more cloud formations

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.

Ivan dobsky & lupino lane pics

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!

voll kraft voraus

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.

end of days

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).

online ordering now up.

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

moving on

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.

The Móðguð

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

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

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

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

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.

Going underground...

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.

upgrades

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.