tekkies

Ze Latest Ad

Here’s our current ad in Gripped Magazine:

And here’s a cool photo of the hollow back on one of these holds:

World Cup Follow Up

Last weekend, the Vail World Cup went off with a bang. The Americans did quite well which I was pleased to see, knowing that the top US climbers are just as strong as many of the international contenders, but rarely get the chance to show it.  A good crew of Canadians showed up as well and most finished just out of reach of Semis but showed they were clearly strong and put on a great show.

In the finals, Women’s Final # 2 featured one of the Talons at the top, spitting off some girls - only allowing those with the best squeeze strength to finish - check out a cool clip on the youtubes… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl6K4y6IoDM&feature=channel_page. The Men’s Final #2 also had a great new Teknik shape featured - one of the Svelt Pinches. Watch Daniel Woods and company manhandle the pinch and readjust on the swing…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4ahm4rqU2M&feature=channel_page.

The comp was an outstanding success overall and it was great to have some of the new Teknik shapes on the wall.  It gets ridiculous as routesetters how important finding the “perfect” hold becomes in competition and how we remember the details.  The ideal roof toe, a Teknik Spike, on Women’s Final #2… The No Shadow Foot and Hand on the slabby Men’s Final #3… The Fat Slopers and Svelt Pinches on Women’s Semi #3… and on and on.  We spent a fun ten days building the wall and routesetting the event, and it’s always incredibly rewarding to see the competitive field split fairly, to watch the climbers have fun, and hear the crowd enjoy it.

Psyched for next year and hope to see more of the Canadian team in Vail again!

Werd is….

some more of our new shapes are ready and in production!! Fat Slopers, Tikes, Scarabs, Midges, and Gnats are live.
I’ve got the Fat Slopers up on the site, and the rest hopefully this weekend.

Teknik Holds at the World Cup this weekend!!

We’re sponsoring the IFSC Bouldering World Cup and USA Climbing Citizen’s comp at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail this coming weekend. The World Cup setting crew consists of Laurent Laporte from France, and from the US- Kynan Waggoner, our man Chris Danielson, Jamie Emerson, and Scott Mechler. Citizen’s comp routesetters are Mike Helt, Luke Bertelsen, John Muse and Joel Zerr.

This is the selection of Teknik they’ve got in their arsenal if you’re curious which holds you might be seeing on the walls…

Let’s start with the exciting NEW stuff, (some of it is so new I haven’t even had a chance to put it up on the site yet, but I promise you’ll be seeing it soon):
Tikes, Gnats, Midges, Fat Slopers, Talons, and Mini Tites

Next, the fun HARD stuff:
Dragonflys, Fat Pinches, Fatty Long Fat Pinches, Blade Runners, Mini Svelt Pinches, Svelt Pinches, No Shadow Hands, and Pinchtites (they’ve requested two, uh oh, what are they setting?!)

Some easier stuff to round it all out and take care of the steep terrain:
Runts, Bullies, Thugs, Fat Lips, Longbows, Meatiums, Bipods, and Flaps

And the feet:
No Shadow Feet, Sneakers, and Spikes

Good luck to all the competitors, and happy setting to the Crews!

moving forward

just re-posted most of the entries from the last couple years that we lost during our blog upgrade… super fun reading through the old stuff looking forward to posting some freshies now!!

New Year, New Shapes!

Wed 21 Jan 2009
Posted by tekker under Tekkies
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Here’s our latest ad in Gripped magazine, check it out in the upcoming February issue!
In the last couple months Seth and I have been busy taking turns wielding the tools of our trade, carving up a mighty dust storm. Despite frigid winter conditions in our unheated garage, we cranked up the space heater in our awesome carving fort and got a load of new shapes  finished… we’ve been randomly giggling like school girls about them we’re so excited. Photos coming soon. New shapes are being molded and should be ready for purchase in the next month or so.
Meow for now, Zoe

Setting with the new Teknik!

Sun 9 Nov 2008
Posted by Danielson under Tekkies
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My first post as a Tekkie!  Though I have actually just returned to my hometown of Boulder, Colorado from a long trip up in Canada - I’ve met so many awesome new friends up in the Great White North recently, I still feel like a Canadian for a day…

For the past few months I have been consulting for a new gym called Climber’s Rock in Burlington, Ontario, and in mid October I headed out there for an on-site consultation and initial routesetting project.  If you haven’t seen this gym – check it - this place has without a doubt the best new bouldering wall in the region if not the entire country, if the feedback they’ve gotten is any evidence.  People love this gym.

I travel around pretty regularly down here in the states as a professional climbing wall consultant and rep and on every project there’s something new.  At Climber’s Rock, I was psyched to work with incredible terrain and meet a ton of GREAT people at the two clinics I did – “Basic Route Creation,” and a second more advanced session called “Building Movement.”  Over a dozen participants attended each clinic, and I was super impressed by how motivated, open-minded, and excited everyone was about routesetting.  And the “Building Movement” clinic participants got an extra bonus… they were able to share in the other NEW bit on this project – the very first batch of the new Teknik urethane mix!

Super-exponential-fantastic…  The new mix is lightweight but strong, and the texture has all the great qualities of the original Teknik, but with the amazing durability of bom-bom-bomber urethane.  Seth and Zoe’s shapes are superb… with only a little chalk and when you’re feeling a little weak in the forearms… you’ll be straining!  But when you’ve got the snap, it’s like POW – Squeeze the Fat Pinch!  BAM – Crank on the Runts!  WHACK – Slap the No Shadows!   Great fun with the new Teknik…

Here’s a pic… floatin in the sea of new grips!

Happy Halloween!

Thu 30 Oct 2008
Posted by tekker under Tekkies
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Here’s a photo of the best halloween costume ever….

This is Jeff dressed up as a Teknik Mathematic hold for the “Pirates of the Carabiner” halloween climbing comp. How totally cool is that??

In other scary Halloween news, an evil hacker has been messing with our site and our blog! We’ve lost our regular access to the blog… I finally managed to get in with limited access using an old account I set up ages ago, so at least that’s something (that’s why I’m posting under the name “tekker” instead of Zoe…). We knew something was up when we got over 270,000 hits in one day last week (slightly more than usual), and strange folders were appearing in the background in places that should be have been inaccessible. Hopefully we get this sorted out soon! But if things go quiet here for a bit, it’s probably because we’ve lost access again, so bear with us. Otherwise, I’ll be posting again very soon so stay tuned.

Toodles, Zoe

Chris Danielson is Tek Reppin’

Tue 16 Sep 2008
Posted by Zoe under Tekkies
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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.

Big Moves

Mon 8 Sep 2008
Posted by Zoe under Tekkies
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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/ scary 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.

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