Gremlins

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.

The Young

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

april fools!

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

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).

A beginning...

So here we go, myself, Ned and Dave have finally got our arses into gear enough to bundle a slap dash company together. We have been training on the Beastmaker 2000 for a year now and have both seen considerable gains in strength. Ned is conveniently the BBC champion and i have been busy on the outdoor front finding outdoor projects that hopefully take me more than a session or two. Dave is the behind the scenes techno beast who has hand built a 4 axis CAD CAM machine as few other companies seem to meet our design standards. he can also pick up an 8'x4' sheet of ply by pinching it in the middle and has been known to do the odd one armer (a mandatory prerequisite for all employees).
So on account that we need to spread the word that the campusboard benchmark of fingerboards has finally arrived. I have agreed to regularly sell my soul and share some of my rocky adventures with anyone who can be bothered to read it. Going by the last week it should hopefully be atleast a slightly above prosaic read as we get out often due to being bloody students and i'm basically a hardcore outdoor climber and board beaster.

A quick note on the boards: they are made from sustainable english sources, at present they are made of tulip wood however this is likely to change as sustainable supplies do, we will try to insure quality is never compromised (i.e. dont use pine or other poorly textured woods) and they should provide you with the comfiest least tweaky terribly small holds to get strong on.

so without much ado let the verbal tirade of self publishing commence