching the final holds I tried some new beta – a tiny ripple with my right hand that allowed me to adjust my feet and jump again for the top. I grabbed the last sloper with 3 tips, the tape slipping off my sweaty fingers. I lunged again, this time getting more of my hand on. I was pumped and my hands were slipping, but the finish line was inches away. I wasn’t giving up now. I jumped my legs up and clamped with everything I had, mauling the ever improving slopers, crawling my way over the finish line. I collapsed on top panting, straddling one of the best boulders I have ever climbed. Its nice to have to fight for success!

St. Bees is by far my favourite crag in Britain. Perfect red sandstone boulders sit by the sea, kept cool by the breeze even in the height of summer. I visited St. Bees twice this year, and each time I had the best time. Aquachoc (bee-fish) was waved in front of me like a red sandstone rag to a bull. “We couldn’t even pull off the floor on this one” Dan told me. I got all interested!
I generally don’t like one move problems, especially low ones, but the holds on this are just perfect. Somehow I managed to keep my feet on the overhanging smears just long enough catch the jug and rumble up the ultra classic Apiary Arête to finish.

However the highlight of St. Bees was Tim’s crack, the best 7c in the country (go on, have a go on this and then name a better one…). After wobbling up this amazing pocketed roof crack, absolutely knackered at the end of a long day with food rations dwindling (thanks to someone throwing their bag down a cliff!), it was straight into the sea to cool off. Perfect end to a lovely day out.

The Frankenjura was brilliant – I wasn’t expecting it to be so good. I knew the routes were world class, but I knew almost nothing about the bouldering so went with no expectations. It turned out to be amazing (in a short, steep and powerful kind of way) with real grades to keep the egos in check! The first few days were spent getting shown the classic problems, followed by getting thoroughly shut down by them all. After a few weeks we begin to adjust to the brutality of the climbing and begin to get some things done.

The best problem of the trip was V2 – 2 pockets, 3 slopers, and a heel lead you up this font like feature. It was great to get the problem ticked, but more importantly, that day marked the end of my lingering finger injures (I got a bit keen on the fingerboard and upset 2 of my pulleys), and from then on I only ever felt stronger. It was great to end the trip with a couple of hard crimpy problems, proving that my pulleys had cheered up and my fingers were back in the game.

Ned vs schnee from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Ned halloween bouldering from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Caseg groove is something that I had wanted to try for a long time. The bulging slopers just looked brilliant and I couldn’t resist a trip there. After doing the Gimp and Main Vein is was time to get stuck in. The crux ended up being 1 foot move, which I solved with a ninja kick to a smear. It was impossible to do this move slowly as the direction of the slopers meant I had to keep constant pressure through the feet to stay on the rock. Eventually with the light from one headtorch, and some very fed up spotters I busted through the tricky move and thrashed my way blindly up the stand up start, topping out in the dark. This was one I had wanted to do for ages. I was dead chuffed.

I can’t really mention best moments without comps coming into it. After very little climbing between March and June (dissertation and exams taking their toll) I headed over to Eindhoven for the World Cup. Although I wasn’t feeling weak before we went, I certainly wasn’t feeling fit. However qualifiers went pretty well. I still fell off far more than I should have but never mind, I was through to the semis!

After an early start (I hate these!) it was back to isolation. Feeling surprisingly good after warming up I flashed the first 2 problems (apparently causing the route setters to panic. “that punter didn’t fall off – the problems must be too easy”!), the 3^rd was nails so I called it quits early, but the 4^th was not so bad. Excellent. I was content with my effort, but this soon turned into excitement as everyone else started falling off a lot more than I had. Eventually the scoreboard settled down, with my name in 6^th place. In the world cup finals. Sweet!

The finals are a bit of a blur. I was totally knackered. My biceps felt like knotted hemp rope and my back was seizing like setting cement. Never mind, this is a final! The problems look brilliant.
I flashed the 1^st problem, and was sooo close to flashing the 2^nd, failing to hold the finishing hold. It all went down hill from there, and when time was up I collapsed on the mat to watch Killian float up the last problem to win the comp. This was a great experience and has taught me that on a good day, with the right problems, I can potentially do quite well in international comps. The month after this was the British champs. I managed to control the nerves well at this comp (it just didn’t seem like a big deal after the world cup) which really helped me to climb well under pressure and I ended up doing ok.

Well, its not long till I go off to font now so I had better get back on the fingerboard….

wrapping up 09

2009-12-27T06:20:00.000-08:00

We thought we'd do a little reflection on our most memorable 10 days out on the blocs from 2009 (in no real order). Five from me and five from Ned.

So for me they have to be:

Font day 1: I'd just finished my January exams and prior to my last one, had my strongest ever board session. Things were looking good. We drove through the night and snuck into Maisonbleau at 3 in the morning. We got woken at 9 in the morning by a phone call from a very sleepy Bullit and Ned, who had forgotten that roundabouts involve turning wheels, luckily they picked the 2nd last one (next to Cuvier) to crash into (after driving all the way from Sheffield) so i picked them up from Fontainebleau town and we made for Elephant. 5 of us and 3 pads in the faithful Corsa. Everyone was completely wrecked and Ned was scraping his eyes off the floor; sleep Vs psyche like some superhero power battle (he still did Envie d'ailes mind). Rob had curled up in a ball and was sleeping by this point. However i felt just about ok after a whopping 5hours sleep. I could also feel some sort of illness coming on. I thought i'd have a pop at Partenaire Particulier (i'm sure it'd get more ascents if people could actually spell it) as it has always been on my font list, i quickly found myself dropping the top press up to the gaston and felt really fuzzy after each go, i had a lie down for 10mins on the pads whilst the others went for a walk. then i woke Rob up and got hopped onto the start hold, i just managed to press it out and whip up the problem. The next day i had a really bad head/throat and the day after that Strep throat had reared its ugly head, which screwed the rest of the trip up big numbers wise, but good times were still had (it's Font after all). A nice tick in a nice place with excellent company.

Easter: i'd been training through the winter with Queens in mind. It is a horribly bitter place in winter, but as the warmer air temps come in spring and that fresh breeze, there is no place i'd rather be. I was starting to feel a bit rattly from all the training so had quite a few rest days, and after a session on the top dyno i felt confident enough that i would have a chance of sticking it from the bottom. I waited a day and headed out with Springer, we arrived to perfect conditions and after a few failed goes i finally sent Arc Royal which has inspired me since i first went to Queens. Springer had to shoot off for something but i stayed and worked the sitter, i was firing through my sequence fast and quickly linked to the last move which gets you into the stand up. Feeling tired i had a bit of a rest and linked it up again, this time i headed right at the stand up holds and finished up hat full of hollows via my warm up link. Easy i thought, and all my training had paid off. I burnt out a bit after that session and never quite felt as god on the big link as i felt on the sit that day. It sort of felt like one last blast of strength from my wrecked frame, to say "you've got today and after this i'm giving up" and indeed i've had two ring finger injuries for the rest of the year (see previous blog) which made that day an extra lucky one in retrospect.

Arc Royal from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Torridon at Easter was great too, realizing that the UK has great potential to be more than multiples of minor venues. walking straight out your accommodation into a boulder field is a luxury not often afforded anywhere never mind in Scotland! On my 2nd last day Richie showed me a project in a cave, which, on my last day, became Robert the Brute . However the stand is simply a pleasant 7b+ ending to the main meat. a perfectly set sit start. I spent and hour and a half trying to pull on, then pulling on and just moving before exploding off! Great! this is how projects should be, moves which are so hard you have to wait months to be able to do them. As well as being totally blank except for the holds, so it is the right sequence or no sequence. This was an inspiring project and it has fueled the back burning stove of my training mind for most of the year, along with others in England.

Flubber Frankenjura: This was a problem i really wanted to do before heading out, but due to having snapped my A1 on my left ring finger, all bets were off so i had no expectations. Within 5 minutes of trying the problem i knew there was no chance of me climbing it via the normal sequence due to the amount of pressure put on the LH during the crux, i could barely hold the position without my finger turning to watery jelly. So plan B was concocted, i wanted to do this problem badly, so it was time to suck it up and find something that works, i engaged "board mode" and 1 arm started with my hands opposite, pulling on felt hurrendous as did moving, but there was hope, if it was on the board it'd barely be 5a, and i had time. I was going to do this, next session i felt like crap so i left it before i got stuck in. Then next time back the micro beta clicked, foot angles were tapped, finger positions were checked. And i sent it packing from a sitter, with backwards beta and a ridiculous amount of footlocks for a problem that previously had none. Unique times and proof to myself that climbing is what you make it, only being limited by strength and creativity in a sport is a good way to be.

St Bees was a right laugh in the summer too, I picked Ned up from Grasmere so bombed through all the lakes great driving roads, then we (read Ned as i did bugger all hard climbing) set about annihilating gaps, Ned crushed Beefish quick smart (which he'd like to rename aqua-choc) and this is definitely IMO, at present, the hardest problem at St Bees, prolapse inducingly powerful. meanwhile i abbed a BIG line and cleaned it up which'll be great when it gets done, then we mucked about on Power of Raa and what became Captain Pugwash. Good times in nice summer temps and the crag to ourselves (as ever really). In fact, come to think of it, i've never had a bad day at St Bees, even when i crawled down that descent in a force 7 gale. That day I saw a seagull die by getting slammed into a boulder it was so windy, and the odd feather shot by in the breeze as a reminder throughout the session, yet i still had fun and got something done (or some moves anyway) although me and boulders are like babies and rattles.

St bees, rarity from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

8a.nu enthusiasts may wish to skip the above and simply read:

Partenaire Particulier 8A, 20 mins

Arc Royal 8A (soft) 3 years FA

Robert the brute 7B+ (soft) FA

Flubber 8A (whack beta, hard 4 me :P )

Scar Tissue

2009-12-21T06:22:00.000-08:00

phew! we've been busy this past fortnight with lots of beastmaker's whisking their way off to be alongside a fellow tree. Except hopefully our boards won't be thrown away after xmas. I thought about a few posts to do today, yearly reviews etc. But i thought this might be useful, especially to people who get a bit keen on the training over christmas (unlikely i know)

the above figure is (click, then click all sizes to enlarge). Is a heavily abridged version of my 2009 year . Instead of grades (still a useful reference). I roughly judged my performance using my intrinsic knowledge of when i feel like i'm going well and when the wheels are off the wagon. This year has been a constant battle against the latter. And it is mostly due to over indulgence in the thirst for power. Too much too soon both mentally and physically pushed my previously sturdy body which had only had the odd severe niggle into a state of malfunction. It was hard to pick myself up in August as "fool me twice shame on me" was telling me i had learnt and knew nothing about climbing hard and looking after myself. In a way this is more of an exposé to draw attention to the fact that training is symbiotic with injury and that both should be payed attention to in equal measure. Credence should be given to the idea that when your going well, the extra session or those tender pulleys aren't worth pushing on for that extra percentile.

Then again if you are an all out training junkie (as in chalk you hands when you get up for a piss in the night/regularly scrape through endless sites looking for the secret to endless power) and don't mind losing the odd 1/4 year to injury then it is definitely possible to train round injuries if you are smart with what you do. That is not to say you will come out stronger, you will just come out stronger in different areas. But getting back what is lost in the injured area takes time and painful dedication. That said, on paper (and paper alone) this has probably been close to my best year ever. Where as the above chart shows that performance wise it has been atrociously inconsistent.

If i may say so, (speaking as a keen boulderer, not as a PR machine) i am genuinely very glad to have had my (finger)board and system holds (we don't sell these yet, so at least i'm not plugging things that badly) whilst injured, as it was easy, just a few days after being injured to isolate the injured finger and train the others. Without this ease of training i would have been far less motivated to get back on my wheelless bandwagon and steer things back to something resembling a course.

Anyway someone shouted at me on my last post for not being punctual with video posting, so here is something i made earlier:

Ned vs schnee from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

contemplation

2009-12-07T04:38:00.001-08:00

Dynamics, originally uploaded by Nick Hensman.

About this time of year it is good to review what we've been training for and what problems outdoors are worth making the effort to get done. Both Ned and I have started to spend more hours indoors as the bad weather lends itself to getting stronger, so that when it finally does break you can capitalise on it.
Although, what is different to last year is that i've also been trying to get stuck into things outdoors. Seeing as though it is only since getting back from Germany that my hands have been functioning anywhere near properly. So in my mind i have a large backlog of ascents to finish off and to get started on. WHich was going well until this week when i caught some winter lurgy after a night out at the warehouse project.
Aside from that we're working hard to fulfill our orders to customers and shops. As well as planning a really nice training website which should be up in january.
I've also been following the run up to Copenhagen very closely and have been chuckling away at fox news's "Climategate" stories, which have gone from juxtaposing cherry picked statements to full on fantasy in a desperate bid to put a spanner in the works of negotiations.
Copenhagen has the potential to be very important to everything to do with human activities in the next 50years, which is probably why there will be nothing concrete agreed, as there is too much at stake. Unless our meek politicians do something profound and historical and actually take a united stand on something (if anything, ever, it should be this)
Apologies for not talking about climbing, (especially seeing as though half the western worlds papers have united in a common editorial http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/06/50-papers-leader-climate-change)
I'll post a nice video up tomorrow to make amends

current trends

2009-11-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

Part of me wants to rant on about how annoying it is when it rains CONSTANTLY for a week, and by utilizing a slew of available data, mouth off at how these trends are likely to continue if not worsen for the next 50 years, at least. However i just drove 1 pitiful mile in the driving rain to train at Neds house, a journey which i should be cycling, so to save on the hypocrisy i'll save such rants until my own house is in order.

for anyone interested in a brief glance at recent UK climate trends:

http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/content/view/229/420/

http://www.ukcip.org.uk/index.php?id=243&option=com_content&task=view

but for now lets just sit back and enjoy a badly uploaded (suffering from some encoding/compression issues i think) of Ben in the Frankenjura.

Cosseymonster on the loose from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

custom engraving:

2009-11-22T11:30:00.001-08:00

we are now offering custom engraving on beastmakers! for £10 extra we'll engrave whatever you like on your board, yep thats right anything from "ned has a fat arse" to "rip it off the wall!"

this could be a canny christmas or birthday present idea, or if you just fancy a little bit of extra motivation/ personalization.

email our loving customer relations expert:

dan@beastmaker.co.uk (that'll be me then)

and include your desired message, i'll then send ordering info.

The sky must be empty soon mustn't it? what a ridiculous amount of rain we've been having. There will be a new vid tomorrow, and the forecast for sheffield looks better!

voll kraft voraus

2009-11-16T03:15:00.000-08:00

first off lets smooth things over with a wideo off wimeo.

mehr aus Deutschland from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Since we've been back we've been trying to organise ourselves, and we're beginning to get on top of things, hopefully we can stock some shops in coming weeks as well as get some good R&D done on a few things which are still stuck in the virtual CAD domain. Ned's been in Leicester helping out and pratting about with bits of aluminium. As well as project scouting etc.

Back to work

2009-11-09T04:08:00.001-08:00

Beastmaker staff are now all present and correct, so we should be picking production up and sorting reliability issues out very soon.

meanwhile i can begin to unleash a few snippets of our luveli oliday.

Ned halloween bouldering from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

end of days

2009-11-04T06:07:00.000-08:00

Right, Ned's back in Blighty tomorrow night and is currently trying Zerberus as it has rained pretty convincingly for the last 3 days so it's pretty much the only thing dry that he wants to try. Hopefully by the 10th this should correspond to us being better at shipping stuff out as he can get his wobble buns down to Leicester to ship out some more fine pieces o' timber (tulip wood). Ned briefly came out of "retirement" last week and did 2 rarely repeated 8a+s in a day here. Violation and Fueurzange, which was rather spiffing. It was on halloween too and there'll be a retrospective video uploaded when i get home. But for now you'll just have to use your imaginations. We've been sampling some fine beers over the past 48hours too and it can be confirmed with many a hiccup that oberailsfeld "Heldbrau" (hero-brew) is officially 'da shit' with the dark beer basically being liquid caramel. Bring on the plauzen (sp?) I haven't been upto too much except fingerrecoveryfying which is an intricate game of head vs body. Anyway enough waffle as the locals are starting to look at me funny (am parked in a non too inconspicuous place).

few pics on't blog

2009-10-22T05:06:00.001-07:00

snow train, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

literally a few as stealing the web isn't easy round here

whittlin' time

2009-10-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

Firstly: A NOTE ON BOARDS, DUE TO POSTAL STRIKES AND 1 OTHER EXTRANEOUS FACTOR WE WON'T SEND OUT THIS WEEKS ORDER UNTIL THE END OF THIS WEEK, APOLOGIES FOR THE INCONVENIENCE BUT POSTIES DO A GOOD JOB AND DESERVE A WEE BIT MORE CASH. WE'LL BE BACK AS USUAL ON SATURDAY.

As for life in Germany:

The weather has crapped out here in the last week like a fecal fracas in a public toilet after a vindaloo convention, but luckily this is the Jura and when it rains, you go a caving, boulder caving, and seeing as though everything is a roof it doesn't really affect the problems too much, you just get as wet as an otters pocket getting to the venue. Ned had begun to whittle things out of wood more than he climbs but is currently carving a fine wooden statue of a man, much to the displeasure of most of the group, who at the moment "wood" take a wooden statue as a woman to be a god send, as most of the locals round here have faces like dropped pies, with only the climbers looking vaguely chalky... But normal. But no Ned deemed it too complicated to carve feminine curves so we are stuck with bloody Adonis to gawk at whilst at the crag. More problems have been a tumbling down on their merry way but nothing over 8a+ yet as we're still putting feelers out on that front as at the moment it's hard enough to find dry rock without getting shot by hunters, accosted by religious locals, or just to find the rock in the forest, you can't see the rock for the trees round here i tell you.

Auf wiedersehen (cheers Andi)

Holidaymakers

2009-10-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

Oh guten tag, hope you all like the slightly awkward self service website, unfortunately this has made myself and Ned a tad redundant for now, honest, so we are searching for new customers in the DENSE forest of Der Frankishe Sweiz, aside from having an incredibly Horse-killable land lady, our nice German basement accommodation is purely belter, waking up each morning to miniature deer skulls on every wall along with Doris bending over outside picking her veg from her bushy garden. We've been getting shown round by Fabian Chrishof and his girlfriend Mona, whom win the nicest people in Germany award, and the other night in the pub was golden memory central, with our friend Ben arguing with Marcus windisch ( the quiet 8c crusher whom was sat next to us for half the night, of which we were unaware, as we thought he was just a jolly local villager) about the german music scene, apparently techno is dead and metal core is where it is at for hard Jura sends. Nevertheless times are good and some good boulders have been discovered, a few of them have even been climbed, like V2, Billiard, Some huge highball 8a, Knochenmuller, and the worlds hardest 7cs (harder than the 8a's round here).

The Jura is no place for vegetarians and everything contains meat and sausage, and if it ain't then it's pickled. which pretty much sums up how our fingers and backs feel right about now. The G rectification process has begun but is only in its fledgling stages, by the time we leave things will be straighter than an ironed metal rule.

apologies if your boards take a day or so longer to come than normal, we're working Dave to the bone honest, he's pretty big boned though so can take it

auf wiedersein

online ordering now up.

2009-09-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

We've been beavering away these past weeks, and the 2000series boards are now in surplus stock. We are due to make a large batch of 1000series also and due to back order size VS our production capacity we have decided to take them online too as that way we can get boards out fast, order priority will still be given to people whom have waited the longest mind.

you can order the boards from here:

http://www.beastmaker.co.uk/products1.htm

Ned and Dave are already on the continent, crushing european font 8A+s and the trip has barely started. hopefully all the cellar hang time will pay off, keep your eye out for blog updates as we head to Germany

Deutschland

2009-09-21T03:36:00.000-07:00

A few months back we received an extra special beastmaker order to Germany and so we decided that we should deliver the board personally. We felt that a 6 week trip was needed to complete the exchange so all best plans were laid, some Aussies were keen and i've never been to the Jura without an antipodean, or more like they've never been without getting rid of me. So this year we plan on eating more cakes than ever and enjoying herbst and october fest along with some cool crisp days and some serious pockets/slopers/crimps.

Anyway for a bit of flava of last years banterful trip then check this video out. The funny numbers are german grades, if you don't know em learn them. The sound track is inspired by Germany's finest radio station Bayern Drie, which has no shame in milking any resource of classic 80's and 90's hits along with themed days! On one rainy day whilst we were there they played rain themed songs all day, witty chaps.

Jura 08 from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

making changes

2009-09-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

There have been a number of changes to the site in the past few days,

the most significant being an article explaining the ins and outs of how to mount a fingerboard in various positions/places around your home:

http://www.beastmaker.co.uk/Mounting_fingerboards.pdf

as suggestive as that sounds it is quite useful to consider these things as you might be able to mount a board in your home where by previously you thought it impossible.

The other article is for the grade obsessed as i'm sick of people moaning about inconsistencies in the boards:

So your qualms are answered here.

http://www.beastmaker.co.uk/Lets_talk_about_grades.pdf

Meanwhile back in the real world, the motherboard at the works got shot of alot of its unused and unpopular holds, only to be placed by about 90 new symmetrical wooden ones. Hopefully this'll improve the board a decent amount and further enhance the, already copious, beastmaking potential in sheffield

sap wood-new growth

2009-09-12T15:29:00.001-07:00

treeclose, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

We're getting through the 2000 back orders now and are just staggering them for logistical purposes.

Which means that 1000series back orders are next, once we're through these you'll be able to order boards online whenever you want.

The 1000series page was also put on the site today.

More articles are on their way too

sendtember

2009-08-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

So the wettest month of the year is drawing to a close and people can get keen for the 3 best months of the year for trying most projects Sept, Oct and Nov are some of the driest, coolest and most reliable months in the northern hemisphere, i find it interesting how many people insist on trying to climb hard in august when it is the worst month in the year statistically, hot and wet are too naughty words in bouldering. August is for augmenting, so long as your near a fan then it's a good time to sneak in some sly training ready for when good conditions arrive.

Which happily coincides with the fact that i'm unable to climb outside due to a v bad finger injury. sustained on an outdoor project.

Board production-wise we are now upto mid-ish july in the back order but should be upto mid august by next saturday, we've had one final hiccup but this was nothing too major, more pernickety.

It's a big relief for all of us to be going again and hopefully we can get onto a big batch of 1000 series next as we haven't forgotten don't worry.

monk life.

2009-08-24T06:02:00.000-07:00

Filmed by a young Tom Newman, whacked on here with Malc's permission, one of the best bits of bouldering history in't UK. The footage is so old it took a bit of getting off the tape without distortion, this has been done now with the sacrifice of a rare malc roar. Also someone ought to tell springer that Catapult has been downclimbed!

malcolm smith - monk life from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

quick update

2009-08-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

quick pic of the storage room in the warehouse, with something nice actually beginning to be stored in it, there's just a few more wee jobs to do before we start shipping out next week

back in business

2009-08-19T04:03:00.001-07:00

logo and slopers, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

As of yesterday we are consistently producing boards again, and for this batch each board will be sanded and finished by Ned 'champ' Feehally. I'll be sending emails out from tomorrow and this first batch should be around 60 boards, with more being made come next monday.

snakes and ladders.

2009-08-12T05:02:00.000-07:00

Well it seems an age since i last updated this, however a lot has gone on since last week. Ned, Dave, Katy and Tom graced northumberland and st bees with a visit a piece, Thumberland yielded some cracking FA's along with some good highball bloccage. And Stbees was as tranquil as ever, i rested up inorder to try a hard project the following day, so i merely contented myself with a swim in the sea, a spot of exploring, a smidgen of sun bathing, and a bit of health and safety by replacing the rope on the fishermans steps descent, which badly needs rebolted too. Tim's crack recieved 2 sends from Ned and Tom and it was declared, unequivocally the best 7c in the UK (when dry), despite attempted counter arguments from many a region. the vid of me doing it a few weeks ago is here.

St bees, rarity from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Dave was crushing until he bust a nail on tim's crack and tripped over his blouse, and Katy contented herself with ticking a load of classics and swimming in a pair of trousers that started off looking like shorts but ended up as victorian bloomers. Which was funny until the vacuum packing effect of sea water on boxer shorts was noticed.

The following day it appeared that all roads led to the bowderstone (especially the M6), with a line up of stealthy waddage, locals and some guy called Steve Dunning, who cannot in anyway be described as stealthy. luckily i decided to warm up on a bunch of stuff on the busy side in my daescents and then rush round the back to escape the crowds and throw myself at the sisyphusian task that was my project, all was going well as can be on something which can only be described as on the ragged edge of my ability, despite a seepy handhold. That was until someone fired a gun from my left ring finger and the next 2 months came crashing to the floor with a quiet sense of foolishness and the retrospective insight of me warming up like a tool then jumping on the crimpiest line i've ever tried. 4 days in and i can now pick up a kettle (YYFY) and pretty soon i reckon ill be picking up something like a chair, a heavy wooden one though, none of that plastic crap.

I do actually have a serious recovery plan, but there is no point writing stuff down as it'll only go wrong and missed deadlines only serve to antagonise...

Did i mention that i'm a complete tool? honestly who gets better from an injury and then goes out 2 weeks later and tries such a hard project, reality has hit hard like a 15" frying pan round the chops in the last few days (atleast it's A1 and not A2).

Speaking of fustration, our PC has decided it wants to only operate in 2D when milling the boards, the machine is now fully working, it's just that the computer seems to have RAM issues. As of today it will be getting RAMMED somewhere only miners are familiar with if it doesn't work, as at present it is all that is standing in our way of producing endless boards.

pallet knife

2009-08-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

this is the second video i've made in a few days, it's better than the first one so i've decided to upload it first, as logical as that is...

anyway this should distract people for a minute or two.

Pallet knife from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

progress:

2009-07-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

The coupling has arrived from Japan for the machine (2 days late), and it's been installed, so we're hoping to be distributing boards again by the end of next week (pending confirmation off Dave)

However the media and climbing side of beastmaker is going strong. A macbook saviour ping ponged its way up the country via UPS (as well as back and forth to our house a few times!), and now the backlog of 1 years worth of footage is being sifted through.

First up we have a St Bees installment featuring some new and some rare blocs. And even though i stumbled upon Tim's crack right at the end of the day, after trying some other tasty projects. I sullied up some punt-power to make sure that the chance to climb one of the nicest 7c's in the country (when DRY!) didn't escape me. And what a crackalacking problem it is, not a jam in sight and tasty pockets and footlocks. The experience was added to by the tide creeping closer and closer on each go, with a few close calls nearly turning the pads into skim boards.

The other footage is from when pedigree champ Feehally swept by for a day and climbed everything at the crag, so he fettled off a few projects for good measure.

This was my first pop at editing HD with decent software so it's a bit rough round the edges but things should smooth off gradually vid to vid.

We've tried to set viewing standards at >7c, or interesting new problems, as that's what i'd prefer to watch if i had the chance. I'm keen on keeping the edits simple and just trying to capture the banter and atmosphere of sessions outside. As it's no surprise that west coast gimps eclipses over produced eye candy like "pure". Critical vid analysis will be much appreciated, as i even find myself skipping though quite a lot of vid sections these days if my attention wanes.

In Conclusion:

Beastmaker will be a non fictional business again by the end of next week.

Beastmaker now subjects people to moving pictures, with a curveball guerilla style.

breaking the bows and making waves

2009-07-17T15:10:00.001-07:00

Post cliffhanger myself and Ned headed upto the county/ the lakes for a bit of winding down. This was good for me as i could enjoy the beauty of climbing outdoors whilst healing up my finger on some stress free sends. It also gave Ned a chance to unwind from all the pressure of competing and get keen for rock again until comp season starts again.
The weather wasn't all too great but we made do and chose venues wisely. Visiting the bowederstone on my 22nd birthday brought back memories of me climbing there when i was 14 and finding problems like power pinch desperate. Although ironically it was one of the few problems which escaped me today due to my finger disagreeing with the top crimps. I still came to realise how much progress has been made over the past 9 years that i have been climbing. The same goes for Ned and to illustrate a point i thought i'd highlight his ticklist from 2 days climbing (sorry Ned), one at Bowden and one at the Bowderstone. Guide book grades have been used in brackets, our opinions being the main grade.
Day 1. (22 degC, still and muggy)
pockets traverse (7c), 2nd go
7b+ (7b) sitter through it. flash.
severus snape 7b (7b+). flash
staggered sit start. 7c+/8a (8a)
the crack. 7c/+ (8a)
sprung. flash. 7b+/c (7c)
transformer LH 3rd go. 7c (7c)
Day 2. (rainy but cool)
impropa sitter 7c+ (8a)
grand opera sitter, local sequence 7c+/8a (8a)
special cases 8a (8a/+)
phantom of the opera (rocking straight off the ramp) 7c+ (8a)

sometimes you can lose sight and not realise how much your improving, yet old venues never lie. We really think we're onto something with the way we train. Our boards are more a sounding board (excuse the lack of synonyms) for an approach to training if you just hang it in your house along with other bits of gear it will do nothing except be a rather nice looking innanimate shelf. Yet put some time in and get your head round it and it should come to life. An ideal if you will. we try to make good our promise of our company name and we (currently) stand proudly by these ideals.

What's in a name?
give us a few years and hopefully we'll show you...

special ned

2009-07-17T15:08:00.001-07:00

special ned, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

tour de force

2009-07-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

Phew, well this last week we've really been testing the "Busy" part of "business" i guess that's why you don't call it a 'laziness'. hmm where to start...
Well first off slack arse McFeehally decided he wanted to do some 'traaaiiining' for some circus event called cliffhanger, so that left crippled McVarian doing 100% of the post production workload. As well as deciding which lucky people get the latest batch of 34 boards (this will increase alot...soon... trust us... we've just had more ball ache than the peleton after a mammoth road stage these past few weeks and our new workshop has a circuit breaker that's about as on edge as Beaker from the muppet show playing a fairground hamer whacking game, but it'll all be sorted by Uber Beast Bowering as soon as new parts arrive (we to are victims to the courier services)).
So anyhow, 12 boards were bequethed to the nice chaps at cragx for their pullup comp, AKA the testosterzone. and 2 of our boards got punted onto some more than worthy beasts who can do 37 pullups in a minute!
Meanwhile in the big top opposite a drama was unfolding. The women's finals saw little miss oh so casual Whittaker saunter up the first 3 problems, only to fall victim to the evil north korean known as 'Dee-ouchii fingaping' on the final move of problem 4. Thus leaving the comp wide open going into problem 5. Leah's jet propelled determination saw her sinch up a crucial bonus hold on problem 5, the crux move on which, brought about the harsh realisation to Katy that she does in suffer a tad from a lack of gunnage in her armoury! Effort Leah!
Oh and a big shout out to Katy Piddock, Katy Who? the Katy who decided she'd do a spot of training in the matrix this year, and found herself crushing in a national final, inspiring, tall trees can indeed grow from the smallest of cracks in the pavement! ( philosophy from sensei 9A doorjam Ben)
Speaking of a lack of Gunnage, Barrans appeared to forget his usual jet propelled forearms, leaving him looking more than human on this reachy set. One of the best finals (and most viewed) ensued with him and wobblebuns feehally (finding an excuse to shirk off work) neck for neck into problem 4. Dave realised that all the holds were just small crimps and walked all over it, where as Ned decided to try and find silly technical solutions when the answer lay in straight up brute power, after FINALLY manning up Ned decided to drop the last move to make it really close, with the crowd on edge, Barrans proceeded not to lock upto a winning bonus hold in time. leaving Ned the chance of stepping upto the plate. Now old Ned would no doubt have buggered it up here, but in the last few months there has been a true beast emerging out of sheffields cellars. New Ned saw that the moment was special and could feel the crowd's expectation bearing upon his not inconsiderate back. So Ned pulled on... slapped the first move, and discovered that he is still a bit spack and slapped a blank wall. After a brief pause and some stern thoughts, Ned pulled back on and tore the holds into jugs. Locking what everyone else struggled to reach and firing all six cylinders to the top of the problem thus beating the Russian roulette of comp climbing.
Champ is still Champ, and he gets the only current staff t shirt for his troubles (whoopee!) see podium picture for details.

In all fairness Barrans pushed Ned right to the end, and after bridesmaiding him for most of the year it was good to see Ned step it up a notch and get one back. I gave Dave a fingerboard as a bit of a consolation prize (we're psyched to work with him anyway) but it didn't seem to console him too much. Shout outs have to go to the "ever orange" Gaz Parry (3rd after wobbling up 8a-8c routes for months!) keith 'straight up powerhouse' Bradbury, who kept it real by using as little technique as possible and nearly qualified, and to Audrey for some good commentary (thank the lord).
Great comp though and it can only improve if it's a world cup next year, hopefully that way the prize money might actually not take the piss by being less than the dyno comp, what a bleedin piss take that is, these guys train all year for ONE event and get landed with a whopping £350 for their efforts, the fact that they will compete whether there is prize money or not is a moot point, what is important is for someone on some commitee somewhere to respect their efforts enough one day to atleast match those jumping "athletes" in cycling gloves...
Tour de force indeed.

heating up:

2009-07-03T13:10:00.000-07:00

The workshop is getting there now, most of the major jobs are done, and there has only been one small setback from the move which is a broken coupling on the machine, this is fixable though, and all in all things are shaping up pretty shippy. We aim to be up and running again ready to show face at cliffhanger this weekend, we should be posting 2000series out again after the event finishes. With the 1000 series following suit soon after, production will be much more efficient once we're fully operational this time and we should be set up for a good while.

As i'm sure you'll remember, to pass the time whilst the machine was outof action, myself and Ned decided that we'd put our 4years of hold wittling experience to use. Well the setting of these holds has now been completed and our vision of a "perfect board" has been realised for now. That said every "artist" needs a canvas (we see ourselves more as finger painting kids who got carried away). So the Depot have supplied us with a 4.5m wide monster, now it still needs a bit of touching up but we're pretty happy with what this collaboration has resulted in, its lead me to think about moving to Leeds just to consistently train on it as it really will be like having power handed to you on a plate to eat up. That said you'll need to be munching 7b to taste the appetizers and about 7c+ - 8b to make the most of it, if your not don't criticise it for being elitist, get strong in the other areas of the center and then appreciate the fact that you still have a medium to push you onwards, rather than stagnating. We plan to finish the board off with some trial wooden holds made off the machine, although this aspect of beastmaker is definately more the exception rather than the rule at the moment. Amazing boards have yet to proove their worth in commercial venues but if they can bring cellar dwellers back to walls by offering something which is better than can be made at home, then they can only be good for bouldering centers, not to mention giving people a bit of inspiration once in a while.

unless you've been caving for the past week then you'll have noticed that it has been a bit too "thailand" for training hard of late. I found myself using an electric lilo pump to funnel cool air out the service pit inorder so that i could have a fingerboard session the other night. After 1 day back in thumberland though i've already spied up some summer projects. One of which is an old line of the mighty Earl's which has to be one of the most impressive walls i've seen anywhere, ever, effort Andy!

although some anti ethical Karma smote me down today whilst on a cycling mission to town after a tour de france style slide out on a rather soggy corner at around 20mph, unfortunately for my wallet (but fortunate for my body) i slid along nicely on my arcteryx soft shell and so it is only my arse cheek which looks like something out of a butchers meat bin. Fingerboarding it is for a while then, ooh how apt.

moving on

2009-06-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

well back garden beastmaker is no more, we've been shipping out of Dave's garage for the past few days and its safe to say that CNC machines are heavy, very heavy, as are metal mills, band saws and steel lathes... yep all pretty darn heavy. But that isn't enough hard work so myself and Ned are currently wittling over 200 holds for the awesome new wall in Leeds "The Depot".

This wall should be fitted by next week sometime and we reckon it'll be the finest commercial board in the UK, until We upgrade the works board with even nicer holds at some point in the future. The new workshop is about 1000% bigger than the old one and we should have positive stock within the next month or so, meaning that the website can finally host online purchasing. I'll upload workshop pictures soon. Other than that we've been having late night training sessions in Liecesters premier board venue (complete with cordial hosts and cheesecake!) where Ned has been regaling me with beastly tales of Liecesters dark horses (some of whom are our staff) and their pinching and crimping feats. So board psyche is high at the minute,my gay fingjury seems to be sorting itself with a bit of brute stubborness and trial and error, or should that be error and less error?
Anyway Dowels are now flavour of the week and the harness has been forgotten for now. Ned is attempting to heave his back around the boards for more than 5 moves on the trot in the name of fitness, but is insisting it's not for routes whilst muttering something about Barrows or Barrans or something.

Móðguð 3

2009-06-19T10:04:00.001-07:00

Móðguð 3, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

the rest before the end boulder problem

The Móðguð

2009-06-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

A strange thing happened last weekend, i put a harness on! AND I climbed in it rather than using it to take weight off deadhangs! After finishing Uni i just felt having a fun and novel day out in the peak, wise mr JonBoy and i journeyed to Thor's cave, whence upon we came across many a steep route. Jon mentioned a project as being rather ruddy good, and seeing as though it was one of the dryest things in there i decided to have a fettle. After a session of work i'd cleaned and worked a vague sequence, but i was so broken after getting home i went straight to bed and curled up in a ball to stop my abs hurting. This project certainly isn't you average cup of chai, nor is any move on it conventional.
I decided to seize the chance to get it done and returned on tuesday and finished cleaning the line and got a sequence worked, even redpointing into the final boulder problem which currently was a super burly 7c bicep busting undercut span fest, it was meatier than a bath full of spam with gravy pouring out the taps. The little voice in me told me to use some nouse and right at the end of the day i fagged it down to 7a+ish with some spine twisting drop knee action.
So on Thursday all the pins were lined up ready to be knocked down for a full strike. I kidded myself that i was fit enough and walloped it first redpoint with some numb tips and the mojo of the Uk's premier 8c astrophysicist beaming up the rope (and consequently draining Stu's powers for the day).
So Móðguð (pronounced moth goose in a heavy scottish accent) has been born, guardian of Helheim and translated as "the furious battler" it rather fits what looks to be the Uk's steepest 8b/+ it seems closer to 8b than plus to me but the start and finish boulder problems both suit my size and strengths. One thing which is sure to not change is the quality of the route, the line is fully 3 star battling, with double heel toe cam shuffles, knee bars, crimpy gaston shoulder pressing, massive burly undercut moves and a wild finishing cutloose into the respite of the belay cave.
Right... i can take my harness back off now for a bit and concentrate on 2 move boulder problems again

Oh and most of Thors cave is now dry and i can't recommend it enough as a brilliant sport venue, Thormen's moth was still a bit wet yesterday but it was still possible, and all the routes in there are truly outstanding when dry. Móðguð is one of the dryest routes there as well as being the steepest. It will never get wet in rain.

back with a bang

2009-06-15T03:20:00.000-07:00

Dead air is a crime! except when exams are conscerned and i've been grinding off more noses than ever in this past fortnight. Anyway the mental training is over now and knowledge can now be once again gained through power, preferrably with the words brute before it but funky, smart or technical will also suffice.

Ned went back to basics after robbing himself in Austria and rarely used more than 2 fingers on the fingerboard over the past few weeks. So come this weekend in Eindhoven... well lets just say there was more than one ginger in the final, whether this is allowed by the IPCC or not remains to be seen, yet it is something which they might be needing to consider if present beastmaker hq form continues. i'll prod Ned until he writes a bit more about the Ned-derlands world cup. With Barrans getting into the finals too this world cup season, british comp bouldering looks to be filling the gap that the Earl left when he left a few years ago.

My Fingjury is on the road to recovery and i've found an excellent non fingery project to try even if it didn't improve which mostly comprises of upside down walking with your feet in huecos.

Where do we go from here?
well we are moving into a new workshop over this fortnight and building some new machines, so production will be down in the short term but will sky rocket in the long term, its time for beastmaker to get web savvy and time for people to enjoy dangling and getting stronger by using the most comfortable yet effecive means.

end of silence

2009-05-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

Well both Ned and I have handed in our last ever coursework and we're now a few exams shy of freedom, some say its like a warm wave of happiness hitting you, but they're probably overly emotional philosophy student. All i know is that i expect to undo months of training in a few days and i'm praying to wake up in a nice gutter (the leafy kind rather than the bottly hyperdermic kind).
Only joking, we've got a few trips planned but mainly we'll be helping Dave upgrade our factory from a garden shed to a proper industrial unit. That way beastmaker hq will be able to create our superplanks at a pace fast enough to supply everyone. whoop whoop.

We haven't been upto much except training. Ned came 2nd in the plywood masters to
Dave 'so solid' Barrans.
Training for me has consisted of a day of pocket power on the board followed by a session on the fingerboard ruining anything which was fresh from the day before.
My finger injury (ring finger crimp) was getting better rapidly with some targeted exercises until i got sucked into some wide pinching exercises and ruined a good weeks progress. Being antisocial is probably a good recovery plan from injury, but it isn't much fun.
both Ned and I have picked up more injuries since starting this type of training, but we have also got alot stronger too, and the trend has always ended up being upwards.
over the last 2 years though the only 2 proper injuries i've had are the current one and a broken pinky last year, but there have been quite a few niggles along the way.

A new batch of boards including the elusive 1000 series should be arriving this weekend, which is rather handy.

Taking stock of the situation

2009-05-13T04:06:00.002-07:00

Well lets start with the good news, we've now got enough beastmaker 2000series in stock to make a throne out of.The bad news is that the code on the 1000series still needs some tweaking inorder to make it more amazing, we'd rather people had to wait another fortnight in order to receive a superior product.

Myself and Ned are still mostly training and its been weeks since i went outside, uni work is going well though and i might treat myself to a trip on the lime somewhere. I'll try and do a mini training video next time we both have a good session.

For now the FA video of a little arete i did over easter will have to suffice, by popular demand the final dyno is now 'optional' rather than part of the problem, still i got mine :)

Arc Royal from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

a big thanks to Chris and Andy at www.climbnewcastle.com for the Vid and it looks like they are both set to crank up the quality on this arete, with Chris dropping the top on ground up efforts, and Andy is now trying the sitter in between the fierce conditions (queens is a royal faff to get the conditions right)

all quiet on the beastin' front

2009-05-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

I have been training alot lately, partly due to the increased workload at Uni and partly due to a niggle i picked up over easter. Alot of people stress over injuries wondering what to do. Personally (and this is purely my mis-informed opinion) i prefer to start an icing regime within a week of the niggle emerging, i then try to train round it as best as possible depending on severity. Currently i am attempting to increase the strength of my index finger so that it can take more load. This appears to be working at the moment via a combination of front 2 encores & board problems, index monos and devil hangs (along with plain stubbornness). I intend to keep this regime up for another 4 weeks whilst gradually transitioning back into a crimp phase. All being well i might actually be able to get strong at crimping then.

Ned too is heading back to basics and targeting the fingers after an annoyingly set world cup round found weaknesses in the on the porky pinches (wide ones).
It's been a good while since i trained this specifically and the main battle is avoiding over training and cumulative niggleitis (when everything starts tweaking).

I find looking at goals over months or longer help to prevent the "must train everything in one session mentality" which only leads to problems.

sticking a 500ml coke bottle of water in the freezer and holding it for long durations as part of cold treatment helps, it also avoids 'bath skin' which you get from prolonged cold treatment by sticking your hand in icy water. You can also make free ice/gel packs from washing up liquid or alcohol (the latter being good for post icing relaxing) and high quality freezer packs.

Ned's started work on the 2000elite (the holds are so small the writing would look too big next to them otherwise) and i've started to root out some good psyche mixes to train to. The prototype boards will also be made out of a few experimental hardwoods (recycled/sustainable of course) which should be amazing, like really amazing, stick it on a mantle piece and frame it amazing.

that's all for now.

Board availability

2009-04-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

The 1000 series will be available from the 12th of May online, so for those of you waiting for one of these you shouldn't be waiting much longer.

More 2000 series will be available from this point onwards aswell, Currently the back order is at the 4th of March, the next batch will be arriving from the 11th May. And they will take us into April. Production is due to increase from mid June onwards. As are web articles, vids of hard/new blocs and alot of training features/ideas/feats

It is after this point we aim to deal with select retail outlets nationwide.

Robert the brute

2009-04-28T13:33:00.001-07:00

Robert the brute, originally uploaded by richiebetts.

A couple of Pics from Richie Betts of Robert the Brute, it is certainly a hidden gem. Cheers Richie

Robert the brute

2009-04-28T13:30:00.001-07:00

Robert the brute , originally uploaded by richiebetts.

Picture courtesy of Richie Betts

Going underground...

2009-04-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

Fingerboard info before ramblings:
33% of the company work force is competing in World Cups this week, so i will be doing my best, apologies for any ineptitude which may result.

We are not far off being able to sell the first batch of 1000 Series, as we are finally happy with them so they are to be milled this week.

The 2000 elite is our next little development project, (as are trialling new woods), we hope that the 2000 elite will be almost so hard its useless to 90% of the climbing population as this should enable the next generation of crushers to progress and 'realize' strength which has never been seriously attempted and thought about other than for the odd freak move, Ned reckons 47/8 degree slopers will go, which stands to reason as he can piss the 45s, the extra 3 degrees being provided by friction. i reckon rounded 1 arm 5mm drag deadhands will go one day, so they are going on etc. etc.

On my penultimate climbing day in Torridon Richie showed me a project in a cave which Lie O' Connor had mentioned as being futuristic! 2 weathered flakes immediately dropped off to leave perfect 1 pad sidepull edges, and a 30 degree wall which cuts away at the base, basically a dream line unfolded which is totally featureless save for the holds, i.e. a board problem but on rock, AMAZING! no tricks no nothing just pure power. I decided to gamble and try this rather than the arete project up the hill which i knew would go (ever the armchair visionary) I rested up the next day by attempting to swim in a variety of seas and water courses only to be smote by cramp within minutes, i was not ready for such pain and shrinkage; so driving round some of the nicest roads in the country in the 200bhp VRS had to suffice. Oh Well...
Come the next day i was ready for battle, the stand went at 8aish, then a slight adjustment to the foot sequence turned it into a nice 7c! (just shows how much these things matter) What with it being an amazing problem which climbs out a cave it was only fair to name it 'Robert the Brute'
It then took me a further 20minutes to pull on in a crouched position from 1 move lower, i couldn't have been any happier! then after a few more goes i was exploding wildly onto the stand up hold but, in reality nowhere near holding it. To me this project represents another level of power which lies somewhere around hard 8G. It is also a joy to find 8G moves on such a pure piece of rock.

With that and a brief recce to the south lakes on the way down i feel it is time to stick my neck back in and to work hard at finding another level from somewhere, i think over the past year i've begun to see where this would come from but i haven't tapped into it, so i'm keen to explore those paths, take a step back for a while and to see whether theory can be put into practice.

Scottish streams of consciousness

2009-04-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

So i popped to Torridon for a few days last week (a mere 5 and a half hour jaunt), i am unsure whether to write a trip report or a holiday guide/article as i feel alot of people won't have a clue where or what i'm on about. It is the armchair explorers paradise, as the first boulders are roadside, it soon turns into a haystack as you search the hill for Queen lines ;) as you can't see the problems for the rock. Fuvvamore it is also a good place to chill out as the youth hostel/ camping is 2 minutes walk from the nearest boulder problems. Basically i had my eye on 4 previously spied lines. I arrived to warm temps which would usually have most people complaining but my dry skin was just about coping ok, i got stuck into the really steep arete project after warming up on & around Vapour Trail, this had culminated in me finding my pant filling zone at about 7m with 2pads and no spotters, (resulting in emergency crimp being unleashed on holds far too big to warrant its official use) Classic! my trip had been made already.
Anyhow, said arete was steep and bulbous, she was big on the footholds but was scrimping back on the grips. After trying to use all the beautiful holds for about half an hour i settled for skipping most of them and firing to a slopey pinch/sidepull at full extension and waiting for my heel to bite, the rest is compression wobbliness off bountiful pleasure. That's jolly nice i thought, so i packed up and walked home; yeah right, i took five and smashed it in the goolies whilst enjoying every second. 'A fridge too far' was the first victim of the trip and i doubt it warrants more than 7c+. For peak aficionados it's basically a longer and harder version of the well known 7b+/c 'The Terrace'
I then hurt my finger a bit trying to repeat it for the camera, so i sacked things off for the day and pondered what tomorrow would bring. (pics from Richie Betts and Mike Lee, Cheers guys)

Tales from Wales

2009-04-19T03:54:00.000-07:00

Its nice to get out and about and try new problems. I get pretty bored trying the same things over and over again and lately I have been putting a bit of time into a tricky roof (Ned’s average description of climbing font 8b’s. Dan). Anyway that got finished off so I was free to go exploring.

We decided a trip to Wales was in order, then we decided we needed another one etc. We have been getting there quite a bit recently and have been getting a few classic problems done along the way.

The caseg boulder is home to some of the most font like rock this side of the channel, with lovely sloping holds that are a joy to pull on. Anyone climbing in the 7c region needs to go and do main vein. It is the best problem in wales. How can essentially a 2 move problem be so good? Go and do it and you will see.

Another amazing problem is the the caseg groove. I was lucky enough to bag the sitter to this just as it was getting dark (and conditions became better than terrible). The difficulties in the problem lie in moving your feet beween bad smears while pulling on slopers. The crux (for me) succumbed to a ninja kick foot move, which fired the left foot on to a smear as the right foot shot off its own foothold. Brilliant! The only thing keeping me on the rock was a few mm of (stealth) rubber and my core, tensed to the point of hernia.

Another venue we visited is the gop. This hardcore little roof was developed by the Cattell’s – no points for guessing how hard you will have to pull there. After a quick warm up I managed to bag the classic pinching problem ‘Push the button’, followed by Thompson and Mason. Next port of call was the sit start to blokesmoker (genius problem naming from danny). This fell to a basic sequence after I spent 20 mins trying to crowbar some technique into a basic power problem. Will I ever learn? Thompson and Mason also did the deed (after much fannying about!).

Between these 2 problems is a project of Doylo’s. He kindly let me unleash on it and after figuring out the moves I managed to not link it! I will be back….

Torridon rehab

2009-04-17T04:31:00.001-07:00

no name, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

More to come on this one, needless to say i fully lucked out on the weather, and climbed my little heart out for 3 days, leaving a trail of lovely new blocs which have helped steer me out the doldrums and up some mighty Sandstone prows... Jealous? i hope you are?

New Vid

2009-04-07T10:05:00.000-07:00

I thought i'd clear up a bunch of old vids that were lying about on my pc before getting all the HD vids sorted. This one is dedicated to failure, which lets face it, is most of what climbing is all about. Here's to all the nearlys and aaalmosts.

All the bouldering is in Northumberland and is 7cish or above. No prizes for guessing the last problem featured (yes that is how it climbs (or how i climbed it anyway))

how to fall off from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

upgrades

2009-04-03T13:17:00.000-07:00

Spring has fully sprung and its upgrading time here at beastmaker hq, we're all set to crush the last of our back order and hopefully develop some surplus stock for once. We've been chuffed with people hunting us out though. Just to support our theory further Ned has crushed several 8a-8b blocs in the past month, including the third ascent of Serenity and 2nd known ascent of the menace at Sheep Pen which isn't bad for someone who whinges about his Ghetto booty.
The site is gradually being sorted out secretly and an online payment facility will emerge from the shadows once we have some surplus stock.
For myself it was back to the one and only Queens today to try the sitter to Arc Royal, and without a doubt the complete line. Initial strength wilted and i only managed 1 go of getting into the crux of the original before total spanktown reared its ugly head. As well as a bruised tip OUCH! This is an absolute euro monster line and not usually my style (i prefer brick hard slap you in the face moves)
So project/ yard brush time was called and queens now has another 2 >8a projects to go at, these puppies are savage crimp central and both are awesome lines.
Tom also managed the 5th ascent of queen kong via an impressive sequence of gangly cutlooses. I also found out that i can retro flash this problem with more than a year off it. Leading me to conclude that my latest project is somewhat taxing and also that QK is one of my all time favourite boulders.

Ark Royal

2009-03-31T17:14:00.001-07:00

Ark Royal, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

my personal favourite photo of the line (well the original is not this horror) summing up what queens is all about.

Match Day, Dan 1, queens 25+...VICTORY TO DAN!

2009-03-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

I sleep much better at home, whether this is due to the lack of builders or pissed housemates i don't know but one thing is for sure, i've been struggleing to drag my head off the pillow in the last few days. Then 2 things dawned on me, one was that Sharik noticed he'd been sleeping like a log just before doing stamina band into PUTP (8c+) the other day, the other is just how much training i've been doing over the past few weeks.
I felt sluggish yesterday, but like a car full of fuel rather than one rapid firing off fumes.
The forecast for today was amazing too, a good breeze but warmer temps, representing open season at Queens (finally managing to climb without freezing your bollocks off when everyone else is getting a tan) I even managed to get down to a t shirt!
So basically the world and his dog knows that i've been trying my project for an age (which became an Epoch today) and there have even been some people vaguely interested in trying it, the trouble being when you've spent sessions, cleaning stuff like this you get attached to it. When you've spent 2 years on something you get quite attached to it too. I probably started trying this line when i was to weak for it (obviously) one thing is for sure though, it has been the sole purpose for me wanting to become a better climber. You can even attribute part of the beastmakers origin to this line. Upon first scoping out queens i noticed 3 lines which i wanted to climb before i got too old. Queen Kong and Red Dragon being my first 2 ports of call, each one pushing me a bit more than the last, 5 sessions, 12 sessions and 25+ sessions represent queen kong, red dragon and this project respectively. Each one is incredibly different and has its own unique style.
Today was set to be a big day basically, the weather was pucker, i was meeting springer my partner in crime for queens. And i had rested up. After warming up i felt strong but a bit gelitinous, this was good, i thought, as usually i feel weak and gelitinous, sure enough after some home baked flapjack and a good lashing of green tea, the big guns were out. I practically locked the crux move from go 1 and go after go i crept further into the crux pocket. 10 minutes later i stuck it and my brain switched off, a deep project psyche switched on and i crushed the top section, including the double dyno to the top, which i only stuck twice on sunday (shit session and too windy). So that was that, done!

Now its funny when you spend so long failing on things like this, and i'm usually a fan of the 3 day rule (extending to 6 days if the stubborn mule is unleashed) because with so much failure, when success finally arrives it takes a while to sink in, it built up gradually today, finally peaking whilst driving home to an amazing sunset which i have so often cursed, i thought what the hell, treat yourself and drive home like a normal mad bugger whilst flying along the military road.

A few names have run through my head over the last 2 years, and unlike a certain peak beast i consider them to be all good, a little part of me dies whenever i hear another amazing line called 'my fudge nugget the tofu based chicken substitute'. I settled on 'Ark Royal' as its one of the biggest aretes i'd imagine i'm ever going to boulder up and it fits the royal theme.

As for the grade i really couldn't give a flying shit, sometimes you climb stuff becuase you want to proove to yourself that you can climb hard even if its a bit shitty (cough 'bigger belly' cough cough) and sometimes you just want to proove to yourself that you can get up something, which looks, even to the general public; Fucking amazing. I'm pretty sure my sequence is whack, crossing round aretes. locking to your waist and manditory double dynos aren't often all one after another on a problem. I also pity anyone who is shorter than me on this line, or who uses my sequence (though it does employ all my weaknesses). I'm sure there is an easier way though, as Ned hasn't fully had his way on it yet by destroying anything vaguely resembling brute power by wrapping his legs all over the place and heel hooking a drop knee above his ear. Basically the lowest i think it is, is 8a+ (suprise suprise) and i'm happy taking that grade, to ground up using my sequence would be an amazing effort too. Chris got the send on film from a few angles, so it should be out by 2015 ;)

I also managed to link the sit start into the crux of this today after watching chris get close to red dragon for an hour or so, i am amazingly psyched on this as its the full line really, i always thought the sit would be 8b to get into the stand but its probably just soft 8a with some ironed out beta, it is stupidly morpho though, and i'm tipped out to the max. this can be linked off round the corner ('the mediocre escape') into a 7b+ (my warm up) which i have stupidly wired. guess this'd be 8aish too? god knows, who cares anyway?, it'll probably be dirty again soon, and its not like anything else at the crag has been bustling with repeats. queen kong has still got to be done in a session and that's the piss one that i did 3 years ago whilst recovering from pneumonia, and chris did with an asthma attack (healthy arent we?).
Upon leaving the crag i gave the farmer £10 for being one of the nicest guys around and for letting me park on his land. Obviously i don't expect everone to stump up notes for parking at the crag but the odd parking donation will help the farm, and keep up the good relationship/ upkeep of the road.
Cheers, to Fiveten and arcteryx too for geniunely helping me get up this thing, the crux smear on the double dyno tends to blow off using anything but onyx.

Oh and i saw a badger in the flesh for the first time ever today!!, this had me in hysterics (in joke) As that was indeed THE BADGER

home again

2009-03-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

I returned home last night to find a few things immediately clear.
1 The pace of life in my village is much slower than Sheffield, stuff lies about for months without moving, it seems happy to gradually amble its way along.
Another was that it is absolutely baltic! and i was freezing my cobs off as soon as i stepped out the car, joyous temps indeed.
The worst thing was my dog not being there to tackle me to the ground, he died of lung cancer a few months ago. (I always said he should quit the fags, but the chicks dug it). It does suck though, he was an 8 stone bernese mountain dog so it feels like a big bit of the house is missing at the moment.
Nevertheless, life in the cold hard melancholic north goes on. Luckily there is some reet good bloccin' a be 'ad up eeeya like. And i was straight on it today like a sailor back from sea. Its been somewhere between 20-30 sessions on my project now so its becoming a bit of a home from home for me, i have my warm up ritual down to a tee, i know every bloody grain of that arete, and it knows me all to well as i heave my weight about on it. I'm gradually taming it, by doing things like calling it names in my head. i've also begun to learn to only fall off 2 moves. These moves are utterly brilliant and unique, part of the reason for the large amount of sessions has been me trying other sequences. Like a mathematician going through his working after finding a brilliant solution, incase there is a more simple one available. What i have found is my perfect boulder, which plays to non of my real strengths except tenacity.
Today was all about settling back in, i thought i'd quickly reacquaint myself with the top section. WRONG. It was pretty windy today (as ever) and the wind was was biting through any exposed flesh with a chill designed to preserve dead meat. Cacaphony can often be a reality at this crag. Mamma varian had been enlisted to belay, but was swiftly demoted to snoozing. Thank god for grigris. Basically i got slapped about on the top section AGAIN whilst remembering that mm count, eventually i'd fine tuned proceedings enough to be satisfied, after sticking the top double dyno twice in an hour, each FAIL being reinforced by a good old fashioned static load of the rope (which has been chewed by mice in my absence, ala Dan Osman!).
A brief dabble on the bottom lead me to summise that all the training has been worth it, but that today was not the day for turning the guns up, as mum had a roast in the oven so we needed to get back.
It's nice to be back in the quiet county, where thoughts provide the only noise to one's day. No worries about finding a parking space or whether you've disabled the car enough so that if some pikeys break in it won't be worth their while.
I did some other interesting moves today too, something for the future anyway.

one for the music lovers

2009-03-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

This has got to be one of the funniest and greatest pages i've come across in years.

http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/

It pretty much breaks down all the pretentions you think you had about music and sets the records straight. If you already knew then its a funny read, if you don't know much about music genres or their differences then you really should check this out. The tracks are just 10 second samples, except for minimal techno, where if you leave it on long enough it serves the same purpose ;)

genius.

The week that is.

2009-03-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week this week, as myself and Ned have fallen victim to the dreaded word count, we have become slaves to the keyboard, so much so that plans of an electronic fingerboard/keyboard have been hatched, consisting of a qwerty board of monos for each letter, with space bar being the 1 arm dead hang rest and enter being a 2 finger pocket, esc would be a large jug, no one uses esc nowadays do they? try pressing it now? pretty useless isn't it.
Aside from that I have been training for a rather important project, as 'seiging' is carved into my easter itinerary like a name on a tombstone, A Trip to Torridon is also on the cards from the 13th to the 16th of April. Few people will know about Torridon, and from anywhere south of Kendal, Font is actually nearer, but then again I did just dangerously compare the two! Torridon also only has around 50 developed problems at the moment so you can't compare them on scale. On rock quality they are easily equal.
Seeing as though i've been so busy, but have been wanting to train close to my hardest ever, i have come up with a few time saving training techniques. To acheive a stable fighting weight i have completely done away with walking. Running is now my only mode of transport and i just run everywhere, on average i noticed i was walking close to 3 miles a day, so by running this amount i've managed to get pretty Rakey and cut down on travelling time. On an aside, running whilst reading the morning paper is not a good plan! especially near steps...
The second is the old Soup and protein diet.
Logistics and some guys off warp records are playing at tuesday club tonight (best consistent night in sheff) so i'll dance around like a loon for 5 hours there,
Towards the end of the week i'll take it easy and rest more to get ready for pulling hard. Hopefully all this will actually work.
I've also been pretty lazy on specific training lately, something which i aim to address from easter until may. This has mostly been due to me pottering about outdoors and sorting out goals etc.

On the business side we'd like to introduce the 9a discount, you can have free postage on international orders if you climb 9a. We like to make discounts something of a prize to work towards here at beastmaker, who says we aren't generous?
The mighty Gianluca Daniele is our first elligable customer to receive this.
So get to it Euro wads! unfortunately there seems to be a shortage of English applicants at present, but the illustrious Mcclure has been spotted on our foundry board.

As for board freebies these are pretty hard to blag. Myself and Ned each have a Waddage allowance, whereby we each choose about 4 or 5 names who we'd like to give boards to out of sheer respect for the climbers involved.

Currently Jerome Meyer has been a recipient of this, although he is pretty psyched on our boards. We are proud to be supplying one of the worlds greatest boulderers in the competition arena (if not the greatest) with a facility to train on!

Mike Adams was on our list too, he was pretty stubborn though and gave us a 5er for the wood. Mike has the most prolific bouldering ticklist in the UK and he has been responsible for repeating and putting up some of the country's best problems. This also helped to soften the blow of stealing mike's project which he spent a good 2 hours reinforcing a hold on for us. We also spent a good hour or so sanding down his board with wet and dry so that he couldn't demolish all our records in his first session.

There will likely be some changes to the site over easter as it gets a make over, and an online ordering facility will become available once we have a stock surplus, the back order has shrunk considerably now and we're up to february. If you've emailed us before then and i haven't replied please contact us again, there certainly was a Zac from the states whose email kept rejecting me more than cheryl cole's!

Climbing and climate change

2009-03-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

A touchy subject which people need to start phasing into. And one that i'll probably start writing more on as i read more into it. I've just finished George Monbiots excellent book 'Heat' if you don't want to shell out a whopping £4 to future proof your intelligence then his website is also a good place to start http://www.monbiot.com/.

We're taking steps at beastmaker to try and stay 'green' from our initial set up stage. Currently we are failing in 2 areas. We haven't been able to reliable assertain the source of our wood as the woodyard owners struggle with adding up our orders consistently. This is something we will be changing ASAP, as well as trialling different woods such as lime (common in the UK), along with 1 off woods from tree surgeon fellings. we also aim to use no plastic in our packaging. SO this will see a return to the 90's when chip butties came in newspaper, not polystyrene. The packaging won't comprimise the product in any way and you may even be able to read an article or two. we'll be using the guardian i imagine as the independent is a bit small for our boards.

Other areas are the power it takes to manufacture the boards, (nothing extraordinary) and how many brews we require whilst doing all this (we are brew monsters)

Online shopping is currently the most environmentally friendly means of shopping in the UK so you can breathe easy there (read Monbiot's chapter on retail). The benefits of wood over Resin should be incredibly obvious. Nevertheless you can atleast train with less of a guilty conscience on one of our boards.
Flying to spain for a weekends bolt clipping is harder to justify. As is driving 3 hours on your own just to try a boulder problem. Most people's initial reaction is 'screw you i'll do what i like with my own time and my own money'

Some reactions of mine would be to prioritise St bees projects over the next decade or so, before they are lost. To make the most of the Gulf stream weakening before it slows down massively by getting lots of grit projects done. And to treat the worlds LEDC's with utter contempt so that the deaths of millions of the worlds poorest people don't get in the way of me wanting to climb 1 grade harder by flying to some soft touch crag in spain for 3 days and heating my house upto 20 degrees in the winter so i don't have to put a jumper on.

That said climbers are often more environmentally aware than the masses as we (as a whole) experience the Natural environment in its greatest form, and thus notice it changing. Many of the worlds cliffs are in the remotest places. Boulderers especially seem to be aware of 0.2 degrees change from, 'amazing' to 'greasy'

The reason for this post is just to keep people thinking about their actions. We have all been part of a Faustian bargain (James Hansen and Monbiot stress this undoubtable fact especially) since the industrial revolution, people need to gradually adjust thier expectations of what is acceptable and what is excessive.

Climbing is a fairly green 'sport' anyway but reductions are possible.
Car sharing is common in climbers but we should still aim to fill our cars with both pads and people, (i can't remember the last time i could see out my rear view mirror when driving to the crag)
Train as close to home as possible.
Be aware of the brands you are buying from and their environmental record, also the distance that the product has travelled.
E.G Core holds are made and manufactured in the UK, therefore if you buy a set of them for your wall rather than HRT etc they are travelling less distance, and thus produce less carbon.

Flying is a tough one... more on this later i guess.

But for now just remember that it is happening, in the same way that connecting a hosepipe into your car from your exhaust will kill you in minutes. Connecting an exhaust into a sealed stratosphere won't kill you, as its volume is infintitely larger. However connect billions of them everday....

Oh and i did my project, its 25minutes drive away, i can do the 50mile round trip on 3-4 litres of petrol in a 1.2 vauxhall corsa (45-58mpg).
My record to Raven tor and back (again a 50 mile round trip) is 3 litres of petrol.
Its taken me 6 sessions so that's around 20 litres of petrol. My car has always had atleast 2 people in, and i am bad ass at hypermiling

Its called Serendipity, it adds a 1 move font 8a into Serenity ( already font 8a+/8b) and i ripped a flapper out my thumb after sticking the 8a move for the 6th time (over 3 sessions), so i had to push on and make sure i didn't fall off. Luckily i've got Serenity fairly wired now so i just managed to bust it out. There is another way of doing the start if your span is >184cm (6 foot 1) but it's still hard.

we've also tinkered with the motherboard at the works, its better now, much better. just 1 more job and it'll be perfecto

A tribute to Benji

2009-03-18T04:56:00.001-07:00

Ben_Adieu4, originally uploaded by gomezthecosmonaut.

There once was a boy called Cossey
Cossey was psyched for cushing everything everywhere.
So he proclaimed himself the annihilator of gaps.
And from that day forth he set out to annihilate every gap in rock, no matter how tough. His quest has swiftly lead him to the top end of climbing.
He annihilated the true line to Parthian Shot long before any loud mouth yanks ever arrived.
He annihilated Nicoles Eve rave, whilst easily weighing as much as him.
And he Annihilated fantastic mr fox, at a tender bairns age.
Here's to you Benji king of gaps. May you and team tiger monkey go forth and beast more hard lines.
Ben is a Beastmade, he doth not need 'maked'

a series of fortunate and unfortunate events

2009-03-16T05:43:00.000-07:00

The last week was spent trying silly moves on projects outdoors, a move which i've stuck 4 times now, but unfortunately its followed by a rather spicy boulder problem. Ned is super close to said spicy boulder too, so that's our main focus at the moment. For me its like a stop cap on spring. I want to get it done so i can try all the other things i want to try. That and the fact i'm overlaying all my training at the moment with specific training for easter means that i am catching my body out quite a bit. Which makes things a bit ouchy...

BUCS (the national uni comp) was a good laugh, and the comp wall was really well set. Ned was kicking my arse, which took the pressure off me so i relaxed and stopped over gripping everything. Ned then fell alseep on the roof problem whilst cruising it, conveniently placing me into the lead, but we hadn't worked this out (as score cards were arbitrary at this point) so i was still pretty chilled. Ned then dropped the last move of the hardest problem in true English style. the wide pinch on this was shutting me down so i nipped over to try the power problem up the 50 which was actually getting me psyched as i got to pull hard. after fumbling the flash i then managed to hack out a sequence to the finish. I'm pretty sure all the other Uni's hate us now after winning the team comp for 3 years in a row. But hey ho, like i said if anyone needs anymore persuading that our fingerboards work then check the BUCS results. That'll probably be my last comp for the forseeable future so it was nice of Ned to let me win (there really was bugger all between us) Rae also came in 3rd in the ridiculously tight women's event (3 points for 3 places)

For anyone there competing on a sports bursary you'll be glad to know that we recieve absolutely NO support off Sheffield University, Ned gets shouted at when he has to leave to compete in world cups and we can't even get into the Uni wall for free. Cheers Sheffield! its amazing city to climb in and a really active scene but the Uni is being farely falsely represented as one that cares about sport, quite clearly it doesn't. Which goes head on with my belief that we are educated to become intellectual geniuses but physical retards (watch this to hear Ken Robinson's opinion) leaving people to develop their bodies in their own time.
As far as i am aware Newcastle, Durham, Loughborough, Nottingham and Bangor all seem to be the places to go if you want to progress physically as well as academically.

Or you could just whack a beastmaker up in your doorframe in first year and dangle like there's no tomorrow. Then build a board in your room in second year and train on that 4 times a week. but for that you need an abnormal level of psyche.

A big shout out to The Works for hosting a really fun comp, its a pretty good bastion of what bouldering is all about, both indoors and out.

Compo-titious

2009-03-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

Well The CWIF was a great event to watch, and Team Beastmaker just got pipped by Team WAD and Leah Crane's team as they were a little too casual in qualifying. No Worries mate... as more was being saved for later. Ned and Gaz just missed the finals placing 7th and 6th respectively, there really wasn't much in it though. Mina and Jerome cruised through. Jerome qualified in 2nd behind Dave (this is what psyched looks like) Barrans, who demolished every semi final problem in a world class display of crushing, no falls! Jerome decided to let loose a bit in the final and showed what world champion style looks like. power with serious control; that'll be first place then. He also took his new Beastmaker board into the final with him to keep it safe and to taunt the other competitors with (Nice one Jerome, much approved!). Barrans put in a brilliant but slightly more fatigued display to come second. Tyler XXL Landman straight up jived his way into a comfy third, whilst looking a lot more relaxed than some of the other competitors.

Mina came out crushing in the finals and after problem 1 looked like the one to beat. Maud recovered on problem 2, being the only one to top it despite some quality Gunnage from Leah and Mina. The last problem sorted the girls from the women, combining horizontal dynos and on off climbing. Fore-armed and Dangerous turned into Forearm flameout for Mina as the tank ran empty half way up the problem. Maud topped it with french professionalism, even waving to the crowd. Leah topped it in true english style, fully battling her way to the last hold putting in an amazing effort, then throwing it all away at the last minute by being to buggered to match. Now there's a true English winner.

So 1st, 3rd, 6th,7th. Not a bad wrap from a company with an office in a garden shed run by students. A massive thanks to all our team (except Ned who was contracted on as the token ginger)

We are now supplying boards to the Dutch and French National Teams. And they are all super psyched to be getting them off us (we're also super psyched to help them out too)

So basically if a bunch of world/european/national champions can't persuade you that these boards have been designed and thought out with the utmost care. And that they are designed to really help finger strength progression quicker and safer than in the past. Then we'll have to try harder to hammer the message home i guess...

As it happens is another Comp this weekend, This time its the British Uni climbing champs at the climbing works. Ned is representing again as token ginger/ guaranteed crush factor placing (cough winner cough cough). Rae Cowie is our girl member, font7c+ darkhorse and PHD crusher she's been at Sheff uni long enough to be insulted that she's never been asked to compete before. Bringing up the rear, limping and whinging into the Team is Me, Mr Varian, this is the only comp i do as i quite like attending the best Uni in England for climbing, and I intend to keep it that way, my little finger had snapped last year so i had to settle for 2nd behind some 12 stone muscle bag who climbed way better than me. It'll probably be the same this year, except i can go on the board afterwards to make myself feel better (which got its first grade 3 last night... just)
I generally prefer to tussle little bits of rock not volumes, but am not adverse to the odd triangle

New batch of 40 boards arriving on friday

serenity vid

2009-03-10T06:44:00.000-07:00

Serenity from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

also featuring a bit of board production at the start, to give you an idea of what goes into creating them

Valle de las rocas, Uyuni, Bolivia

2009-03-06T08:43:00.001-08:00

Valle de las rocas, Uyuni, Bolivia, originally uploaded by Carlos Adampol.

might start posting a few off the beaten track venues, just to get people thinking. That said it isn't good for your carbon footprint. (so i'd get planting trees)

This particular puppy is about 7x the size of hueco and had a brief visit from bouldering legend Tony Lamiche a few years ago.

Serenity

2009-03-05T13:45:00.001-08:00

Serenity, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.

esoterica at its most impressive

An entertraining week

2009-03-03T12:07:00.000-08:00

This last week has seen us ship boards worldwide, something we have been overwhelmed by is the international interest in our boards. Speaking of international interest, the Climbing Works is having a little competition this weekend and is busy throwing money at international stars to try and bribe there way to victory.

Luckily TEAM BEASTMAKER has no such worries at present, we will be entering the comp with a team of Champs.
Ned will be representing obviously and will be throwing legs in all manner of directions as well as getting some comp psyche on board (he's been training harder than Rocky by going to 65 days of Static gigs in sheffield with his trainer and working his compression muscles by pushing upto 10 fat indy fans around at once in the mosh pit, no joke). we're also proud to have Gaz Parry representing us, who despite mainly pumping up spanish 8c tufas in the last month can always be counted on when there're screw ons, resin and trickery involved.
We've got a nice little blond piece for our girl beast and she can even do the odd pull up too! fresh off her European crush trip is Mina Leslie-Wujastyk who apart from wandering up the odd 8a in the last month or so has found her true calling of Chinese Chequers. Our fourth and final member is some random frenchman whom we saw at a comp once and thought he looked worth making the numbers up, Jerome something.... Meyer thats it. Jerome Meyer. Jerome F**kin Meyer BOOYAA. (whom the Works have been trying to steal with a bribe) We're massively proud to have Jerome over and we intend to look after him well (as we will all team members) As we intend to unleash a proud team on a very well put together comp. Other teams to look out for are climb Newcastle, who have stretch armstrong, a jumping badger, a dutch terrorist and diet cokes best customer.

As for me, well i'll be spectating, i lost my wallet at the crag this week just after making the second ascent of Mike Adams's brilliant roof; Serenity. The crag is in a sensitive area so only those keen enough to appreciate it can, we did a litter pick on the way out, as it seems the local public aren't so keen on leaving their woodlands untouched.

progress

2009-02-26T13:47:00.000-08:00

We're into December in the back order and should be through that by the end of the week, so people who are waiting shouldn't be staying at home off work waiting for that special email for much longer!
After the back order is clear the Boards will be available to order online and from selected shops/walls

more in a bit, gots wuk ta dee innit

Comment & Analysis

2009-02-24T08:21:00.000-08:00

@Matt:
For each grip in your set of encores you should be aiming to fail on the last hang (No. 6 or 7) in that set and for every subsequent set afterwards. The big rest in between sets should allow sufficient recovery (adjust it if not).

You can incorporate fingerboarding in a number of ways into your training cycle, it also depends on what facilities are available to you. On a prioritised 4 week cycle we'll do big fingerboard sessions after a rest day, the day after a session usually involves normal bouldering or a rest day depending on how intense the prior session was. We often fingerboard after going out bouldering in the winter, this is more of a double session approach and usual when we've been rained off etc.
The jury still seems to be out on whether 5 1 hour sessions a week work best or about 3 2hr sessions. And we'd appreciate emails/with thoughts and personal experiences on this in order to build up a database of training vs gains/time.

We do very little campussing as a rule, and we're certainly no experts in it. More on this some other time. I know climbers such as Adam Pustelnik, Rich Simpson are fairly big advocates and excellent examples of it.

We usually warm up on the board on a fingerboarding session, in a fairly regimented manner to give an indication of how sparky the forearms are feeling.

the future holds

2009-02-22T14:03:00.001-08:00

The antibiotics are gone! Penicillin seems to have done its job; what is interesting is that it now takes a 10day course to shift what Fleming's wonder drug would have killed in a few tablets in the past. Diseases are adapting to punishment in the same way our bodys do. It just shows that if you want to get stronger you can't give your body the same treatment constantly and expect it to improve, you've got to gradually up the dose, keep pushing it and it'll adapt and respond accordingly.

What else have we been upto apart from coming up with complex metaphors? Well i've dropped a few 3's and 4's on the works board on one side due to my right arm being crap, i've sent them on 1 side though but this is silly and doesn't count towards anything except fustration. People should also brush the holds more, they're going to be up there for a while, you may aswell tidy your problems up whilst you rest ay?

Dave is making the 1000 series prototypes this week, as well as making a huge batch of 2000's.

We've heard of 2 people critisizing the 2000 for not having any small holds on. This REALLY gets our backs up, and i mean REALLY gets our backs up. So heres the deal, it didn't exactly slip our mind to not put edges on <10mm, we have lots of edges in Ned's cellar down to 4mm, these are fun for 1 off tests but they suck to train on and ruin skin for outdoor sessions. Some of you may have noticed a 5mm logo beneath the works Beastmaker... So come on Wads, step up, first person to 1 armer it infront of a member of staff there gets a free board or £60 cash, whichever you prefer. We prefer to do 1 armers and 1 arm repeaters on our comfy boards. Last time i checked no one has emailed me saying they've 1 armered the slopey 2 finger pockets or 45 degree slopers.

So far, Ru Davies has 1 armed the small pockets on the bottom rung, effort Ru!
Lots of people have 1 armed the bottom rung as a drag or crimp.
Ned's mate Rich has 1 armed the 1 pad mono on the bottom rung! BEAST!
and Keith has transferred from the slopey pockets to the 45degree slopers and held the swing, no tricks, its just brick. Effort Bradbury!
the 35degree sloper has been 1 armed a fair bit too.
(i'll be creating a far better records page in coming weeks which people can upload record claims themselves)

none of these people critisized the board for being juggy they just crushed it like its meant to be, those who did, we know who you are! and we expect to be burnt off well and truly. Oh and there have always been plans for a
2000 ELITE, this will be available in a month or two and is half depth on all the holds, aswell as some extra poor additions. the bottom crimps will be 5mm and really rounded.

Can you tell the psyche is back on board?

A'malc'gamation.

2009-02-16T14:53:00.000-08:00

We'll my last week's been interesting and pretty hard for me. Sometimes you realise there's more to life than just climbing. Then you also quickly realise how great it is at whatever grade and how rarely you regret spending time on such an abstract pursuit (to the general public).
The board has gone from my room now and i can fool people that i'm a relatively normal person again, as explaining a 12ftX8ft "bed" is never easy, even if your landlords hammer screws into walls and only speak in single cyllable words.
Coincidentally The Works is now sporting an almighty beastmaker/works "motherboard" and we've taken pride in our setting, we'll probably be tinkering a bit in the next week or two so don't get too attached to your problems just yet, changes will be small though. I.E. perfecting the symmetry etc.
I did two problems up it today, a 1b and a 2a, i got close to some 3's but they ain't easy. I also scoped out some future 4's and 5's. 5's representing some serious power.
If there's complaints that its too hard feel free to use the rest of the UK's biggest bouldering wall where your time will undoubtedly be better spent, you'll then be thankful that there is a nails board there when you can do all the set problems in the centre footless (as a certain beastly spaniard found today). Climbing is all about progression and the works now has facilities which cater for 3yr olds upto font 8B crushers, i'd say thats pretty awesome under 1 roof.
I'm looking forward to the board scene developing there and tasting other peoples beastly creations as well as putting alot of effort into some of my own.
I'm getting over the lurgy now and only have 5 days worth of antibiotics left. I can't wait to unleash on the board and start training for some of the stuff that means alot to me, both in sheffield and Northumberland. My mind is on easter now and a french seige at queens, nuff said.
A new delivery of 12 boards is coming tomorrow, things should increase volume wise after this as we have sorted initial teething stuff out like cutters blunting out and engravings being variable.

Enjoy the new board at the works if your a sheffielder, i'll be in there under it alot now so just shout at me and Ned if your keen to discuss some training or for a general chin wag.

Board rules (these will be written up by it): Feet on X-marked wooden holds only.
For symmetry problems you have to do both sides in a session for it to count.
Be cordial and take turns etc, there will be a few bench mark beastmaker problems written up in the book to help show the way with the board grades and if your struggling on the 1's then its probably good to find a quiet time to work stuff on there, if you get our drift.

Dan.

surprises

2009-02-13T04:57:00.001-08:00

surprises, originally uploaded by Beastmaker. inc.