Chris Danielson has joined up with us to be the official Teknik rep for the United States. You probably already know all about him as he’s a prominent figure in the North American climbing community. He’s a fantastic, and highly experienced routesetter based out of Boulder, CO, he knows our line very well, and he’s an all-around good dude; smart, honest, and totally together. Plus he’s great at keeping in touch with customers at gyms, which (ahem) has never been our forte. So we’re absolutely thrilled to be working with him! As of now he will be taking care of all our gym hold sales in the US and will be more than happy to help his fellow Americans with their Teknik orders.
We set him up with a sample hold made with our new super awesome bomber urethane (see Big Moves post below) and this is what he had to say- “Even just going around to the few well-known Boulder gyms with that Fat Pinch sample, people seemed really psyched on Teknik and the new mix, and I am super excited to be affiliated with a brand I’ve been a big fan of for a long time. I’m psyched to start REPPING!”
So, if you’re in the USA drop Chris a welcome email or give his cell a ringy dingy and say hello, we’re all super psyched that he’s part of our Team!
We’ll be adding his contact details to the main site soon so he’s easy to find, but for now: cdanielson@teknikhandholds.com / 585-750-5062

We will still take care of the rest of the world, so if you’re outside the US just get in touch with us directly, contact details are on the main site.

We’re in the midst of a huge transition right now, and boy are we feeling excited! We’ve packed up all of our molds and shipped them down to a urethane manufacturing genius in the US. (What!!??). Well, Seth recently developed a sensitivity/ bad allergy to liquid urethane and can no longer work with the stuff at all. So it’s time to move forward! We’re outsourcing all of our production and we couldn’t be happier. We’ll now have time to focus on the stuff we’re really excited about like shaping shaping shaping, (did I mention shaping?), working on our brand, and of course all the administration. Don’t get me wrong, pouring goo into molds is cool, but after 9 years of it we’re ready (and it’s become necessary) to hand that part off to someone else.
The manufacturer we’re working with is top notch, they have many years of experience in manufacturing climbing holds and they have the absolute best material in the industry so our stuff couldn’t be in better hands. We’ve had (what we think) are the best shapes for a long time, and now we’ll finally have the best material- a fantastic bomber urethane.
A bonus for our American customers will be that orders will now be shipping from Colorado. And friendly Canadians, don’t worry, it will be like nothing’s changed, shipping amounts will remain the same as if it’s still shipping from us in Alberta and we’ll cover any pesky border fees.

Here’s Seth and 1210 lbs of Teknik molds all boxed up and ready to ship off

Yay, we’ve turned 9! Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us!
I decided to bake us little Teknik star cakes to celebrate! Here’s a pic of all nine of them before we binged and pounded almost all of them all in one sitting……

We’ve got some really exciting stuff happening to kick off our 10th year in business, but I will tell all about that in more posts in the next day or two- until then you can squirm in anticipation!!

PS You may shower us with birthday presents if you so desire. Ship to 10027-80 ave, Edmonton, AB, T6E 1T4, Canada.

There’s only 2 weeks left to get your submissions in for our art contest over at climbingholdreview.com. Here’s a direct link to the contest.
We want you guys to email in your rendition of your most favorite Teknik hold, the art can be anything so let your imagination run wild… a doodle of a De Bloc, a mashed potato sculpture of a Fat Pinch, a rice crispy square Blade Runner, a video of your interpretive No Shadow Hand dance (that, by the way, would score some serious points with us!)…. whatever your hold and art of choice may be. Our favorite ‘masterpiece’ will win the set of holds featured in the work. Easy!
So far we’ve had a lot of photoshoppy entries which have been great (and hopefully we’ll still get more!), but we’d love to see some other types of art too. Here are some examples of other types of art you could do, (these are not entries):

These were given to us a a couple years ago, they’re Fimo art of a Fat Pinch and the old NKR1.

This is a photo of me doing a Fanciful Unicorn dance with the old Pinchtite.

Anyways, follow the link to the contest and email them your entry, or email it directly to us and we’ll send it over for you.

Go click on the Tek Pics and Tek Vids links (in the Pages box on the right hand side of this page). We just finished uploading a whole slew of dishy visuals… and lots more still to come!

Enjoy!!

Wow what a great Nationals! I would vote best ever. The venue was awesome, the routes were killer, the organization was top-notch, and the field was impressive. A massive thanks to the Tour De Bloc, Urban Uprising, the CEC, the setters, the competitors, and all the sponsors for making this the Canadian event of the year!
Jody Miall and Chris Danielson set a perfect finals round, only one male and one female topped the last problem for an exciting win. All of our new holds worked out perfectly, lots of people got annihilated by pinches! We did every one the holds in yellow (to match the “Butterdome”, the giant yellow pavilion in which the comp was held) so the one colour ‘look’ of the entire finals was really clean and uniform in a design-y way. We debuted a bunch of our new shapes, the Svelt Pinches, the Mini Svelt Pinches and Fatty Long Fat Pinches which pretty much no one had seen before, as well as our hot new Fat Pinches and Fat Lips. The good ol’ Blade Runners provided for some thrilling one arm jump-n-danglers. Here’s a pic of the women previewing that move:

The No Shadow Hands and No Shadow feet were key for the slabby bits on the volumes, and the Aphids got people crimping like they’ve never crimped before on the gently overhung walls. The Sneakers and Tabi made for miserable footing making all these hard holds even more desperate!
Team Teknik climbers Vikki Weldon and Marshal German both climbed fantastically well. Vikki placed 2nd and Marshal 3rd. Marshal impressed us by donning his Teknik short-shorts, here’s a pic, it’s a little blurry which is ok cause there’s a lot of leg showing!

Seth and I showed our Team spirit by dressing in our all-white Team Teknik 2008 uniforms. We had a little merch booth and sold a whack of tee shirts, and some commerative yellow holds.

Ninjin’s (our shop rabbit) new pro-model Teknik Bunny tee was the most popular, but how couldn’t it be? It’s so cute! Here’s the graphic:

Thanks again to everyone involved in the comp, we had a blast!

We’ve got bucket loads (literally) of crispy brand new shapes ready for the comp… prepare to be annihilated by pinches Look for an all yellow Teknik final. We’ve got some new shapes called Svelt Pinches, Mini Svelt Pinches, and Fatty Long Fat Pinches which will be debuting at this fine event along with all our new Fat Pinches and other awesome new shapes. Here’s a sneaky looky:

In addition to all these holds, we’re also importing routesetting superstar Chris Danielson to help set the comp. He’ll be one of the forerunners at the Vail World Cup so this will be great experience for those of you going down to Colorado. We got a call from Chris today at 5:30 pm, only 3 hrs before we were supposed to be picking him up from the airport in Edmonton. He was still at the airport in Denver. Due to an expired passport, they wouldn’t let him in to the country! Previous to his departure he had checked into this detail and was told that as long as the passport had expired within the last 6 months and was accompanied with 3 other bits of ID then it was all good. Apparently the rules were a little vague and open to border guard interpretation and after successfully pleading his case through all the check points, the final guard at the boarding gate gave him the no-go. We thought that was it. Then to our surprise two hours later Chris calls again and he’s figured out a plan B… He’s flying to Great Falls, then driving up to Edmonton (apparently border crossings by land have different rules than by air), he just wasn’t ready to give up on getting to Edmonton! What a top notch professional, wow! In the meantime, I will help fill in the gaps till his arrival.
The dudes at Urban Uprising are putting up a brand new bouldering wall for the comp, we dropped by today and took a peek:

See you this weekend.

here’s a shot of me with the new gta4! special edition, booyaa.
we are also launching a teknik fan art contest on the website: www.climbingholdreview.blogspot.com
the contest has already started! go check it out, i’ll be playing gta4.

We’ve got some select new morsels for your grabbing pleasure:
1. Fat Lips have been re-done and they are truly delectable. They have a lovely chubby roundness to the grip and although they are a bit bigger than the originals they are slightly more difficult. You can find these in our Jugs category, but the term jug should be applied loosely… they are more like big incut two hand ledges.
2. Fat Pinches are also re-done (all 4 sets!) and they continue to truly reign supreme. They are a little bigger and wider, and slightly harder than the originals. You loved the old ones, these are even better.
3. Crickets got the ‘ol re-do too. These awesome little edges have been updated to be a touch bigger and more rounded, and now sport a sassy martini style bolt hole.
4. Ze Fang; a new Indy! I found this weird piece of foam and it turned into a crazy shape. Is it a pinch? Is it a sloper? Is it a matching ledge? You choose.
5. Pails for the Chunky Yeti Chalk…. not new holds obviously, but new packaging for our chalk. When we got an email from one of the employees at MEC stating that our old donut style chalk boxes were, and I quote, “terrible”, we knew something had to be done. We found these awesome pails and put one full of chalk to the test rolling around in the trunk of our car for a couple months. It turned out to be good and sturdy, not a fleck of chalk escaped the pail. Thanks for the feedback!

Coming very very soon….
More new pinches!! 3 whole new never-before-seen styles and I’m not telling, you’ll just have to wait and see. The molds are done, we just need to finish the hollow backs on a couple of the sets.

All this just in time for Canadian Nationals right here in Edmonton! Twist your gym owner’s arm and order some new stuff before you have to grab it at the comp Werd is that Teknik is exclusive hold sponsor for finals and will also have a huge presence in the quali’s…. know your holds.

Here are a couple videos from the frozen Tekland tundra. The first one is a video I captured of the Canadian Chalk Yeti harvesting chalk chunks for Teknik- pails of this Chunky Yeti Chalk are now available at the Mountain Equipment Co-op! The second is a movie I made in the thick of winter, probably the coldest day of the year. Enjoy!