tekkies

Teknik final at ABS National Championships

Here’s a video of Daniel Woods, 2010 American Bouldering Series Open Men’s National Champion, making short work of the Teknik men’s final #3: Pinchtite- Talon- Franco- Franco- top! He was the only climber to complete this problem. Nice one Daniel!

Daniel Woods completes problem 3 at ABS National Bouldering Championships from Lu on Vimeo.

Teknik qualifier at ABS National Championships

Here’s an awesome video I found on the USAClimbingABS You Tube channel- it’s Alex Puccio, the 2010 American Bouldering Series Open National Champion, making mincemeat of the Teknik qualifier problem (set by our man Chris Danielson!)

Super Villain-Super Villain- Sneaker- Cricket- Cricket- Talon- Talon- Mothh- skips the pinch under the volume- Tron Disc- Scarab- Scarab- skips the No Shadow Foot- Thug- et c’est fini! On to the finals to take the win!

Teknik at the ABS Nationals!

We’re sponsoring the American Bouldering Series National Championships at Sportrock this weekend!

We’ve sent the setters a big load of holds to work with including the Super Villains, Talons, Thugs, Fat Rings, Francos, Crickets, Gnats, Scarabs, Minibots, Mothh, No Shadow Hands and Feet, Fat Slopers, Sneakers, Fatty Fat Pinches (which have made a comeback to our hold line!!!), Fatty Long Fat Pinches, and of course the classic Pinchtite… can’t wait to see what they build!

Good luck everyone!

The Wrenchwrecker with Pinchtite.

Notes of a travelling routesetter : the dutch championships 09

After having set for the World Cup in Eindhoven, Holland last june, was i asked by the organiser of the dutch bouldering championships to be a guest chief routesetter for the third and final competition of the round. For all those routesetters out there, you know opportunities like that are not really a dime a dozen, so I cleared my calendar for the week preceding the comp, loaded all the Teknik holds i had underhand and back to Eindhoven it was.

Monk boulder Gym is one of the nicest bouldering gyms i know. It is (very) spacious, has an awsome bar with beer and excellent coffee, and a homemade apple pie made by Gwen, but i digress… There are 13 color coded circuits that have 25 to 30 problems each that will take you through all the different angles and climbing styles, plus 30°,  40° and  50° training boards that are jam packed with holds. Add to that the finger boards, campus board and slack line and kiddies climbing castle and you have one of the *nicest* climbing gyms in the world (yes i said it -the world- and i mean it).

And right across from the bar is the dedicated competition wall, specifically designed to put on a good show. And that was to be my playground for a week. I had a great team who helped with setting and testing. Remco Geurts, who runs the gym and I did the bulk of the work, but we had lots of help from Marijn, Vera, Remmelt and Ties.

The competition wall at Monk Bouldergym in Eindhoven

Preparation
As much as I love setting for competitions, it’s really stressful business trying to get that perfect alchemy between the grades, the puzzles and the show. In general, i have a fairly good idea of what the climbers abilities will be because generally i know them either personally or by reputation.

So generally my preparation for a competition involves reading up on recent changes in the rules, and scouting out recent info on what form the climbers might (or might not) be in. Although you do need information to adjust the grades, i find that it can sometimes be a gift and curse.

So for this comp all the rules and regulation were written in dutch (which i dont read) i knew 4 of the 24 climbers by name (two of whom were injured) so all i had really was pictures of the wall.

Well, thats not exactly all I had. I was hired by a team that had aced the organisation of a world cup not six months before, had aced the set up of an awsome gym dedicated to climbing with no concessions. Remco, Dirk and Joris run a tight snap-to-grid organisation that make everything seem effortless and look amazing. Also I was given 5 days, belive it, 5 days to set 16 boulders with a team of 4. Unheard of…

Volumes
In these luxurious conditions, we started monday morning by putting up some of the numerous volumes at our disposal. We wanted the visual effect and the style of the problem on each of the walls to change as much as possible between rounds, but also between mens and womens.

Since the women where always climbing before the men, we set the womens problems with more volumes than for the mens, so that during the comp when changing from one set of boulders to the next we only had to take down volumes rather than put them on. Another nifty trick I made up, was to hide a smaller volume used in one of the mens problems under a larger stalcatite like thing used for the women. Tadaa!

The mens start hold was hidden under the womens start volume for a faster switch

So with the volumes in place, we set all our finals problems and had them all on the wall by day one. I was satisfied with all but the two on the slab at the far right. Although they could have worked for the comp, they just lacked some…thing. They wern’t as fun to climb as the rest of the problems, and it didnt look very good. So since we had the time, tuesday morning we simply stripped the whole thing, volumes and all, and put up two new problems that we liked.

In retrospect, i’m glad we did because one of the problems was this one : Mens Finals – problem n°3 and was done only once, and by the winner. What more can you ask for…?

And also the new volume layout in that area made possible this cluster in the semis that worked very well for both the men and womens problems.

Nikki de Leuw climbing on the cluster

Designing circuits

my sketchy notes for the finals

After two days we had comfortably set our finals, thoroughly tested them, marked them and taken them down AND set up our volume layout for the semis. Wednsday was a rest day, then thursday we put up all the semis. Again, unsatisfied with a couple of them, we just dropped them and started over. We wanted all the problems to be about the same grade but in very different styles. To give an example, the womens finals circuit went a little something like this :

Bloc#1 started with an akward mantle to a blob, and then a big jump with poor feet.

Bloc #2 was an easy low traverse to a big pinch, rock on to a slopy foothold and then a very balancy traverse to the final touch square on the arete.

Bloc #3 : out a roof on a rounded red stalgtite to a jug undercling with feet smearing on the stalagtite; cross left hand to a crimp, grab the arete with a tiny foothold, undercling, egyptian to a bad crimp and then smear to gaston jug. In a word : powerful with bad feet, and was the hardest of all I think.

Bloc #4 was in the steepest section longer moves to decent holds with potential for feet flying off. Less brains more brawn, and taking the competition to the Cliffhanging Vertical Limit! In a word : extreme rockscaling.

Miss and Miss Take
This last bloc #4 was intended as a show pleaser that unfortuantly did not work. Some of the stronger girls who we expected would do well were not on form, and the other girls were juiced so the high point went to Rachel who by boulder 3 had already won anyway. It would have been nice if she had been able to seal the victory with four tops. However we thought all along that this problem, set by injured dutch team member Vera Zijlstra, was just a touch too easy, and we changed one hold at the last minute, and if we had not, probably would have made it possible. I would say that for this comp that is my one regret. It’s been proven time and time again, last minute changes are often a bad idea. The problem is sometimes they do save your ass, and it’s almost impossible to know when is which… it’s like rolling dice.

Remco setting the fist jam

The mens second problem in the semis also got no tops, but that was because no one figured out the fist jam for the starting move between a Teknik Talon and a Fat Lip, however I have no regrets about that one, we tried, it didnt work because the climbers did’nt get it. It happens, and it doesnt mean that the problem was bad. At another comp, on another day everyone might have flashed it.

I really feel that there is a clear distinction between setting mistakes, and problems that just didn’t get figured out. As setters we make propositions, we pose problems. I feel that it is really important to keep as much diversity in the movements used in competition, and doing this involves risks. Of course it is our responsibility to mesure those risks and dose them accordingly to make the event work for the climbers and for the spectators. At least that is as far as i have come in my padawan learnings as a setter so far.

I hope you found this article interesting, please dont hesitate to send me comments and or questions at tonde@teknikhandholds.com. I would like to extend many many thanks to the photographers who kindly gave me permission to use their pictures in this article. Melvin Redeker check out his amazing pictures, of the comp but also his amazing alpine landscapes. Jorg Kemner has lots of pictures of climbing comps in Holland. Niek Fransen who lemme use some of his facebook pics.

Tondé is a nationally certified route setter in France. He has been setting for 15 years in gyms and comps around the world. He is representing Teknik in Europe and is starting up an international route setting company called Ouvre Boite.

December Ad

Here’s our ad in the December issue of Gripped Magazine

Putting up the fun holds I carved!

10 Years Old!

Teknik just hit the double digits; 10 years of supreme awesomeness!!
The big question is…. now that we’re so old, does it mean we’re finally allowed to start wearing our matching tracksuits?

To celebrate the big day, we decided to have a sesh in our climbing hutch. Our outfits ended up distracting us away from getting too much actual climbing done, but we did have a rippin good time!

Super Villains and Fat Rings

New holds are fun… especially these new holds : )

Fat Rings

Super Villains

At the end of July, I spent a week routesetting at a fantastic new gym in Colorado – Movement Climbing and Fitness. The gym ops are run by a very experienced setter, great friend of mine, and longtime friend of Teknik, Mike Moelter. For years Mike had been dreaming of a great steep roped gym of his own. And for as long as I’ve been involved in the indoor climbing world, I have seen the great value of the classic friendly 5.11 jug haul that is accessible to a range of climber abilities and fun for all. I always imagined big monster jugs to set with…

Needless to say, Seth and Zoe came through huge and had shaped two incredible Teknik sets that make steep climbing that much cooler. The Super Villains are the biggest, most incut, matchable roof jugs on the market. And the Fat Rings, the most amazingly hand-friendly and rounded ring grabs, make you feel like a kid on the monkey bars.

When I dropped off the holds at Movement, all the routesetters were so psyched… and Mike was eager to get ‘em on the wall. Just a few days before opening and with nearly 100 routes on the wall, Mike added the Teknik-themed jug-haul out the steep. 30 + Fat Rings and Super Villains later, plus almost as many Runts, Bullies, Tikes, and Spikes… and Movement had that classic 5.11 to open the doors with to their new endeavor.

I took a shot of friend and Teknik fan Nick Sherman jugging out the roof. The pic did not come out that well and it was hard to see the holds, so I highlighted them all… just to show all that Teknik on this HUGE wall!  Check out the gym at www.movementboulder.com or stop by if you’re ever in Boulder, Colorado and run a lap on the new Teknik classics.

Gnat on Gnat

Last week we got a shipment of a bunch of our brand new shapes, and were checking them out in the back yard, when a gnat flew over and landed on one of the Gnat holds- ok Seth coaxed it over a bit… ok a lot…and it might be missing one of it’s legs now… but a Gnat on a Gnat, cool!

Crème de la crème

Deadpoint Magazine did a hold review in the latest edition of their fine mag. They put a selection of holds from a number of different companies up at the Gravity Vault Gym in Upper Saddle River NJ, and collected hundreds of multiple-choice questionnaires about the holds from the routesetters and patrons of the gym…. and guess what, we rated #1!! YAAA!

Check us out Deadpoint digital edition- Issue 5 We’re on page 41.
We sent them a set of our sick new Talons for the review; how could we not have placed at the top with these holds

Here’s a preview of our ad featuring the Talons in the upcoming issue of Gripped Magazine:

Seth peek-a-boo Talons

And here’s a killer shot of the Talons in action on one of the men’s finals problems at the US Bouldering Nationals (these holds were also featured in the finals at the Bouldering World Cup in Vail):

US Bouldering Nationals- double Talons to a No Shadow Hand!

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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: