tekkies

11 years old!

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday to u-usss, happy birthday to us! 11 years and counting.
Here’s a photo of Seth and I just moments before we de-molded the very first hold we ever made (check out the snazzy ’safety gear’!). This was 1997 I think.

We had 3 trial hold companies, (Shifty, Metric, and Hero) before officially launching Teknik in 1999; they were great learning experiences… BTW, I wonder if Allez Up in Montreal still has any of our old Shifty ‘Disco’ holds, they were awesome- black with silver glitter embedded into the holds!… Anyways, in early ‘99 we showed Tyrone Brett, the hold buyer at MEC (at the time), our Hero shapes and pitched ideas for new shapes we had in mind for a new company we were thinking about… After a positive response, we spent our summer getting the first few sets for our new company Teknik up and into production, in preparation for our first autumn sale to our new favorite retailer. These sets were the Geeks, Bullies, Tron Discs, Crickets, Grasshoppers, and Fat Pinches. These sets have all been re-done over the years but the good concepts have held fast. We took these shapes (under-cover guerilla style) to the OR show in SLC August of ‘99 and got our first sale to a US gym, the Boulder Rock Club via Mike Moelter (who now owns the awesome mega-gym Movement also in Boulder). He blew us away when he casually ordered one of everything from us; we couldn’t believe it, lol! After returning home from SLC, we opened a business bank account, got a phone line and toll free number, got our GST number, filed the documents with the Canadian government (with the help of Seth’s brother Aaron) to make Teknik Handholds a real ‘Inc.’… and on August 25th 1999 we were officially in business!

Premium Urethane Only

Our new ad in Gripped Magazine

A Zoë appearance in Deadpoint Magazine- Coolness #5

Zoë takes page 18 in the Women’s Issue of Deadpoint Magazine! Full interview as printed in the magazine is below…

Zoë

Zoë with Talon and No Shadow Hand, Standing on Pinchtites (which was a little tricky!)

Zoë Kozub: Mover and a Shaper, interview by Jackie Hueftle.

Canadian Zoë Kozub is one of the only female hold shapers in this half
of the world (or maybe the only one in the whole world!). She lives in
Edmonton, Alberta, with Seth Mason Johnston (her common-law husband),
and their wonderful kids, son Zev (3) and daughter Tiga (1). However,
unless you live in Edmonton, you’re more likely to know Zoë by her holds—
Teknik Handholds, that is. You know, the big clean shapes with the little
stars on ‘em? Those are Teknik. They’re some of the best holds in the
business, and Zoë is responsible for many of ‘em. We decided to track her
down and find out how she got into such an unusual line of work.

Ok Zoë, first things first. How old are you?
A lady never divulges such information….Ok, 35.
How long have you been climbing?
I started in 1989 when I was 14, so 21 years… and yes, I used to wear lycra
tights.
Ha-ha, well, I hope you saved ‘em cause Lycra is coming back! How’d
you start climbing?
I joined what was called the “outdoors” club at my high school, although
we never climbed or did anything outdoors. We just did indoor versions of
outdoor pursuits; it was more like an “indoors” club. Then I met Seth at the
climbing wall in 1990—for me climbing really took off from there.
And how long have you been shaping holds?
My first experience carving foam was at Straight Up [ed. old school
awesomeness!!] in Boulder many, many years ago. The first ones I made
that actually made it to production were for our (Seth and I’s) first “trial”
hold company in 1997 or so. We started Teknik in 1999, and Seth or I have
shaped every single hold in our line, except for the NKR1 (Nels Rosaasen’s
pro model).
You guys have made some really nice shapes. What made you see hold
shaping as a viable means of existence?
Years ago Seth and I spent some time with Elie Chevieux [ed. the first
person to onsight 5.14a, in 1995], and he told us about his hold company
in Switzerland, how he would shape, and make holds, and then sell them
to fund his travels. That sounded so cool. I’ve always been into doing my
own thing, being creative, making stuff… So this sounded like the dream
job. Little did I know, ha-ha! Plus, I loved holds. Edmonton is nowhere near
rock, so plastic is it for me, and it gets me excited. The holds we had access
to before we started shaping our own were very limited, so we were very
motivated to add to the pool.
You’re one of the only women in the business. Why do you think that
is?
I would guess that more women aren’t involved in the business because
there’s a LOT about it that is truly horrible. Sweating your butt off in a
Tyvek suit splattered with hold material and covered in dust, with fumes
piercing your eyes like little needles for starters. .. Then losing your
fingernails on the belt sander trying to sand the back of a tiny little sloping
screw-on that you only have yourself to blame for carving. . . Having
marks on your face at the end of the day from wearing your respirator
and breathing your own breath all day. . .Foam dust in your eyes is no fun
either. . .And only being able to afford rent on a shop that is shared with a
nutso, mulleted, fiberglass guy, who makes parts for muscle cars and guns,
or an abandoned warehouse that wafted a nauseating “potty tang” and
had industrial heaters that would blast you with hot air all day… And did I
mention the dust?
It sounds terrible! So why did you stick with it?
For some reason I have had the strength and unbelievable stubbornness to
put up with it. But I guess I just obviously love holds that much. There were
times I remember thinking to myself: “I’m just not cut out for this, I’m a
woman, I should be getting one of these pedicures or massages I hear my
friends speaking about!” But then I’d rally and pull through once again to
the grind. I am really, really glad that I’m not actually producing the holds
anymore; we’re getting a professional urethane production company to do
that part for us, they’re fantastic. I’m just shaping now out of my garage (I
can handle the occasional “mask face” from that and the occasional bit of
foam in the eye), and taking care of the desk job part of it out of my home
office with my kids running around my ankles.
Yeah, that does sound A LOT better. So, what are your favorite holds
you’ve shaped?
There are quite a few, but my fave faves would be the Pinchtite, Talons, De
Blocs, Mothh, Fatty Fat Pinches, No Shadow Hands and No Shadow Feet,
and Fat Rings.
Anyone who has tried shaping holds knows it is harder than it seems
like it’d be. What do you use for inspiration?
Ideas just pop into my head. Sometimes it’s an idea for a type of shape,
sometimes it’s an idea for a name. Or sometimes I just find a weird piece of
foam cut off from another chunk and cool random things happen, like the
De Blocs.
Yeah, those holds look pretty amazing. Has it gotten easier over the
years to come up with good shapes?
Definitely. I’ve had a lot of experience now, and I get things right faster. I’m
also a lot less emotionally attached to everything I try to carve, so it’s easier
to handle scrapping mediocre shapes and focusing only on the best.
That’s a lesson that helps in setting as well. Do you also route set?
Not recently, but yes I have done a ton of routesetting. It’s something I
would love to get back into when my kids are a bit older and less demanding
of my time. I really enjoy routesetting and I think it has been a HUGE part
of my success as a shaper. I think you need to really know how use holds to
create good shapes that will do what you want them to do.
Makes sense to me! Ok, last question. Got any advice for women who
want to start shaping?
Ya, don’t. Ha ha, ok, here’s some real advice; be very harsh on yourself.
There’s a lot of crap out there already, so I would suggest walking away
from whatever you carve for a while, and then come back to it with fresh
eyes… if you still like, it then let ‘er rip! Remember, it’s easy to get caught
up in making something and thinking it’s awesome, but really, it’s just
stupid.
Thanks Zoë!!!
No problemo!

Go here to read the full issue online, or look for a print copy at your local gym.

Boulder World Cup in Eindhoven- Coolness #4

Tondé made it up to the Netherlands to set the World Cup at the super rad looking Monk Gym in Eindhoven, and his L’Ouvre-Boite setting crew were on the scene too. From the L’Ouvre Boite site: “Thibaut, Florian, Carole et Laurent Z. will be in Eindhoven for a fat setting session @ Monk. Their mission will be to set three circuits, one beginner, one intermediate and one competition level circuits for a total of 70 problems.” Check their website news section for photos from their wrench spinning exploits.

Here’s Tondé chillin’ at the Teknik stand at the comp

Tondé will be weighing in on the Tekkies blog soon about this event with his ‘Notes From A Traveling Routesetter’, I’m looking forward to reading all about it!

BTW Canadian Sean McColl took second place at this World Cup! Go Canada!

Coolness #5 is approaching… check in tomorrow to find out what it is

Boulder World Cup in Vail! – Coolness #3

Here’s a nice quote about the comp from the udini.de site:
“Perfect bouldering conditions, an impressively high wall and very
interesting route setting – Vail felt like a Highlight of the 2010
Bouldering World Cup so far!”

Our man Chris Danielson was the chief US setter for this comp and worked
alongside Manu, the chief international setter (from Switzerland), and a
great domestic setting team. He spent a few days before the event at the
Teknik hold factory prepping some custom Fat Slopers, pouring them only 1/3
to 1/2 depth. They turned out fantastic and were well used at the comp.
Actually Teknik holds in general were unbelievably well used at the comp
throughout all the rounds, for the men and women. We couldn’t believe the
insane number of our holds on the walls. Watching the videos, I did some
hold-spotting and saw Super Villains, Bullies, Thugs, Scarabs, Longbows,
Tikes, Fat Lips (one pair was butted together to create a cool finishing
target practice), Svelt Pinches, Fat Slopers (all orange on women’s slabby
mega fest @ about 10:50 in the below vid), Chris’ short pour purple Fat
Slopers, Francos, Talons, De Blocs, Methods, double NKR1’s, Mothh, Fat
Pinches, Blade Runners, Fatty Fat Pinches, Meatiums, Pinchtites (two of
which were used as feet for a men’s finals start), No Shadow Feet, No Shadow
Hands, Dragonflys, Fatty Long Fat Pinches, Tekbots, and a Teknik Logo hold
as a nice bright blue finish hold on a men’s final. Wow! The setters, (not
just Chris, who is a given) must have been psyched on our goods!!

Here’s what Chris had to say after the event:

“The Qualifiers were good, Semis nearly perfect, but Finals were just a bit off..
a couple turns here and there and they could have been perfect, but in the end a couple moves for the men were a touch too hard, and perhaps the reverse on the women’s side.. We were really saved at the finale when Daniel stuck the first dyno of M4.. I just wish he’d done so sooner and he probably would have finished the boulder off – the crowd went wild regardless though, so that was awesome..” (13:43 on vid)

“We used the Tek everywhere : ) The Slab Women’s final which I set, used a bunch of Fat Slopers, and I had Jamie set a perfect Women’s Quali 5 on that same wall, using
a few of the purple short pours of Fat Slopers – those were really
awesome..”

“The Swiss setter, Manu – he chose a lot of Fat Lips and Francos, and would
put little baby screw-ons in them to make the grabs just a little bit better, more precise and subtle
pinches… which was kind of cool. A new fan of the shapes for sure…”

(You can see a tiny screw-on on the grip of the undercut of a pink Fat Lip @
14:13, left hand side of the screen, next to the problem Daniel is climbing,
rad!)

“My best problem was MSF 4, which Daniel flashed.. It finished on a Fat Lip
off of the two NKR1’s.. it was amazing awesome to watch Woods do it” (7:46
on the vid)

Here’s the vid:

2010 Bouldering World Cup from Nicholas Hayes on Vimeo.

And check out some nice photos of the comp by Ben Fullerton here.

Coolness #4 comin’ atcha tomorrow!

Pumpfest in Singapore! – Coolness #2

Yowzaa! Electric purple Fat Pinches, hot orange Sneakers and Fatty Long Fats, green Fat Slopers, the required Talons and No Shadow Feet, and our logo plastered on the walls… Pumpfest attracted about 500 climbers to tackle 70 problems set by 6 route-setters on a big row of boulders in a huge shopping mall. Insane. My wrist is throbbing just thinking about the amount of wrench-twirling that went in to that. The Singapore Climbers Association brought in our man Tondé Katiyo; he ran a very successful route-setting clinic before the comp, then stayed on as head setter for the big event. From his emails, it sounded like it was madness, but a ton of fun; “Singapore is going well so far but the number of competitors promises to be close to, or above 500… t’is insane and only two days to set, time will tell if i will survive .” He did.

Here’s a vid

Now go take a look at Dyno mag for photos and an article about the event (pg. 6).

Coolness #3 will be posted tomorrow, so check back in!

The big catch up on a lot of insanely cool stuff- Coolness #1

Well, ahem,  it’s been an embarrassingly long time since I’ve updated the blog, and there’s some truly rad stuff that has been going on in the last few months. I’ll be putting up one post each day for the next 5 days to get caught back up.

May:

We went down to Boulder, USA (our home away from home ) for the first time since I smashed my ankle on Finals prob #3 at the last ever PCA comp in May 2004… This trip was a little different! We went down to check out the CWA conference and hang with our man Chris Danielson, and with our 1 year old and 3 year old kids in tow, we managed to check out the outstanding Movement gym (we were impressed with the walls, the space, the light, the below-the-deck hold washing pit and hold sorting bins, not to mention personalized setting arsenals), we had a classic session at CATS (of course!), a jaunt up to Flagstaff, a dinner at Hapa Sushi (a must), and checked out the toy store on Pearl Street (finally we have an excuse to buy stuff there!).

Another highlight of the trip was a walk-through of the factory that manufactures our climbing holds- it was somewhat strange to see other people handling our molds and popping out our shapes… for 9 years no one did that but Seth and I, it was weird. But it was very cool to meet all the great  people who are caring for our “first born child” (Teknik!), *sniff*. It was pretty interesting to see their equipment and processes; some the same and some different than what we used to do. Also exciting to see were the first pours of our Teknik Logo hold and the fresh new mold for the NKR1- two über Tek classics finally  back in production!

Here are a few photos from our trip:

Hangin’ with Chris

Lil’ Zevy scrubbing a Blade Runner at CATS

Teknik Logo hold, hot off the line at the factory

Grips on the racks headed for the sanding station

Ready to ship!

The NKR1 back in action…

Coolness #2 coming tomorrow! See ya back bloggin’ here soon

The Insiders Video

What a whirlwind few months… I have been traveling all over the US doing competitions, routesetting clinics, and just finished up a busy week at home in Boulder, CO, giving the Keynote Speech at the Climbing Wall Association’s annual Summit. It was great!

The day the Summit started, Josh Lowell, mastermind behind Big Up Productions, had completed the video short, aptly named “The Insiders,” and posted it online.

I had worked with Josh and the folks at the gym, Central Rock, in Worcester, Massachusetts (Big Teknik fans – thanks Joe!), to coordinate some aspects of the shoot, and then headed out a couple days in advance to set routes for the handful of top climbers who came into town for it.

I made sure we got all supra orange Teknik grips that would “POP” on the wall really nicely, and I ended up setting the route featured at the end of the video, for my friend Paul Robinson, with all Teknik. It began with a friendly start on 2 Fat Rings, straight into a V9 boulder problem on a sweet line of Fat Slopers, up to a Pinchtite… from there, Tron Disks, Talons, Meatiums and Fat Pinches for a nice squeeze section up to long lock off over a lip, then to a bit of a spectacle sequence… most commonly called the “Bathang” – (though I’ve affectionately coined it the “BatSMASH.”) As you can see at about 9:30 in the video, Paul gets to a Super Villian jug, and has to hang toes to reach down to grab two Fat Rings, and then swing out of it… before then finishing with a hard boulder problem to the top, on Scarabs and Tikes… The whole route was probably 5.14a and Paul crushed it in good style…

National Sport-Climbing Champ Sasha Digiulian is also featured in the video, along with Vasya Vorotnikov and young Ashima Shiraishi, and all throughout they are climbing all over a range of boulders set with a mix of Teknik grips.

Now off to Vail to set for the World Cup!

-Chris

Notes of a travelling route setter : French Youth Bouldering Nationals 2010

On the 24th and 25th of April the French Youth Bouldering Nationals were held in Fontainebleau (not in the forest, sigh…). I was chief route setter for the event and it was the very first competition to use the new contest with limited tries format.

The competition was originally to be held in Vaujours, a city just north of Paris, unfortunately, for logistical reasons, that venue was cancelled 6 weeks before the event. Because many teams had already made bookings and reservation, an alternate venue had to be found in the same region. Fortunately Jacky Godoffe volunteered the National Team training facility, which, if not glamorous, at least gave us a more than adequate structure to accommodate competition.

The Format
Unlike the Nationals for route climbing which require three elimination rounds (departmental, regional, inter-regional) the bouldering Nationals for youth and adults in France are open. Traditionally, it had always been organised as a contest, meaning 25 to 35 blocs, each worth 1000 points divided by the number of climbers who send it . A hefty length of time was alloted to complete as many problems as possible in as many tries as you pleased. One of the major issues against this format, is that it often turned into a climbing marathon, forcing climbers who wanted to make it to the finals to climb all the problems to be qualified. The training required for these types of climbing efforts was closer to that for route climbing than the strength training associated with most bouldering.
On the other hand the five-minutes-on/five-minutes-off rotation used in the World Cup circuit is not the most user friendly and take a lot of time. Time, such a rare commodity in youth comps and yet participants spend more time waiting than they do climbing.
So the contest with limited tries was officially written into the rule book to be used in youth comps during the 2010 season and  the french bouldering Cup during the 2011 season.

And it works like this :
Contestants are to climb 12 problems in no more than 5 tries on each problem. Each boulder has a bonus hold. Score is calculated by counting the number of boulders topped, then the number of tries to get the tops, the number of bonus holds, and the number of tries to get the bonus holds. So as not to disadvantage the climber who try the problem first, each round starts with a 20 min observation period in which the route setters give the intended beta to do the problem. For 30 climbers or less a minimum of 1h30 is given to complete the 12 blocs. An additional 15 minutes is added for every 5 climbers after that.

Matthieu Dutray, National Bouldering Coach, giving the junior ladies the beta

How the new format affected the route setting
Since the main goal of the new format was to better serve bouldering and even more so serve better bouldering, that is what we tried to do. We had 60 boulders problems to set, broken down into four 12-boulder qualifying rounds and four 4-boulder final rounds. Since we were going to be giving the climbers the beta there was room for a little turn of the screw, and an increase of the overall intensity for all categories.
Our overall intention for the competition was that every boulder ‘feel’ like a boulder and ‘taste’ like a boulder, we wanted to have no mini-routes or left-right jug ladders (or ladders of any kind for that matter).

Jacky setting with the snow white Tekniks sent especially for the comp

We set all the finals in two comfortable days, tweaking and adjusting the blocs that would have to be done on-sight by the 8 finalists of each category. Then took everything down and started on the 48 qualifiers. Because each of the 12 problems had to be climbed simultaneously, they had to be spread placed on all of the faces thoughtfully, with special care being taken to starting and finishing positions so that people wouldnt be falling on to each other. Each circuit had 2 easy problems (easy but no give-away), 5 medium problems and 5 hard ones.

Because there was no time to strip and put up problems between each category, all the 48 problems had to be on the wall at the same time. We used hold color to identify each problem, with only three blocs to each wall everything was pretty clear and only in a few rare places did we end up having to removes holds from one category so that they wouldnt obstruct the other. The only changeover was for the sign cards indicating to the currently climbing category which problems to climb with the grade  (easy, moderate, hard) and the color of the holds to be used.

The map i used to track all the qualifiers. The arrows point down when it is an easy problem, right for moderate and up for hard.

Only three blocs to each face color-coded by hold color

Conclusion
Overall I thought the  new format was a success. Overall the level of climbing was harder than what had been proposed in the past years, but it seemed to work better. Better for the climbers who, although they had to work harder for their points, had circuits designed specifically for their capacities and reach. Better for the split, because scoring system with zones and tries makes ties pretty rare. Better for the pace of the comp, because each group climbed fairly intensely during their given time.

I think the open contest format should continue to exist, especially for friendly competitions but what I most liked about the contest with tries is that is is a good intermediate step, before the circuit system which is highly competitive.

Feel free to share thoughts and questions with me here tonde@teknikhandholds.com.

——————-

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 heading a small international route setting company called Ouvre Boite.

New stuff at le MEC

Hey Canadians- we’ve got some new stock in select MEC stores, just in time to snazz up your backyard wall! If they’re not at your local store, you can also buy these packs at mec.ca

Talon singles. Pretty rad of MEC to carry these bad boys, eh? Do they still make the Rad pants? You should buy some of those too to wear while you’re climbing on these.

Fat Rings singles. Tres cool. Your steep/roof sections will finally be warm-up-able.

Scarabs 5 pack- must have basic edges, Tikes 5 pack- mega bang per buck incuts, No Shadow mix pack (2x No Shadow Hands, 2x No Shadow Feet)- you’ll fall off these a lot but that’s the point, they’re ninja hard.

Happy home-walling!!