ONE YEAR OLD :)

Can you believe it? We've hit one year old?
I can't!! So in my usual fashion I'll write a wrap up of the year :)

(There are stats and a full listing of the reviews underneath my Oscar style speech!)

THE OSCAR STYLE SPEECH
Climbing Hold Review started as me wanting to give back to the climbing community as a whole, and I guess that even after a fairly shaky start and some refinement we've managed to hit a format that makes us a good resource on climbing holds. The site is run by (primarily) me, and Chris came and joined the party a few months after I started, he's been a good partner to have on an endeavor like this because at times writing reviews is very stressful, hell some of the comments that we received at times has almost had me packing up the site and moving onto something else... thankfully the comments have always come from people that we're pushing us to be better than we were... I'd like to thank a whole bunch of people, but the list and reasons would end up being a long long read so I'll skip it.... you know who you are because i've thanked you!

BUT..

There are a lot of people that have kept us on the straight and narrow, given us advice, have molded us, listened to me talk randomly on the phone and have welcomed us into the climbing family. Thank you all! And of course there are some people that really should be thanked... who??... YOU the reader, the people that come on past and see whats new, you've been a tough audience... thanks for your comments and continued support (now go buy a t shirt :P)

THE NUMBERS...
Our trackers went live at the very end of November (I think) and the numbers below are as of the 27th October. We also had a couple of months off due to me having to relocate the climbing wall to my new apartment...
UNIQUE IP HITS: Every time someone comes onto the site we count the IP once, and once only!! We've had just over 23,500 people come and see us
RETURN VISITORS: Just under 50,000 people returned to the site :)
We've had visits from pretty much anywhere on the planet that has an internet connection, the list of countries is mind blowing... especially when the list reads places like Pakistan, Chile, Poland and one place that isn't actually named that looks like a private island!!

We've posted 33 reviews, and there's more to come in the future

Chris and I would like to say thanks, our baby year is over now we'll get down to some real work! Thanks for all your help and participation

Noodles & Chris

Review > Fricton > Moon Rocks & Organics

Along time ago we were sent some Friction holds, at the same time Routesetter had just run a fairly long expose on the company so we decided to hold back and review the holds later. I just checked and the review on Routesetter was in February, so we've been more than slack :( Now this means we've had these holds for over 6 months, Luigi was one of the first people to help us out in getting started and really helped by letting me chew his ear off on the phone about problems that we experienced with the site and how we went about reviewing the holds that people were sending us.

So let's get rolling and talk about Friction a little!

Hailing from Toronto, Friction has been around since 99', but their shapers have been around the block a few times, most gyms that I've visited in Canada have a good staple diet of Friction holds, and rightly so when they're so skin and tendon friendly. Luigi who owns Friction is pretty well know in climbing circles because of the Tour De Bloc, the Canadian bouldering league that's running right now... and I've always loved their comp posters (on the left) and the comps have always been pretty well run, and same go's for his company, I've always found him to be very approachable on any subject that springs to mind.

We've had our holds since the beginning of the year, I'd brought a bunch from Le Mec before I started running this site, so we're pretty well versed on the holds... and we have a great variety of shapes to choose from... today we're looking at two sets, with some extra bonus holds :P
The Moon Rocks:
and the Organics:As per usual we looked at the suggested uses and saw that they're not recommended for the roof, and yes you've guessed it... we set a route across the roof. Thankfully as we've got some bonus holds from Friction that are prototypes of their new urethane range that will be dropping in 09 we had a couple of extra jugs to play with :) Looking at the video of what we set and the way we set it I was super happy that the Friction holds are so skin friendly as there is one roof move that stopped me dead, and this is a comment that will probably come up more than once... the shapes even though they may look that they're going to be mean on the fingers and skin are really really nice! Sure when they're new they do take a little bit of skin off of your hands, but once they've got some chalk on them they really do become nice to hold onto, the resin is just good on the skin.

Now when Luigi sent us some prototypes of the urethane mix and their shapes I was worried that his shapes would loose the feel that is unique to their brand, the holds feel very very sandstone-esqe, which lets face it is a good thing for me as I spent a great number of years in Font and climbing on Southern Sandstone in the UK. We compared a resin hold and urethane prototype hold side by side and here's what we found:

• The urethane is lighter than the resin, by a country mile
  
• Thankfully the proto uretane actually took the texture so they don't feel all that dissimilar to the resin holds... and remember there has been lots more work done since we got our holds!!!
• Urethane.. well this mix is just plain STRONG, these holds are light (and I know I've said that already) but these holds are two things that we love... STRONG AND LIGHT

I was really worried about the pending switch to urethane and I talked to Luigi about the pro's and cons of what I'd seen with some urethane holds, thankfully their holds look like they're going to be sick, and with being so light you're going to save a bunch load on shipping costs :)

(there's no sound, we know, youtube was being a pain)

As you can see from the video we set some fun moves, with the roof being the crux (as per usual). Whichever way you put the holds they're pretty bomber to grab onto, or course there is always going to be an exception if you're being completely crazy, but we've found that from vertical to steeply overhung there's more than enough space on the holds (even the small ones) for you to grab and then haul on. If you're looking at getting some holds we'd suggest you look at the Friction line.

evolv logo etc

Review > Project > Jugs

If you read the news section a while back you'd have seen this:

It's the jugs from Project Holds, I've been talking with them for a while and now we have a couple of their sets on the wall... we're the first people in Canada to get them as far we we're aware... and from the start as soon as you see the holds you are going to gravitate towards the monsters that are the holds that range from XL1 and the XL2 because they look like huge door handles... and when we say door handles we mean door handles for giants, they're not just big they're plain massive.
Even when you've put these holds down you're going to see that the smalls through medium to large sets are all big enough for anyone to grab onto, some of the holds are a little slim, and would be hard to hold onto on say a roof... but generally you're looking at 2 finger pads or deeper on every hold.What we started with (that's Eve and Noodles climbing at the start of the video) is all of the huge holds across the roof with some intermediates, and then a trail around the wall. This was fun, Eve had trouble with the holding and swinging about that Noodles is used to, but not as much fun as it could have been.



So Noodles decided to reset the entire wall, he took everything off, nothing stayed on the wall... he started with these holds and set a route that rings around the entire wall, but also has a second ring that you can link into that starts on our box feature. Now this is better, you end up with a long traverse / boulder route that means you can get a good burn on... and then to make it even harder than it is, Noodles added quick draws... so now you can clip a short length of rope that hangs around the climbers waist either at a predefined position or when someone shouts "clip", or in the case of the following video at predetermined places!



Either way you put these holds, they're possibly some of the best jugs we've come across, skin friendly and just easy to use, there's not a sharp edge on them and they're nothing but a hoot to climb on. There are alot of holds on the market, and wether you're a gym owner or a homewall owner we suggest you get your hands on some of these, before other jugs that we've mentioned... and that's a hard hard thing to say when you see some of the holds we have. Louie Anderson shaped them, so it's just a case of letting your mind go wild... we'll update when we take these to the gym, because Noodles has some big dyno / brutal toe hook plans for the route he's going to set :P

SUGGESTED USES



Ooooof, without sounding like a broken record you can pretty well put any of the holds from any of the sets... anywhere you wish. Some of the smaller holds are challenging on the roof, but are by no means not doable. If you've got a lot of younger climbers or inexperienced climbers in your gym get these, they're not going to have any trouble getting up to the top, if you want to set some monster all points off dynos then again look no further... with the large holds you'd have to be almost blind to not hit the sweet spots :)

OVERALL BUILD
From the Project Holds logo on the holds, to the little imprinted arrows that tell you which way they should be rotated these holds have excellent build quality. There's a few floors in a couple of the holds but that's from being dinged during shipping, other than that they're superb! The color is a little lack luster from what you see on the website, so we'd suggest that you ask for a real bold color to make these stand out, mind you if you're getting the larger holds it doesn't matter what color they come in as they are totally unique and will make everyone stop and look at them

The texture is hard to describe, it has a very fine sandpaper feel, quite similar to a sandstone texture, it's friendly on the skin, and it needs to be considering how large the gripping area is.
Bolt placements on the smaller holds are nice and centered, and on the larger holds they're supplemented with a screw placement (which you will need to use) to stop the monster handles from spinning!! Everything was flat backed and there wasn't a problem with getting these onto the wall


Here's a break down of the weight of the sets:

• Smalls are 2.5lbs
• Medium 1 are 2.6lbs
• Medium 2 are 2.5lbs
• Large are 4.9lbs
• XL are 19.2lbs
• 2XL is 7.2lbs
  

WHAT IT'S MADE FROM
Urethane... pure urethane. And considering the weight of the box (and the destroyed nature of it when it arrived) it's a strong mix, we were expecting more breaks and dings! We've tried to over tighten the largest hold and go nowhere near to snapping it, if we continued tightening we were going to break the t nut before the hold

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
Getting praise from us is sometimes hard, I've been looking at these holds for a while and it's taken a long time to get them. Project Holds is pretty well unknown in Canada, which is a surprise as they have a good catalogue of holds... but thus far i've not seen any, other than our wall of course :P But I digress, getting praise from us is sometimes fickle, as we see alot of holds and we remain objective in reviewing them... this time it was extra hard because all I wanted to do is stick these on the wall and bounce around all the time, not look at the backs of them, and the color. It took me a while to calm down once I opened the box because even though I'd seen videos and pictures I wasn't quite prepared for what I unwrapped... I honest to god sat there and just looked at the biggest jug and was in awe! It's heavy, sure, but maaan is that thing a big ol ring that just screams DYNO. Soon as Chris turned up I showed him that monster first and polite decorum stops me from printing what he said, to say he was surprised is an understatment... and that's before we get to the Shellshocked that are on the wall, that Wedge shape then sent us is just wild.

Sorry, I'm starting to sound like a teenage girl here.

Surprised? Yes, very
Do I want the entire range of Projects holds now? Yes please
Should you go and buy these holds? I'd lend you the money if I could!

Pure and simple, and whilst still being objective... I've not been blown away by a full set of holds for a long while. The Revolution jibs and the Contact WOTW2 (War of the Worlds 2) are amazing, amazing holds... the Project stuff is in the same league.

CHRIS
And I thought the War of the World's are huge. For these monsters we need a whole new word....gigormous. Say it with me kids...gi-gor-mous. This isn't the first time Louie (in case you're not aware, Louie shapes holds for numerous companies) shapes have arrived at the door, and we couldn't have expected anything like it, we sat there in amazement. When I saw them at first I was skeptical about the one bolt placement on the larger holds, but once its on the wall there is very little give on the hold and on screw is all that's needed to keep it in place.

Now the whole range is great and I'm surprised that Project doesn't have a bigger market share, or that we've not seen them before up here, Noodles gave me another surprise when he told me that it was a small company with Charles running the whole gig, awesome job Charles.

So back to the holds.

I don't want to bore you with how much we love these holds (I think Noodles has done a good job already) so I'll keep it short and objective: They look great, skin friendly and well priced. If you've got the budget, buy the whole range :)

PROS

• Good for any angle... even the small holds are huge
  
• Project have a "larger is better" sizing policy once you get into the XL+ sizes, you get more than you bargained for!!
  
• The large shapes are real eye openers, set a route and people will flock to it
  

CONS

• Full sets are a little heavy, go for economy shipping if you can
  
• Ask for a real good color that has a nice hue, we didn't and although the holds stand out, due to their shape they would be better if they were brighter!!
• Anything above a medium is going to hog your wall space, so if space is tight, stay in the small / medium range! (That being said, the XL's are great on the roof)
  

PRICE

• Small set has 5 holds for $39
• Medium set 1 & 2 is 5 holds for $49
• Large has 5 holds for $69
• The XL is 5 holds for $139
• The monster 2XL is a single hold for $69
  

Review > Climb It > Patina XL Jugs

Ah the Climb It boys are back at it again, they've been awfully quiet of late and that's understandable as Zach the owner has just opened a new gym called Hangar 18, now that that's been finished and open for a while it seems that the boys have got back into the shop and are pouring more holds for our climbing enjoyment (Keep an eye out, there are more sets coming people) This time they dropped us some of their new Patina jugs that have just been released. They didn't muck about with sending us any small shapes, they plumped straight for the XL jugs which you can see below:















Soon as the box arrived I ripped into it as I'd seen the pictures about a month ago and wanted to see if they were anything like the images, I was also keep to see what color they'd dropped on me this time :) Last time we looked at any Climb It holds it was the Sediments back in February of this year, those holds which were exceptional and unlike anything on the market came in a color that I described as dayglo green as they were so bright, this time? This time they're dayglo orange, and again the color is like nothing you've seen, kind of a cross between a traffic cone and one of those high-visibility vests people wear on building sites.

From the get go the first thing you're going no notice (other than the color) is the weight of the holds, these hour holds weigh in at a hefty 7lbs, which doesn't sound like that much, but when you pick them up you notice that they feel really dense and good and solid... which is a quality that some people like and other are on the fence about, me I like it, but due to the size of the holds I'm surprised that Climb It didn't make them hollow backed to save on material. (They're currently working on this)



With only four holds, we decided to string them across the roof to see how they performed, they'd been else where on the wall and they're so positive we figured that they'd be good on the roof... and they are and aren't. They are positive and there are good areas to grab, but unfortunately they're not that good and anything that requires matching you're going to have to work real hard for! The group consensus is that they're holds that are good enough for the roof, but if you're not a person that climbs roofs alot (like we do) you're just going to get pitched onto the floor (Noodles was totally shut down by the sequence), else where they're just great fun to climb on.





We've had different ranges of Climb It's holds around the wall for a real long time and other than a set of feet from the Sediments range (that were redesigned, as Climb It found the problem with them and went straight to work fixing it) we've had no problems... even after we lent the local gym some holds, other than where a rope had dragged on the hold for months on end, they cleaned up like new and there were no breakages. Allez Up (