Happy birthday to Teknik! Twelve, wow!

So, what’s happened since our last birthday… it’s been a big year, our biggest ever!

For starters, we’ve added a lot of new shapes to our line: Big Sneakers, Long Methods, Hooded Fangs, Hoods, Mathematics, Hard Math, Low Fat Slopers, Half Fat Slopers, Minimeats, Meatlets, and of course the Hulk. If you haven’t read the story behind the Hulk, check it out. We also added a bunch of new tees.

We’ve re-done our entire website (thanks to Tondé!). In addition to better navigation, and a cart function, we added new larger photos of all the shapes showing multiple views and scale, as well as boxes for you to leave comments about the sets and “like” them. We added the story about Teknik thus far, and our setting team has been active with excellent posts on Tekkies.

Awesome new website!

This has been an absolutely stand out year for our involvement in high level comps.
We were season sponsors for USA Climbing’s Bouldering and Difficulty series. Half the holds used at US Nationals for both disciplines were Teknik.
We were also season sponsors for the Unified Bouldering Championships Pro Series. The second event of the UBC series held in Central Park NYC produced an amazing photo in the New York Times of the Hulk in action- rad!

orange Hulk in the NY Times!

Also on the East Coast US we sponsored the futuristic Dominion Riverrock bouldering comp. It was on a structure comprised completely of hanging volumes; wild! Here’s a short video:

Dominion Riverrock Bouldering Wall from DPM CLIMBING on Vimeo.

We sponsored the Tour De Bloc Canadian Bouldering Nationals as well as the training camp for the Canadian National Team after the event, in preparation for the Canmore Bouldering World Cup. And of course, we sponsored that event too!

We offered to come on as sponsors as soon as we heard there was going to be a Boulder WC in Canada, and so close to home too… we had to be involved. Amazing! It turned out we were the only hold company who stepped up to sponsor that event, so as luck would have it, all the holds (save a few screw-ons that superstar setter Jacky Godoffe brought from his personal collection) were Teknik. We never imagined an entire World Cup would be set with only our holds, crazy, and awesome.

We actually ended up sending 70% more than we had agreed to when we found out we were the only hold sponsor, because we wanted to make sure the setters had enough to pull the comp off- even with the extras it was tight, but they did it.

Seth was one of the routesetters and had an amazing experience working with our shapes, with a master, at a competition of that level. There are some nice photos of the routesetting, as well as the competitors in action here.
I drove down to Canmore with a big tent, and table strapped to the roof of my car and set up a nice Teknik tent on site.

the Jedi all loaded up and ready to roll!

Zoe with VIP Sponsor pass

I had a great time hanging out at the event and showing off the Tek wares to the international crowd. The highlight was when the entire Japanese team all came by and each bought a SLAB tee; so awesome!

a tent full of Tek

We also put out a Fat Sloper turned upside down like a big bowl and filled it Canadian Loonie and Toonie chocolate coins. The internationals (and the local kids) loved it!!

Fat Sloper bowl full of chocolate Loonies and Toonies

Chris Danielson came up to hang out with us too, help us man our Tek tent, and spend some time with the Canadian setters and the Master (Jacky of course).

Shortly after this event, our holds were heavily used once again at the World Cup in Vail, as they have been in previous years.

Bouldering World Cup Womens Finals • Vail, Colorado • 2011 • LT11 from Louder Than 11 on Vimeo.

A couple weekends after that our holds showed up again in Holland where we sponsored the Eindhoven Bouldering World Cup.

video here

And then one more- the Bouldering World Cup in Munich. Whew.

Boulder World Cup Semi Finals 2011 in Olympic park

…Munich video here (check out Semi final W4)

Not only has it been a busy year for our holds, it’s been a busy year for our setters. As mentioned, Seth made his debut as a setter for a WC level comp.

Tondé set the French Bouldering Cup and Youth Bouldering Championships, the World Cups in Eindhoven, Barcelona, and Munich. He also taught a number setting clinics, and ran training camps for some National Teams, including the one for Canada. And somewhere in between all that, he built us this excellent website!

Chris set the US Bouldering and Difficulty Nationals, the Unified Bouldering pro series, the Dominion River invitational, and the World Cup in Vail. He has also been teaching routesetter certification courses for USA climbing.

We’ll be hearing from each of these guys in the next few weeks about their experiences at some of these events! Stay tuned!

Well, what an amazing year it has been. The coming year should be every bit as good. We got a big new block of foam and already have quite a few new shapes underway that we’re quite excited about, and will be available this fall.

big new block of foam- there's a Pinchtite to the left for size references

something Fatty Fat this way comes...

I’m thinking it might be a good time for a couple new tees too…

Anyways, Happy Birthday to us, it feels good to be 12! Woo!
To celebrate, I’m spending the day wearing my purple Puma Tekkies sneaks…

Puma 'Tekkies' shoes, how cool is that!

Chris just got the green Tekkies… and Seth will need to get the White Puma Tekkies, obviously.

Cake time!

Zoe

Early in 2011 I suggested to CEC the governing body for competitive sport climbing in Canada that I organize a 3 day training camp for the climbers who intended to go to the bouldering World Cup to be held in Canmore, Alberta at the end of May. The idea was to help them prepare the event by simulating the climbing conditions that World Cup climbing circuits offer in terms of intensity and complexity and most importantly diversity.

The afternoon session where everybody climbed together

I flew into Toronto on April the 15th, a comfortable day before the Canadian bouldering nationals held at Climbers Rock in Burlington, Ontario. As I didn’t know the athletes I would be working with for 3 days, I though it would be best to see them perform in real competition conditions and see if I could spot strengths or weaknesses and get a better grasp as to what sort of climbers they were. I had already done my homework by studying their competition results and videos from previous years, but it certainly was not enough information to gauge their climbing qualities. So I spent two days at a climbing competition as a spectator for once.

At any competition the largest demographic is almost always the spectators, and as route setters we try our best to make the competition an exciting and interesting event to watch. But it is always a good thing to occasionally find ourselves in the shoes of those spectators : people who are not involved in the organisation and are just watching a sports event. Fortunately for me the setting was in the able hands of Jody Miall seconded by Climbers Rock’s head setter Aaron Eden and Teknik’s own Chris Danielson. The boulders were well set, a lot of them were easy on the eyes, and it was easy to tell that everything was going well from how much fun the climbers were having.

A sea of Teknik holds ready to wash over the walls... Jody putting finals back up

The training camp was to take place from the 20th to the 22nd of April 2011 at one of Canada’s oldest but best gyms : Joe Rockheads in Toronto and I was supposed to team up with Jody to set six 4-bloc circuits, one per gender, per day. Unfortunately, at the last moment he had to rush home, leaving me as the only setter for the 3 day camp. Stress. On two counts : first I wasn’t sure I would be able to turn out 24 quality blocs alone in two days, and secondly one of my main goals was to expose the climbers to as foreign (to them) a style of climbing as possible, and I didn’t know if my personal flavor of setting could produce that effect.

My notes planning out the circuits

But after weeks of back and forth emailing with the CEC the Canadian climbing authority, and Luigi coordinating to get climbers from all over Canada in one place (no small feat), it was not time to get cold feet. I had sent out emails to the attending climbers with a few basic questions about their climbing and goals. I compiled that information with the notes I had taken while watching the comp and checked it against the concept of the circuits I had prepared on the flight over. I figured it looked ok and braced to turn some wrenches… (figure of speech, i’m new skool : i use an impact driver)

Old skool Teknik jibs, the ones that could break...

3 days, 3 concepts
I am not a coach. I am not and have never been a very strong climber, and I have never competed in a World Cup event. So what the hell am I doing preparing climbers for a major competition. You know what, I have wondered that myself quite a bit. But experience has shown me that, as a route setter I have a unique view on climbers performance. You should hear conversations between route setters during a competition. Usually they are geeking out about some new hold, or tool or gym being built somewhere, one of them glances at the wall at someone doing really well on a climb and goes : “Oh what a shame, I thought she was going to top…” And sure enough 20 seconds later, the climber is off.

We know… or rather, I should say we like to think we know all the answers, we definitely get a bit cocky sometimes, but on the whole understanding the inner workings of the climb the moves, their intensity, their complexity gives us real insight to just how well a climber is doing and often what they are doing wrong.
Interestingly enough, I have noticed that the most common mistakes are not directly related to climbing. Competitors fail not because they didn’t understand the move, but because they were not breathing well enough, they where not focused, they were not listening, they were not relaxed enough, they were too relaxed… the list goes on and on. I decided that these observations, combined with atypical boulder problems, were what I wanted to draw upon for this training camp.

Kilian Fischhuber and Jernej Kruder on break during a training camp in Fontainbleau

Also I was lucky enough to have been hired by Jacky Godoffe multiple times during the past two years to set training camps for the french national bouldering team. He pioneered the concept (yet another…) of these training camps both to prepare the climbers, but also to allow himself the opportunity to experiment with new route setting tricks or concepts before trying them in real live competitions. He also made it a point to bring in foreign route setters to expose the climbers to different styles. In early 2011, away for a comp, he asked me to set boulders for joint training camp between members of the Austrian team, the Slovenian team that were both visiting Fontainebleau at the time as well as a few french team members. He had specific requests for the circuits and it was one of the best route setting experiences I had in a long time, and one of the reasons for that was it occurred to me how nice it was to set to help climbers to get better as opposed to competitions where we set to make them fall off…

For the canadian camp, I broke it down into three themes that were the title and catchphrase for each day : Adaptability,  Put it in a box (thanks to Tim Hatch who used this phrase in a conversation we had, and it stuck in my head), and the Economy of tries. The idea was for the climbers to climb a mock semi-finals round every morning with a bit of theory before and after, and then in the afternoon a more informal bouldering session as a group  to climb on the opposite genders blocs and to try and work out unsolved blocs from the morning.

Speed setting

Preparing circuits with Max

Very fortunatly for me, Jody introduced me to Max Dugal who he had recommended as a forerunner, and he could come around midday on both days to help me test and tweek the climbs. So my goal was to get as many blocs on the wall as I could before he arrived so that once he was there we could session together and make the tweeks as we went.

I knew that with overall the intensity of the climbing added to the number of blocs to test we wouldnt have very many tries per bloc and we would have to save both our skin and energy to go all the way through.

My brand new screw-ons mixed in with my personal collection of tweaker holds

Even though the circuits for the second day were ment to  be the hardest in terms of physical intensity, I decided to set the circuits in the order they would be climbed, especially since I didn’t have to do any stripping. Bob and Sharon at Joe’s gave me carte blanche to set on any and all walls, so I could set anywhere I wanted, plus Maria and Aaron at Climbers Rock lent me a bunch of volumes, which really helped. And when I arrived to set, I had a parcel! A whole bunch of Teknik screw-ons : hards, incuts and flaps.
Day one was a bit rough. Jet lag hadn’t completely cleared from my system and I was anxious about just not being able to set that fast. But with Max’s help I managed. In retrospect, the blocs for day 3 where a bit below standard, probably because they where set last, and got tested the least, when we were the most tired. I wasn’t happy with them but they did their job.

Day 1 : Adaptability

Erin Ford-Zieleniewski on day 1/women's 3

As climbers we all have preferences, some prefer boulders, some prefer routes, some technical climbing, some more physical styles. My line for day one was that basically if you’re a competitor, preference is out of the picture, if you want to win, you have to adapt to whatever gets thrown at you. So the day 1 circuit was four very blocs as different in style from one another as possible. So the men’s circuit ran like this : slab – jump (coordination) – contortion – volumes, and women’s : slab – jump (circus trick) – volumes – compression.

Day 2 : Put it in a box

Stacey Weldon trying what was probably the hardest bloc at the camp, day2/men 3 : 2 moves, hard!

Day 2 was all about how we deal with emotions and how those emotions affect our performance. I suggested that in most cases emotions were so hard to manage in the moment the best way was to save them for after the circuit was finished. In actual fact you’re not really putting them in a box just staying focused on the moment at hand because sometimes the difference between winning or making it to the next round can be one bloc, or even one attempt. Frustration, intimidation, over-confidence, fear, all the flavors of discomfort, so many things to distract you from the inside.

Men (overall intensity : high) = 1 wtf?! (contortion)-  2 balancey/awkward. fingers! – 3 two moves, very hard. – 4 triple jump
Women : (physical intensity : high) = 1 long roof thuggery – 2 wtf?! (mantle) – 3 volumes (off balance) – 4 stupid precision!

Day 3 : The economy of attempts

Dave Voltan working his way up the corner on M2 : balance/akward, fingers!

In recent years the boulder set for competitions are becoming more and more complex, and this complexity takes many attempts to resolve : how to grab a certain hold, to think of latching a toe to slow down a swing on a cut loose, use the momentum of a swing to get to the next hold, put your hand here and your foot as an outside edge and an impossible move becomes a akward but doable V4. On complex  boulders like this the climbers have to consciously manage their number of attempts and I compared it with the finacial economy, sometimes you have to dig into your stock to buy a hard attempt but it is in fact an investment that could pay off later. It’s amusing to see how far that analogy goes. What I can tell you was for day 3, the exchange rate between the euro and canadian dollar was high.
Men : 1 dead point precision – 2 all volumes, all grunting (broken) – 3 slab jump – 4 control swing
Women : 1 compression (broken) – 2 dyno (fake) – 3 pinches (by Max) – 4 slab

Marc-Anoine Turgeon on the 4 hold / day 2 / womens 2 : wtf?! (mantle)

Although on each day there was a fair bit of talking and theory about what I was trying to convey, I did a whole section called : anatomy of an attempt, breaking a single attempt down into parts, creating a sequence and explaining the importance of each.
I also wanted to raise the climbers awareness about the rules and regulations, about their rights, about what they should be observing. So I would intentionally tape starting positions in ambiguous ways, questioning rules that are in the rule book, to elect reactions and hopefully in the long run, a more informed awareness in a real competition.
On the last day I also tried to intentionally mis-set a boulder problem for each gender.
By this I mean that I intentionally made one bloc for the girls very obviouly reachy and one of the men’s was missing a foot that made an already very hard move almost impossible. What I was intending was to help the climbers realise that their failure is not always their fault, and that poor route setting basically makes you feel bad about yourself or your performance. Although it was an interesting point to make, I did not like the dirty trick feeling it gave me when I confessed to it. I felt as though the climbers didnt appreciate it either, and I didn’t blame them. However my job was to prepare them for a high level competition, and in the words of Percy Bishton commenting on the (awsome) route setting in Slovenia : “I’m not paid to be nice.”

In a few days some of the climbers I had at the camp will be competing in Canmore and I hope that the hardships, and tricks played and information given helps each of them improve the quality of their performance and reach whatever goals they have set for themselves. I also hope I will have more opportunities to set training camps, both with the canadian team, to continue the work we started and with other nations.

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. In 2011 he will be setting for the bouldering World Cups in Eindhoven, Barcelona and Munich.

Following up on my post just a few days ago about ABS Nationals, I wanted to dedicate a post entirely to talk about all the new Teknik sets…

We must begin with the Hulk.  I won’t go into too much detail on this, because Zoe already posted an awesome epic – just take a look at this monster and know that – if you buy it, you can’t possibly be disappointed..

Hulk - Foam

The shape speaks for itself, but I think it is important to point out is that while many brands out there have priced some large features well into the $100+ range, even nearing $200+, the Hulk is an affordable giant, and that is because Teknik wants you to be able to enjoy it.

Next – Low and Half Fat Slopers.  The idea for this set came after we did a short pour of some of the now already classic Fat Slopers, at the 2010 World Cup in Vail.  I told Seth and Zoe how awesome the short versions of the shapes were, and we all thought – why not make production versions!

Low Fat Slopers - Red

The LOW FAT SLOPERS are about 1/3 depth of the original Fat Slopers 1 set.  They are amazing for low angle, slab, or arete climbing…

Much like the originals – they put a premium on contact strength – but since you can get your tips back towards the wall, these variations allow you to grip with some better surface tension against the wall, or with just a little bit of crimp.

Half Fat Slopers - Grip View

The HALF FAT SLOPERS are about 1/2 depth of the Fat Slopers 2 set.  The variations in the grabs make them really interesting to use, because though the shapes look similar from the ground, the subtleties of each shape make them a bit different, and some are definitely better than others.

Along with the LFS and HFS, there are a few other sets that took their inspiration from shapes already in the Teknik line.  The rest of the Teknik shapes in the post are brand new creations – from Seth and Zoe.

Minimeats - Orange Side View

One set that has always been a favorite of mine, perhaps my overall top pick, is the Meatiums.  I had mentioned to Seth and Zoe how much I love those shapes, and that what is so great about them is the little bit of curl you have to do with your fingers, to really get the most bite on the hold – the type of thing you often have to do on rounded sloper crimps outdoors.  I thought it would be awesome to have smaller single pad tiny crimps, that emulated this.  Seth went right to work and came up with two amazing new sets – the Meatlets and Minimeats.

The MINIMEATS are the bigger of the two sets, and are nearly full pad crimps, with slightly incut tapers back to the wall.  Notice the muscle-y texture, just like the original Meatiums.

Meatlets - Foam

MEATLETS, smaller than the above Minimeats,  are just like the name suggests, cutlet little versions of the real meat.  They are half-pad at best – amazing little edges for super technical stuff – vert climbing, lock-offs, etc – these little guys will be unforgiving and honest – they’ll tell you just how much finger strength you do or do not have.  They are thin enough that they have a tapered recess for Flat Head bolts, though as with all Teknik shapes, they still have washers, so you can use either type really.

Another pair of sets that I was psyched to see get into production this winter were the LONG METHODS 1 and LONG METHODS 2.  While I was up in Edmonton last fall, I got a look at these guys in foam, and was very impressed as always.

Long Methods 1

Long Methods 2

I had always talked about how much I love the Methods, but that it would be cool to have similar style pinch-edges, but that could be matched – like Method rails.  The end result is a nice combination of shape styles – I look at them and think they are reminiscent of the Dragonflys as well.  Both Long Methods sets are perfect for crimp tension climbing.

The next sets of shapes that took their inspiration from popular designs Seth had already created, are the BIG SNEAKERS 1 and BIG SNEAKERS 2.  If you know the superb Sneakers foothold set, you know that those 20 holds are some of the most perfect little smooth smear edges out there.  Longtime Teknik friend Mike Moeltron had taken to using these for really difficult crimp climbing on the vertical walls at his gym Movement, and told me that a dream set would be an expanded, handhold version of the Sneakers.

Big Sneakers 1 - Grip View

Big Sneakers 2

Yet again, Seth came up with a brilliant group of 20 shapes – the amazing thing is – these truly are like magnified versions of the 20 original Sneaker shapes.  Seth labored for hours on end to create these.

As soon as I brought them to the gym the first time, a bunch of folks started searching for the Sneaker footholds so we could pair them up with their big brothers.

Now onto what I personally think are the most original of the new carves – the Hooded Fangs and the Hoods.  Zoe never fails to come up with unique ideas, and these are certainly no exception.  The Hooded Fangs are truly roof jugs – they are scooping “hook” shapes that couldn’t have a better name.  You’ll have to ask Zoe how she really came up with it – but I’m guessing it’s shaped like a hoodie hood, but well, it’s a fang too – so… HOODED FANGS.

Hooded Fangs - Foam View

Hooded Fangs - Grip View

What you can’t tell from these pics is that these guys are super lightweight, because they have an incredible hollow-back.  Perfect for super steep walls, and on less steep, I envision them being used really well as sidepull. or undercling grips.

Hoods - Wide View

Hoods - Grip View

The HOODS are smaller, and do not have any particular “fang” part of the grab, but are more widely tapered.

But like the Hooded Fangs, they will also lend themselves to sidepull grip positions, if you want to create great compression climbing.

They’ll also be excellent for walls in the 45 degree range or steeper, in more horizontal positions, because they will really demand pinch strength and core power.

Lastly, there are two new sets in the line, of the geometric bent.  Those of you who remember the classic Mathematics set (soon to return in fact) will recognize the flat angle aesthetic of the Mathematics 2 and the Hard Math.

Mathematics 2

The MATHEMATICS 2 are definitely the more positive of the two new sets, and a bit bigger overall.  They have super hollow-backs, so they are really lightweight.  Easily match-able, but everything will be dependent on the wall terrain with these guys.  You may want to calculate the degree of overhang you can successfully put these on and still be able to dead hang, before experimenting too much with them.  I bet they’ll be great for pulling just over a headwall.

Hard Math

HARD MATH will not be so easy to employ when routesetting for moderate climbing.  On each of these five grips, the angle tapers towards the center like a pyramid, so no matter what way you angle these suckers, they are sloper edges.

I would love to set an arete climb up a super tall wall just purely with these shapes, making for pure compression sloper tension, where you’d have to keep your heels squeezing at all times.

And… finally, a parting shot, pairing one each from the Mathematics 2 and Hard Math sets.  John Muse, a top USAC Routesetter who this year was on the ABS Youth Nationals crew, was making art on one of his harder climbs.  The end result didn’t keep both these holds, but, how often is it that you find t-nut placements so perfect that you can literally turn two holds into one???  The perfect mash-up…!

Math Vs. Hard Math

Shoot us an email if you want to get some new grips!  cdanielson@teknikhandholds.com or sethandzoe@teknikhandholds.com.  Keep reading below to see details on how a lot of these grips were used in the ABS Nationals…

If you are headed out to Canadian Bouldering Nationals at Climber’s Rock in Burlington, Ontario, I look forward to seeing many of you there.

Competitors – good luck!

It has been a long while since I have had the opportunity to post, but the recent comp madness that ensued here in Boulder at ABS Nationals, and the plethora of new shapes that have been added to the Teknik line – have had me very excited to share.

ABS Nationals - Women's Qualifiers

With Teknik sponsoring the USA Climbing Series, and specifically ABS Nationals – the routesetting crew had loads of new shapes to work with and unveiled many of the new Teknik grips for the competition a few weeks back.  Seth and Zoe have produced nearly 100 new designs in the past six months or so, all of which are now in production, but which many people have not yet gotten a glimpse of.  I get the first look at the new shapes as they come out of production here in Colorado, and I have to say, I feel lucky that I am often the first to put these grips on a wall and climb on them.

Below are some details of the comp and images (generous thank you to Curtis Bullock – http://www.flickr.com/photos/snwbeast/ – and e-Grips for use of the photos) from the event.

Kynan...

The comp prep began months prior to the event itself, and my good friend Kynan Waggoner is the man who made it happen.  John Stack of Vertical Solutions came to Boulder in early January and went like a bat-out-of-hell to get the amazing competition walls completed in time for routesetting.

Another longtime friend of mine, and Teknik’s – master setter Scott Mechler, was the Chief Routesetter for the comp and came in early on to do some construction preparation as well.  As soon as we got the new grips in, we began assessing and organizing.  I try to go into every comp I do with a bunch of movement ideas and it wasn’t uncommon for Scott, myself, and the other setters on the team to be discussing ideas over the phone or in conversations long before being on-site.  But no matter what ideas you have, until you know what you are working with in terms of the wall terrain and holds, you cannot really effectively determine what you will be able to successfully create.

Scott Mechler - Grips Assessment

To start off, I want to talk a bit about some Teknik-specific boulders that we set, and I’ll follow the course of how the comp went in action, qualis, semis, finals… to describe some of them.

Qualifiers – One idea I had had for some time was to set a problem with tons of Teknik Fat Slopers.  I  had played around with variations of this in CATS with other shapes (“Big Balls,” “Small Balls”) but had yet to execute a really good “Balls” style problem in a comp.  I ended up setting Women’s Q6 with 13 all orange Fat Slopers, and referred to it as “All Balls.”  For how simple they are, Teknik slopers actually make for excellent outside-style climbing, where grip positioning, contact strength and core tension are essential.  It turned out to be a quite difficult sloper-tension indulgence, and only Angie Payne, Sasha Digiulian, and Alex Puccio were able to complete it.

(“All Balls” Pic)

Another Women’s Quali problem, WQ3, featured some brand new Teknik shapes…

Meatlets and Minimeats

I never hesitate to use Meatiums, especially on a steep wall, and I put them up for Men’s Q3 which was intended to be pure power – straightforward, to divide the men from the boys.  After some discussion, we thought it would be cool to also engage the women in this kind of climbing on one of the qualifiers, and thought we might just use this boulder, but tweak it down to the appropriate grade and height range.  A few of the new grips that Seth recently shaped – Meatlets and Minimeats were added to the second variation, to create a crimp/pinch power problem to help split all the strong women.  It did its job well, mandating both crimp lock-off strength, which we typically estimate the girls to have a great deal of, along with dynamic power and jump strength.

Qualifiers went well for both genders.  It was a goal, over six problems, to create a very diverse set, that would be hard enough to split the middle of the field, but allow the real contenders to strut their stuff a bit.  The womens’ round ended up splitting the entire field near perfectly, though on the whole it was a bit stout, with only the APs – Alex Puccio and Angie Payne – both topping all six qualifiers.  The men’s was about what we wanted, 11 guys topped all the qualifiers, with 5 flashing all six.

Leading into Semi-Finals, we knew we had to step it up for the men, and that it would be a challenge to divide the top dozen or more, over only three   boulders.  Anyone who was lucky enough to see the live feed of Semi-Finals, would have gotten a glimpse of the new much-talked-about Hulk Feature on both the Mens and Womens SF1.

Magnus Midtboe working out the dihedral press - Hulk V. Beehive

The Men’s SF1 was technical down low on vert, to a tricky mantle press with the Hulk and a new e-Grips feature, the Bubble Wrap Beehive.

Portia Menlove hugging the Hulk.

Sarah Fullerton on the Hulk

Women’s SemiFinal 1 was a simple and elegant boulder set by Scott Mechler, with a jump start to the Hulk, great mantle to follow, and drive-by double-clutch move up high to two Fatty Fat Pinches to finish.

Most of the women were able to stick the first jump to the Hulk easily, but the mantle spit off quite a few.  Those that did make it up to standing on the Hulk had a difficult sideways jump to encounter and only the strongest women sent.

About to crush the Blade Runner on Men's SF2. Daniel has bICEPS on his shoulders.

Desperately close to finishing Men's SF2 and a spot in Finals. This problem should have been much easier than it was.

Many of the men flashed the first boulder, but the second problem proved to be too much.  This boulder was heavy on Teknik, with a Pinchtite start to big moves on Geeks, over some of the steepest terrain.  A powerful sequence from a Fat Lip to the Bonus hold, and then from the Bonus down to a Blade Runner, really sapped most of the top men.  Only a few were able to drop down to match the Blade Runner, and only the machine-man that is Daniel Woods moved a few moves further, campusing up to a Grasshopper, moving through a far-too-difficult pinch sequence, and then falling from the jug finish, heartbreakingly close to what would have put him into finals.

Women’s SF2 was long moves between jugs, and when I say jugs I mean, the biggest jugs known to mankind – the Super Villians.  It worked out much better than the Men’s second semi, with most reaching the zone, and a handful of girls getting to the top.

Andrea Szekely, with superb technique, engaged the toe-hook on one SUV to keep the core tension, while pulling full extension to the next SUV.

Fat Lip Mash Up

The last problems for each gender, made it especially interesting.  Women’s SF3 began with compression on Fat Lips in a horizontal roof, to technique and lock-off strength above a difficult lip section.  Again, Alex Puccio and Angie Payne, were the only two to complete it.

Men’s SF3 ended up really shaking things up.  360 pocket spinning led to a very difficult sloper, which, to Woods’ despair, was the Bonus hold.  While others worked out the spin sequence, rocked a heel on a Low Fat Sloper, and reached up to hold the Bonus Beehive sloper, Daniel just could not figure it out, and his failure to reach the zone kept him out of finals.  Sean McColl, on the other hand, gave the crowd a preview of what was in store for Finals.  He was the only climber to gain the two Half Fat Slopers above the zone, and with pure determination, he compressed the grips, slowly raised and set his heel, and exploded to the finish, letting out an enormous scream.

Sean McColl showing what's up for Canada - The calm before the storm

This shows Sean just moments before the loudest moment of the entire competition, his sole send of Men’s SF3 and to my mind, what was one of the most impressive insights into a competitor’s pure mental force, on display physically.

Sean set things up well to be the expected winner for finals, but it’s never over til it’s over…  Finals were a blast.  It was a tight field for both genders, and ultimately, everything came down to the last boulder, which made for an exciting finish.

Women’s F1 featured powerful climbing out a steep roof to balance and technique up high.  Those of you who have participated in or watched climbing comps in the past 6+ years have most likely seen many burly boys engage with the Pinchtite.  (Zoe’s best ever shape, in my opinion.)  However, it is rare that we’ve seen women squeeze their way through a Pinchtite in a roof, and something we wanted to make happen.

Angie Payne - WF1 - Beginning her perilous wrestling match with the Pinchtite.

Though the early Pinchtite encounter had bouted Angie, Sasha Digiulian, and Kasia Pietras, and Tiffany Hensley and Alex Johnson fell up high -  Francesca Metcalf and Alex Puccio had no trouble at all on Women’s F1.  Here’s a little shot of Alex after pressing out the Hulk, working through a couple Crickets and finishing up on the Teknik Logo Pinch.

Alex - No trouble on WF1

New Teknik - Hard Math

Women’s Final 2 featured the New Teknik Hard Math set – very technical sloper edges, on vert.  This problem turned out to be very important, because though Sasha Digiulian had struggled on F1, she bounced all the way back to be tied for first with Puccio, after this boulder.  Sasha lightly cruised her way up the boulder, while all of the other women completed a hard mantle but were then stumped, trying to work through the hardest of the Hard Math.  And since Alex Puccio could not complete it, it also left open the possibility that on F3, any of the other girls might be able to step back in and have a chance.

Sasha in the preview, miming the correct grip position that probably helped her get the only send of WF2

The women then battled through a long and powerful F3.  Francesca Metcalf and Angie Payne came achingly close to sticking a hard move past the bonus, but did not have enough power left.  Alex Johnson, who seemed out of the running, blew through the power squeezing dynamic section, only to come off one hold from the top on a desperate sloper move.  And in the end, no-one could beat Puccio, who, true to form, literally pounced through the hard zone pinch section, and burled her way to the finish jug..

Alex Johnson holds the swing on WF3

Alex Puccio - 2011 ABS National Champion

The Men’s Finals were just as exciting, but only after the first boulder, which, though fun to watch, had a finish that was just too far out of reach for the competitors.  No-one did Mens’ F1, and so when they all moved on to the second boulder, a volume-centric arete climb, it was wide open.

Volumes Volumes Volumes

Men’s Final 2 was all volumes, with the exception of one VERY key hold – a new Teknik Big Sneaker – it may have been the only one of these guys revealed in the entire competition.

New Teknik - Big Sneakers 1

Though not without a great deal of effort and a few tumbles from the finish volume, five men preceded Sean in topping the second Final.

Nick Sherman - Step 1 of Triple Jump

Sean walked up as the last climber to attempt it, and knew that it had been sent multiple times.   He fell a couple times down low, finally figured out the tricky triple-jump, and then went for the finish with just an ounce too much dynamic movement.  He held both hands on the ledge of the last volume, his feet swung out first, testing his core to the limit and lifting and knocking him back off to a hard fall on the mats.

Men’s Final 3 was all that was left.  The real dark horse and crowd favorite of the competition was young Alex Johnson, a midwestern kid who now lives in Colorado and gave a strong effort.

On his first attempt at MF3, Alex cruised through the low section of long moves between Fat Pinches and Runts.  I don’t know how tell he is but when combined with his overall reach and great strength, he’s going to be a challenge to set for in the future.

Alex Johnson being long on MF3

From the big moves down low, Alex went up through two Fat Slopers, and powered out right to a Fat Pinch.  In a brave move, he then tried to skip straight to the finish with a huge dyno.  He was close to making the grab… too close for a routesetters’ comfort.

Most of the other men made good progress through the last final, getting up through the middle, to at least one of the two Fat Slopers, but then struggling through a pinch power section just before the finish.  California kid Kyle Owen may have came closest, performing well in his impressive style, but Ian Dory and Matty Hong also did well.  Sean stepped up last, knowing he had to flash to win, and promptly destroyed the boulder with a great display of confidence.

As a routesetter, you never know what will happen, but sometimes your instinct and the climber’s actions align, and in this case I felt like I just knew that Sean would flash.  The crowd blew up and Sean held on to the finishing Fat Lip hold for a few moments to take it all in, then dropped to the mats below, taking the American title with him.

The ABS 12 National Championships: Stop #1 of the 2011 UBC Pro Tour. Boulder, CO. from NE2C on Vimeo.

For the past few years the French Climbing Federation FFME has been building the infrastructure for a French Cup in both lead and bouldering. This gives the opportunity for gyms and clubs with eligible walls to be able to easily set up national level competition.
This year there are 4 stops on the bouldering circuit and I was part of the team that set the first comp held in Limay, a small and unlikely industrial town about 60 km west of Paris. Teknik was a sponsor of the event, and a bunch of kids went home with some of the newest additions to the Teknik range, namely Big sneakers and Long Methods.

The deal
Matthieu Dutray, as chief setter & organiser devised a 3 round comp for the adults on the first day with 12 boulders in the qualifying round but only 5 tries max. for each, then semis was the classic 5-minutes-on/5-minutes off, and finals was 4 minutes extendable time (contestant can lift off at the last second and finish his/her attempt) with all contestants climbing bloc 1 before moving to bloc 2. In other words the World Cup finals format.
On sunday 6 youth categories (3 male – 3 female) would also get a 12 bloc / 5 try qualifying round followed by a world cup format finals.

Starting point

So that is what the setting team had to deliver. We had 5 days to set on the federations’ official boulders. Four very similar, slightly overhanging towers plus the club climbing wall that was anice throwback to all the wall styles of the 80s, with sculpted fiberglass, slick-painted concrete, and resin moulded rotating features. Yay! Matthieu (IFSC certified setter) then chose the team to help him bring this project to life. Knowing that he would be too busy to be a proper chief he chose Laurent Laporte, international setter extraordinaire (Chief in Vienna last year and Vail in 2009), Florian Escoffier and myself from l’Ouvre-Boîte, who were also sponsors for the event, and Pierre Délas, journalist at kairn.com was our trainee validating his national setter course.

Scary numbers
Adults
24 blocs for qualifiers + 8 blocs for semis + 8 blocs for finals =
40 boulder problems needed for the adults on saturday

Youth
24 blocs for 18/19 year olds qualifiers and then 8 finals problems = 32
24 blocs for 16/17 year olds qualifiers and then 8 finals problems= 32
24 blocs for 14/15 year olds qualifiers and then 8 finals problems= 32
= 96 blocs needed for sunday

Grand total of blocs to be set for the competition : 136
With two setters as experienced as Matthieu and Laurent, making our original plan was relatively easy. Laurent had a nice spreadsheet system he used for planning and layout, so we thoughtwe would do well to contract the 24 qualifier blocs for adult men and women down to 18 by overlapping the categories, so 6 blocs would be climbed by both men and women.
This gave us more space on the wall and we were glad to not have to make all the blocs go straight up to gain space. Because of online preregistration, we had an idea that we would have around 250 competitors for the whole weekend so the timetable calculations all worked comfortably and we set out…well…setting.

Volumes
Those of you who have read my other Travelling Route setter articles know how particular I am about volumes. I like volumes, I like setting with them and using them to surprise climbers and audience by completely redesigning a wall they thought they knew. But mostly I like surprising myself, sometimes when I am uninspired by a particular wall, some quirky volume arrangement can spawn one or several great problems.

The volume layout

In Limay we had a little more than 30 volumes at our disposal, and it’s a good thing since the four towers had near identical faces. The variations were so slight that they might as well all have been identical.
Quality in height, shape and variety of profiles only make it easier for the setters to create interesting and spectacular blocs. Yes I said it : height. Although I complained about the Nor’Easter wall (USA Climbing’s World Cup wall ) being too high, I have to admit that setting on the standard 4.10 meters walls back home felt very short indeed.

However,my reservation was not really height per say, but rather the fact that on a 6 meter wall it takes a lot of moves to get to the top, and if you want to set hard moves, well you cannot set many of them. I like three-moves-of-desperation blocs, I like boulder problems. I find that it is the main and most interesting caracteristic of bouldering is that it takes a stroke of genius to flash or few tries to figure out. I feel as though longer blocs generally require more physical ability, less problem solving.
But if my travels have taught me anything it is that, there is those long powerful blocs americain competitions are famous for are very valid competition proposals. Laurent and I both struggled to get some american style in our comp. The best we could do with given walls was a powerful campus section at the end of mens finals 4.

Laurent Laporte scoping the volume mega-mash-up

However, I digress. As a team we put up volumes in order to give each face a distinct
personality. A few smaller volumes were kept aside to be used for setting. We deliberately
left one face completely volumeless. Having set only volumes problems at the Nor’Easter,
my fellow Tekrep Chris Danielson mentioned wondering what kind of blocs I would set
if I had no volumes at all. I realised that out of preference I always defaulted to setting with
volumes, which is easy since they are kinda fashionable these days.
I didn’t like the idea that I was becoming a volume nazi, so in the past months, I have been
making it a point to set styles I don’t usually set. At this comp my pet project was a really
fingery problem with offset feet and deadpoints to awkward little pockets for
women’s adult semi finals and then recycled with a few tweaks for youth qualifiers the
next day.

Setting
Once our volumes were up, we started hashing out blocs, starting with adult’s finals
and semis. Although the layout for each round was specifically defined, I was glad to
hear Laurent suggest that we just go ahead and set whatever inspired us and then we
could choose which ones would work best as finals blocs and which ones as semis.
I like that there be a structured work plan, but I also like that there be room for the
creative process to trump the plan if it has a better options, better moves, better ideas.
We followed the next day with the 12 of the 18 blocs intended for qualifiers.
My feeling about our work in the first two days : unimpressed. Yes it was
professional, yes the rounds would work, but with the exception of one good
bloc for each of us, that’s 4 out of 20, the overall feel of the climbing lacked a spark.
Also work felt slow, we could only set on the towers as the club retro wall was still
being used by schools. A lot of time was spent (I almost used the verb wasted,
but it really wasn’t) detailing the location of blocs, the grouping of youth categories,
and the grades within each circuit (compounded by the grouping, and the order in
which the categories where to climb, compounded by which blocs where recyclable).
It took forever.

Laurent and Florian Escoffier Chillin in the hotel

The frustration was palpable, but the work dynamic between Florian, Laurent and
myself shifted into comfortable after spending two late nights in our charmingly
seedy hotel rooms conversing about climbing, climbers, route setting, making holds
and sharing stories that start with : “It reminds me of this one time…”

So on the third day, Laurent took it upon himself to get things squared. He set a tight schedule, listed what had to be done and bang, we got going. An hour later we were pulling on our climbing shoes to try 12 new blocs for youth finals. And the blocs where…really good. More inspired, more diverse and well adapted to the categories they were for. We had more fun climbing and tweaking them than all the previous rounds. And when they were climbed we all agreed that the youth finals rounds were just better than the adults, both finals and semis.

More scary numbers
The fourth day was a day off, because the comp was being held in a municipal gymnasium, and we had to allow the regular sport activities to continue. The fifth day started with some interesting news, the most recent list of participants gave a final tally of 410 participants with the largest category being adult men with close to 160 dudes registered. This created a new problem : time. One of our major concerns was to mange time as best we could so that people would have enough time to do all the blocs without wasting precious minutes waiting in line in front of blocs, a common problem in contests.
Our original idea was to divide all the adults into 3 groups : all the women in one, and then the men divided in two, each given an hour and a half to do their 12 blocs. Which worked with the first estimated numbers, now, we were not so sure especially since, as all organisers know, a lot of people don’t preregister, they just show-up,
so usually you can expect 10 to 15% people more.
Trouble brewing.

Florian, Matthieu and Laurent Brainstorming...again.

By the way, competitors, preregistration? A big help for the route setters. We consult that list religiously (even if we say we don’t) to have an idea of who is coming, not just for the grades, but to know who we are setting for helps adjust the qualifying round so that those climbers who just drove from the other side of the country and
shelled out registration fees can have a good time too.
To solve the time problem many options where discussed. Seriously. Many. In the end what was decided was that the predominant issue was that the blocs where overlapped, more than the time being too short. It was back to the cuing problem. So the winning solution was to set 12 distinct blocs for the men and 12 blocs for the women but on 6 distinct lines, meaning 2 blocs in each location. And then we just made it a 5 hour free for all and hoped for the best.
So 6 extra blocs to add into our adult circuits (plus a complete reorganising, including many swaps and adjusts), and youth qualifiers still needed 54 blocs to be put up, climbed, tweaked, marked and stripped.
Inhale and….exhale.

Spreadsheet powered routesetting

Route setting in the 2000s
So as I mentioned at the beginning, Laurent Laporte had introduced us to his great spreadsheet tool to keep track of the work of all the setting. He had shown us the example for last years World Cup in Vienna, complete with pictures of the walls, names and mugshots of the setters, and all the relevant details for each boulder : grade, style, number of moves, location and colour of hold AND a little badge icon on each one to indicate progress status. How could we refuse? It looked so cool… Well… after all the changes I described above I can tell you we where well fed up with the bloody spreadsheet.
Copying and pasting, and moving and selecting cells (oh by the way, those cool little badges are independent objects so you had to move those one by one…).

Worst case scenario a World Cup competition can have 36 boulder problems. All separate.
We had 136, then 96, then 106, with blocs jumping ship from this category to that, and back again but in a different round, or gender, or both… By the time we realised that it was impractical it was too late to change. It was not user-friendly, but the underlying idea was still a good one, so Laurent and I have decided that we need to perfect the interface in order to make it into a flexible tool, that can serve not only as a planning and organising tool for the setters, but that extends as a presentation and communication tool with the judges and organisers. Hopefully we can get it to integrate with the smart phone scoring systems that certain tech savvy judges have being doodling with in certain countries. I thought my design and programming skills would become obsolete
now that I was a full time route setter; turns out I have a new and interesting challenge.
Stay posted for more on the route setting wonder program, now in the works…

The last setting days where long. The night before the comp we finished at 4:00 am because in spite of the colour coding, and badges we still had to manually type the boulder number cards, which by regulation, had to indicate weather the bloc was easy, moderate or hard. It took a lot more time than it should have for information that was already in a computer to come back out again. Again a job for the wonder tool.

A few people came to help with the testing, but with out minds too focused on trying to keep track of all the information (what blocs go where, which ones will be climbed simultaneously etc) we started loosing track of the difficulty. Without realising it I started putting too much stock in what male climbers were telling me about the women’s blocs. The classics : “girls can’t throw, let alone to a sloper…”. Nonsense. And although I campaign strongly against this type of thinking, in a momentary loss on confidence amid the confusion I tweaked, compromised, and diluted a few blocs. Testers are only as good as the setters who use them.

Why we toil : people making our blocs look good

Bad Mojo Judge
Competition day 1 was tense from the get go. The chief judge had showed up the night before, and declared that our time management was no good and had to be redone. That didn’t go down too well with us, fortunately we were informed of this by Matthieu, who spent the rest of the comp doing diplomatic gymnastics to get us the information we needed so that we didn’t ever have to be in contact with him directly.
As if that wasn’t enough, he decided to extend qualification time, delayed isolation leaving the competition hanging on dead time between rounds, and us twiddling our impact drivers waiting for the isolation to close.
We (climbers and setters) waited until we only had 30 minutes to put up finals to get started.
It was maddening because, we had planned otherwise in order to avoid dead time that was completely unnecessary and have sufficient time to have a calm overlook of the blocs and decide weather anything else needed an extra tweak up or down.

The first changeover went smoothly and the climbers started on semis. Both mens and women’s circuits went well, tops with a good balance of tops and flashes. Second changeover was a bit more rushed because the days’ delays had added up but the time at which finals where to begin was not movable because of spectators and VIPs.
So of course that’s when errors in our setting work began to show : the dreaded last-minute-change. In the women’s finals circuit three blocs where too easy from the get-go. The third bloc we might have saved a little more than we did had we not, at the last minute, thrown on an extra foothold AND added an extra hand, AND an
intermediate for the last move. Only one change was actually needed. Semis had gone fine (if anything a little on the soft side, still we didn’t catch a hint!) so there was no need to freak out, especially since there where three climbers who where regular world cup finalists plus the youth bouldering champ. Easy to say now. Time was ticking, we where running on 3 hours of sleep plus a full day of watching climbers attentively, changing boulders on the fly on top of 5 (very) full days of setting and climbing… So experience counts, but put enough rush and pressure on anyone and mistakes will be made.

Stéphane Julien on my arete for mens final 2

Fortunately the mens finals round was awesome. The blocs where varied and interesting and made for a great show with François Kaiser dominating the round in front of a strong Guillaume Glairon-Mondet and Fontainbleau dark horse Pascal Gagneux, but he had to work for it.
So after a quick round of podiums, the lights went back on, and we stripped 8 finals blocs changed two volumes and started putting up youth qualifiers. With tape, set screws, and numbers we were done at 2:00 am.

Last round, last minute
The first half of the last day was fun. The climbers seemed to have a good time and the whole vibe filled the gymnasium as did the sunshine. We quickly realised that many small mistakes had been made the night before that fortunately didn’t change the face of the competition. One of the harder blocs I set for junior men was missing black tape to deny the arête, it was still a good problem but as a result it was toned down to a moderate.
Another good one was Laurent, the night before, decided to pre-place holds before screwing in the bolts. First climber on one of the girls blocs kindly handed down the zone hold to the judge before stepping off the boulder. I also removed two of the four holds on one of the harder blocs. Initially, it had been intended as an adult semis problem and I had forgotten that we had switched it in to the youth blocs, so I stripped them thinking that we had forgotten to take down holds from the night before. We kept score between us for awhile of who made the most blunders as a way to relax the atmosphere. I don’t know what the final tally was but I reckon I was pretty
high on the list. Also the overall score for the team was too high for four professional setters.

See the kid matching the fatty fat pinch in the background?

Although, in the moment, laughing about it was a good reaction to deal with the stress, now that it is over I am trying to analyse how it was that so many things went wrong. For sure there was a lot of variables to handle with so many blocs and adjustments to the organisation.
If we had taken a few strategic decisions sooner our work would have been a little more structured.
For example the order in which we set individual rounds could have been smarter. It should have been adult finals and semis, then youth finals, youth qualifiers and lastly adult qualifiers as they were to be used first. Instead we set all the adult blocs and then all the youth, loosing time going back and forth between rounds. Interestingly enough, although it was impossible to foresee, had we done this, the face that the number of expected competitors increased so drastically could have been managed a lot more gracefully.
But obviously the biggest mistake of all was planning. For such a big venture a precise plan should have been made before we arrived, a lot of time would have been saved, that could have been spent setting and climbing rather than brainstorming around a computer. This is what Jacky Godoffe and I had done for youth nationals the year before and it had been a much smoother session with only three setters. This only underlined for me the fact that as professionals, to have a tool, piece of software to properly structure our work seemed useful.

Girls, girls, girls.
Another suggestion that Laurent made after we observed our fiasco for women’s finals was that someone in the team needs to be in charge of overseeing the girls blocs. It’s true in that correctly adjusting the difficulty of girls blocs is a difficult task in general, but as setters we cannot continually hide behind the excuse that as guys it’s not easy to pinpoint what is difficult for girls. There are numerous other sports where female teams are coached and competitions organised for women by men and that don’t suffer the same problems. It’s just a problem that needs to be addressed. I have yet to see a competition where as much time is spent on the girls climbs as the boys.
Sure the boys blocs are harder and require a certain amount of adjusting, but the girls blocs have the added difficulty of being set by men who need to take that extra time to tweak difficulty, distances between holds, and overall style of circuits. I will definitely be including these parameters with even more insistence than before in the training courses I give for competition route setting all over the world.

The last half of the day was just painful. The chief judge refused to release any results until he had double and triple checked everything which created two problems. One of course was an almost 2 hour delay and the other was, without even partial results, it was difficult for us to overview performance in the qualifying round for six separate categories and anticipate changes in difficulty on certain blocs.
Having nothing to do once the qualifiers where stripped we overheard disgruntled parents in the crowd rightfully starting to complain about the delay. We called an emergency route setters meeting and decided that we had to do everything we could to speed things up. From our own observations we decided to change the grouping for the youth categories for finals, and send them in back to back after a group observation for all the categories.
We also decided to start putting up the finals blocs even before iso closed. Since we were putting up 12 blocs know one would really know who got what, and the benefit of gaining time by far outweighed a few competitors guessing which blocs they were getting. It was not pleasant knowing that we were forcing the chief judges hand since we did not ask him his opinion. But his position was so uncooperative and so procedural that we all agreed that if we left him options he would not take decisions that where for the best.
The kids wanted to climb, the parents wanted to get home early, some had trains and planes to catch.
I feel strongly that respecting a timetable and finishing at a decent time contributes greatly to how a comp is remembered. If it has great setting but finishes four or five hours late, the effect is moot.
Although it is more true of rope climbing competitions, time delays and hanging around in iso is one of the factors that drive both climbers and spectators away from climbing comps, so it is our in best interest to pay serious attention to how we manage time and pace our events.
Thank goodness we got our route setting wits together at the last moment; our decisiveness paid off.
Youth finals was a really nice fireworks to finish on. As I mentioned earlier the blocs were really fun, both to climb and watch. And because all categories were climbing back to back, there were often moments where four climbers where on the wall battling with our problems, the show was stimulating and the thin crowd of parents responded well even after the long wait.

In the end…
Overall, from the competitors point of view, I think it was a good event. On a personal point of view I was a little disappointed with my contribution. I was not in good enough shape to climb the harder problems comfortably, even though it was sufficient for me to do my work. But since I had very recently become a father, it was not a surprise. And although my overall setting ideas where good, for some reason I had trouble with the follow through to finalise and fine tune my blocs in to good competition material.
It was however a great experience. Working with Laurent Laporte was very refreshing. Although he can easily be considered (by his age and years of experience) a setter from the previous generation, his vision and open mindedness challenged a few of my ideas and conceptions. If I have now decided to develop some kind of software tool to help manage route setting a competition, a modern solution, it is definitely his original idea.
Keep your eyes peeled on the Teknik blog for an interview with him about route setting and hold shaping since he is behind many of the classic EP holds of the past 20 years as well as other brands, and most recently his new PU only brand Cheeta.

July 2003- We purchased a huge, brand new block of foam, and were in the mood to be shaping big. Nels Rosaasen came in from Saskatoon and sliced out the NKR1, I cut out the Pinchtite, and Seth chopped out a huge meaty mound. The foam models came to the point where they needed to be drilled out before a final touch-up, so we took them over to our friend in the engineering department at the U of A. Our little $80 Canadian Tire drill press did not have anywhere near the clearance to punch the bolt holes into any of these shapes; we needed industrial size drillers to handle these. After a fun and safe day of heavy machinery (safe mainly because we weren’t even allowed to touch it… but we still got to wear the goggles!), the holes were drilled and the foam models were pretty much complete.


The NKR1 and Pinchtite molded up shortly thereafter, but Seth felt like his shape just wasn’t quite there yet. He stuck it in a box to percolate, and there it sat… for 7-1/2 years.

January 2011- Seth feels like carving up a big new feature (and we sign a contract requiring a ‘feature’ hold) and hey-presto! The hold-in-the-box!! He made the shape way harder, reworked the contouring to be subtler and made the shape a lot, lot harder. It was now the Hulk; perfect, hard and worth the wait.

We boxed it up and shipped it off to Colorado to get molded and cast for a glamorous debut at the ABS Nationals. With only a month before the event, timing was tight but we were still in there. Then I got the text.


I felt sick. Seth barfed, then fainted (like a Lily). Nationals missed. Hold ruined. Drat. Seth and I studied the photo a little closer and thought, “Hey, the damage is mostly to the chubbiest parts and the footprint is almost fully intact. This is fixable.” We got the hold sent back to us.
The hold arrived back to Edmonton during a lucky January warm spell- our carving hutch is unheated and quite “seasonal”. Seth took advantage of the slightly above freezing temperatures and got to work immediately.



The repairs to the Hulk worked out fast (around 15 hours over 2 days). We realized that maybe there was a chance this hold could push through and possibly make the comp… I checked in with our manufacturer to see if they could pull a hero move and get it done in time. They could! IF we had it shipped by the next day. The pressure was on! There was still some finishing to do, so the next day Seth pulled off the remaining smooth outs (5 hours).

We got it securely boxed up and UPS proofed (… or so we thought) and out the door within 15 minutes to cutoff time. Whew, close, but done. Then a couple days later, I got another text.

The hold had remained well secured to the board and had withstood any kind of smashing around that had knocked it off the board the first time (fragile stickers don’t mean squat). But we didn’t take into account dipstick customs officials who opened the box at the border. Literally dipping sticks of some sort into the foam hold. It appeared as though a pen had poked at the Hulk all around the shape and scratched a few places to see what it was made of. Hold ruined again… But no! This time, far more easily repaired. There wasn’t the time to send it back to us again; so we asked our mold maker, along with Chris Danielson, to patch up the holes and tiny scratches. They both have plenty of experience with this, so we knew Hulky was in good hands. They worked their magic, the hold got molded, and we have a double happy ending with 2 Hulks poured and ready for some big comp action at the ABS Nationals this weekend. Enjoy the new shape, we really worked for this one!!

The third and final comp of the Dark Horse series brought in a load of hot climbers to compete just a week before ABS Nationals. It sounds like it was a sick comp. Check out Carlo Traversi’s blog for a fun story- it seems that men’s finals involved a number of our No Shadows, which can only mean one thing- it was hard. We were proud sponsors of this comp series, and look forward to being involved again next year!

Next up and next weekend- USA Climbing’s ABS Nationals. This is lining up to be an unbelievable comp. A brand new wall has been constructed in a warehouse for the event, and from the photos I’ve seen, it looks ri-donkey-lous. Check out this link to Jamie Emereson’s blog for a preview of the walls, and our holds all lined up and ready for ACTION. We’re extremely proud to be sponsors and are beyond psyched that half the holds used at this comp will be Teknik- and lots of them BRAND NEW SHAPES!!! Look for a debut of the Hulk, Mathematics (new ones!), Hard Math, Hooded Fangs, Minimeats, Meatlets, and an appearance of other recent new shapes like the Hoods, Low Fat Slopers, Half Fat Slopers, Big Sneakers, and Long Methods. Considering these holds, I foresee some pret-ty tough problems… yowzaa!

Teknik is a proud supplier to USA Climbing with it’s American Bouldering Series 12 and Sport Climbing Series 2011!

We are providing holds to Regional, Divisional, and National level comps for both series: look for close to 50% of all holds used at the National level events to be TEKNIK!! We are also providing holds to USA Climbing to be used in other Premier US events such as Bouldering and Difficulty World Cups.

This weekend at ABS Regionals, in 13 States, look for our banners, holds, and if you’re in Fort Collins CO, Tek rep Chris Danielson who is currently tweeking grips out like crazy as part of the setting team there.

Here’s to a great competition season! Good luck to all the setters, competitors, and hosting gyms!!

xoxo Teknik

We’re sponsoring a big and exciting event this weekend, La Coupe De France De Bloc!
Tondé, our rep over in France, is currently in the thick of it setting for this competition, and will be reporting on his adventures in wrench spinning and hold tjuzing here on Tekkies after the event. I, for one, can’t wait to hear all about it!

I started on the road at the Nor’easter event in Lincoln, New Hampshire about a month ago, and have been steadily bouncing across the northern latitudes for the past month with many stops along the way.

I was asked in September to help set for the Unified Bouldering Championships finale event at the Nor’easter and after already planning to head out to the event with my good friend Kynan Waggoner of USA Climbing to construct the comp wall for the event, I was excited to join a great team of routesetters to put up boulders for the comp itself.  The USAC comp wall has been used for 6 events in total since, 2008, and Kynan and I have managed the construction of the wall four times in the past eight months.  It’s been a great experience being involved on the front end as competitions come together and to play an integral role in the overall wall design at each event.  We are able to take full advantage of the modularity of the wall by changing up the terrain with relative ease.  Each time it seems to get easier and faster and it’s exciting to be a part of a team of people driving the success and hopefully continued growth of competition climbing in North America.

The Nor’easter competition went pretty smooth and Teknik must be thanked in part for the success…  I brought a ton of grips to the competition, including these little buggers (pic of screw-ons), which were used all over the place.  Small jib feet, thumb catches on holds, and subtle crimp grabs – the screw-on set was put to good use.

Daniel was expected to win the comp, and truth be told, all of the setting crew expected he would, after watching him dispatch each qualifier with incredible power and control.  But, last to climb for the men in finals, he was unable to work out the first boulder, a bit of a subtle climb on volumes set by Teknik friend Tonde Katiyo from France.

The comp finished with Ethan Pringle atop the podium just ahead of the silently strong local hero of the region, Brian Kim.  I have always enjoyed watching Brian climb, with great finesse and ease, and Ethan always has a great attitude and energy, so it was nice to see these guys in top form again.  Though I am sure Daniel will come back to the next big comp with a vengeance, it was a pleasure to see a very strong field (also including Terry Paholek of Tek-land Edmonton, Alberta, Vasya Vorotnikov, and Ian Dory) really competitive until the very end.

On the women’s side, my friends Angie Payne and Alex Johnson were expected to battle for the top spot, with the other regular contender and third “A-team” girl, Alex Puccio, on the road climbing in Europe.  Though the rest of the women’s field (including Melissa Lacasse, Sasha DiGiulian, Francesca Metcalf and Natasha Barnes) was very strong, it seemed clear in qualifiers that Alex and Angie were each just a slight notch above.  However, the qualifier round ended with an interesting twist.  Though Angie and Alex may have “looked” the strongest, each fell a couple spots back because they could not complete the last qualifier problem, which other women were able to figure out.  In finals, we ended up with everything pretty much riding on the very last of 3 boulders, a long core tension boulder I had set out the steepest wall.  Alex crushed it with indomitable ease, becoming the undisputed winner, and Angie and Francesca fell in about the same place, leaving Francesca edging out Angie in second place on the podium because of a similarly close result in qualifiers.

Unified Bouldering Championships finals at Nor’Easter 2010 from Rock & Ice on Vimeo.

Routesetting for some of the strongest in the world is always a challenge and a pleasure, and it’s even more fun because after many years experience within the competition realm, I have become friends with nearly all of the climbers and enjoy watching their evolution as athletes.  I hope for many more years of testing the abilities of these phenomenal climbers, building exciting movement in the competition world, and I get equally excited to see what the new generation will bring to the wall as they progress.

From New Hampshire I headed home for a few days before hopping back on a plane to the home of Teknik!  Yes!

Seth had set things up for me to do a private routesetting clinic at the University of Alberta Climbing Wall which he runs, with his crew there and another group from the Calgary Climbing Centers.  It had been over two years since I’d been up to Edmonton to set the 2008 Tour De Bloc Nationals, and walking in the “Butterdome” as the locals call it, brought back  memories of my last trip, when Sean McColl put on a great show winning the comp in true style, confidently securing the win by flashing my Men’s #5 Fat Pinch-themed finals boulder.

Back in the Butterdome, I was reminded that the wall is old and relatively small, but I was not deterred!  Though I didn’t have the pleasure of setting with hundreds of new grips that I often am spoiled with at big competitions or new gyms – this was still one of the most successful clinics I think I have done.  The group of 18 routesetters was a great mix of incredibly experienced folks like Seth, other perennial Canadian competitors (like Terry Paholek, Dan Archambault, and Simon Villeneuve whom I have set for in the past), and then a range of other experienced and beginner setters from Calgary and Edmonton.  It was an absolute pleasure staying in Edmonton for a few days, getting to talk shop with friends and really engage in the intellectual challenge that is “Building Movement.”

Every routesetting clinic I do is a bit different.  Though I have developed certain exercises and basic methods for instruction and working with a group, each combination of personalities and experiences is unique, as is each climbing wall.  Each time I feel like I learn something more about routesetting myself, and that is certainly a great pleasure of the experience.  At the U of A wall, we spent two solid days building boulders and working on various fundamentals of commercial and competition routesetting.  Seth and I even got the chance to build a little “barndoor” move problem together, which was good fun.  And of course the week was interspersed with some great Teknik family time – a couple nice meals at with Seth and Zoe’s with wee ones, Zev, Tiga, and bunny princess Ninjin.

…Always on the hustle… from Edmonton, it was quickly off to Banff, where I had been invited by Chris Neve to be a presenter for the third annual Banff Coaches Conference.  The first thing to note about Banff is – this place is absolutely beautiful!  Right on my drive in I was struck by the picturesque town center, surrounded by a gorgeous mountain setting.

After a few minute drive up the foothills, I was checking in at the Banff Centre, an expansive arts and conference center complete with theatres, arts facilities, dormitories, fitness center and of course, climbing wall.  I felt a bit like I was back in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, greeted by a deer at the entrance to my dorm building.  He was a bit shy though compared to the Elk in Estes Park, trying to hide coyly behind a bush…

Outside of the Climbing Wall Summit held each year in Boulder, the Banff Coaches Conference event is the only organized conference in North America that I am aware of that puts such great emphasis on professional development in the indoor climbing/competition world.  I did not know what to expect when confirming my participation and figured at the very least I would just enjoy doing my routesetting presentation, get a chance to meet some new Canadian friends, and then jump back on a plane.  After the end of three packed days of presentations and discussions around coaching and competitive climbing, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the quality and depth of content.  Though I coached youth climbers in college, and still find myself informally working with athletes around Boulder through the years, I do not consider myself a coach by trade.  In spite of that fact, I walked away invigorated, with a much greater appreciation of both the opportunities and challenges we all have to help foster the growth and experiences of young climbers.

The conference included presentations from various non-climber professionals who have a career’s worth of experience, with topics like “Foundation Starts Young,” “Mental Training,” and “Red Flags for Injuries.”  Since indoor and competitive climbing is still in its infancy (especially in North America), it was valuable to hear from those experienced in sport and training outside of climbing and to have our eyes opened to the wealth of knowledge that is out there about young athletes, top-level sport performance, and the development of sport in general.  A common theme that was echoed throughout the weekend was that we as a climbing community, relatively insular and coming from a non-conformist blend, seem to often think that climbing is so vastly different and unique as a sport/lifestyle, that using references outside of climbing to see how to do things or where to push the direction of any number of aspects of our sport, is not that useful.  This could not be further from the truth.  Though climbing IS amazingly unique, when it comes to various considerations such as how to foster youth in sports, how to train as athletes, how to develop and grow participation, or how to navigate sponsorship or competition – we are so far behind what was been developed, in many cases over decades and in some cases centuries, that we are simply being ignorant or naïve if we do not use these reference points for some direction in how to pursue our own future.

These types of conversations were lively during the conference, which was also filled with great presentations from climbers/coaches on areas such as “Goal-Setting with Young Athletes,” “The Female Athlete Perspective,” “Successful Competition Planning,” and “Season Long Training Plans.”  My own presentation, which I did with accomplished Canadian routesetter Jody Miall at a great small bouldering gym called The Vsion, was entitled “Routesetting for Youth Competitors.”

Sponsored by Teknik, this was a short workshop for a large group of people, so we had the challenge of how to put a lot of content into a small time frame and a tight space.  We had nearly 30 climbers crimping and pulling on the wall in no time, trying to climb as “small humans.”  It’s a difficult and amusing thing to do at 9am in the morning on a Sunday when you haven’t climbed in a few days, but essential to understanding how to approach routesetting for youth specifically.

I left Banff early in the morning to get back to Calgary and catch a flight further west to Seattle, but before hitting the airport I made a quick stop to my friend Walson Tai’s gym Calgary Climbing Centre.  I have worked with Walson for a few years as a representative for his excellent bouldering brand Flashed and was psyched to make a quick stop in his gym where they had recently completed a brand new feature boulder.  I wish I’d had time to climb on it!

One day rest in Seattle and I headed up to Vancouver to visit my friend Ryan Olson and try a bit of bouldering at the Edge Climbing Centre… It was great to share a few hours with a friend, reflecting on climbing culture in the US and Canada.  I hopped back in the car the next morning, stopped at a few more climbing walls between Vancouver and Seattle before getting to the final leg of my trip – my home for the next couple days – Stone Gardens gym.

The crew at this gym puts on one of the best local gym competitions in the country, the Seattle Bouldering Challenge, and had brought me in to do a clinic a month in advance of the competition, to work with some new setters and re-invigorate their setting team.  Bruce Andresen and Shawn Larson, the GM and Head Setter at Stone Gardens, were great hosts for my two-day boulder setting clinic, and it was a pleasure to work with another fun group of climbers on the superb terrain at Stone Gardens.  I rarely get the chance at routesetting clinics to do too much actual setting myself because most of my time is spent instructing and working with others on their projects… but this time I was lucky enough to squeak out a few new boulders for the climbers at Stone Gardens, and enjoyed watching their youth team plow through our creations at the end of the first day.  My time in Seattle was an excellent wrap up to a long month of travel.

Thanks to everyone who hosted me on this trip.  It was great to see so many friends across the US and Canada, meet new ones, and to engage professionally with dozens of smart, friendly, and interesting people in our climbing culture.

For anyone interested in coaching and developing youth climbers, be sure to attend the 2011 Banff Coaches Conference.  If you’re psyched on competing in the Pacific Northwest, head to the Seattle Bouldering Challenge on November 20^th at Stone Gardens.  If you are interested in Routesetting Clinics, .check the www.usacsetting.net site soon for an announcement about our next Level 2 Clinic in Boston, in early December.  And of course, look out for more great pro comps in the US this coming year.

Thanks to Alex Faid, Nobu Muranaka, and Stone Gardens for the images.