Bits n Bobs

I climbed at the works Friday night because i knew i wouldn't get the chance saturday. I dont't normally got to commercial walls if i can help it but i had little choice. After i warmed up i headed to the Motherboard, this is a particularly hardcore piece of overhanging wood. The holds are very nice, the board is a symmetry board and its about 9a to climb it to the top using anything. I had quite a good session on it (even got to the top once). My main beef was the foothold situation, you can only stand on very small slippery bits of wood which is obviously amazing training for body tension but i prefer feet follow hands. Even with the best tension in the world your feet won't stay on those footholds every go and in old boots this was doing my tits in. Despite this i applaud the works for catering for the hardcore, overall it is a good board with nice holds. The highlight was meeting the legendary Jasper Sharpe (he even shook me hand). On sunday afternoon i headed to Kyloe In but the road got pretty sketch in the snow so i turned around. Desperate times call for desperate measures so i headed to Almscliff, it had been covered with snow but shit was dry. I had about 40 minutes before dark so i jumped on the Keel, by the time i had warmed it was dark and i scarpered to sheffield.
Finally big up to Sausage who reclimbed Manchester Dogs, still 8a like i thought. Also big up to Sparky doing his first French 8a in Portland. Also Ed did In Hell 8a+.

Jack The Drunk 2nd Ascent (Hamer Time)

Ed txt me today to tell me he had repeated Jack the Drunk on the box. The fact that DD and JTD took me about 60 days in total and Ed about 3/4 days confirms to me two things, i am shit and he is a beast. Good work monster! Looks like i'm not gonna get to the Orme til next weekend, due to family commitments, pretty gutted!

Drink Driving 2nd ascent (Hamer Time)

Young beast Ed Hamer has been in wales for a few days now and is tearing it up already. Yesterday he did the 3rd ascent of Last Malteser (aka- Malteser/Last Rites) on Pill Box. Today he also finished off two 8a+s that he had tried yesterday, The Wire (3rd ascent) in the Cave and my own traverse Drink Driving again on the box. I did this problem in 2007 and have seen a few people on it over the years, several got quite close. Never have i seen a male so strong on it as Ed though, he fuckin crushed it. Not bad for 17 or whatever he is. I got it on camera but you'll have to wait til next week to see it. He's in wales all week so he could leave with a even healthier ticklist! Scary thought. I'm off to work tomorrow, pretty pleased really!
Defo feeling the benefits of the mill, have felt strong in the cave this week, lets hope i dont get piss week in work!

Boards Of North Wales

Some footage of the training facilities in North wales:



Popped to the Orme today, was pretty dry. Looking forward to some warmer weather though.

Return of the Dog

Nice to see the Mule crushing again, here he is doing Flick of the Wrist 7c on his 3rd go:


I failed.

2nd 8c for 5c

Inspector 5c Mawsons has done his 2nd 8c, Humildes Pa Casa at Oliana, he describes it as 25 metre 7c+ to a rest then a single tufa for another 25 metres. Yes you read it right people, 50 fuckin metres. That boy has too much stam.

Change at Mill

On Friday me and Nodder spent 8 hours changing the wave board at the Mill into another 50 board. The main advantage of this will be that we will be able to do longer problems and circuits by linking the boards together. The Mill is now a brilliant circuit board facility. I've already set one 15 move problem and that only climbed across and up, no down climbing. Its strange giving french grades to something on a board but its around 7b+/c. Hopefully when we get more holds we will get some really hard circuits and more quality problems. So good!