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Asana > The Eye of the Oracle

Here's a sneek peak at Asana HQ and the making of their new monster hold... The Eye of the Oracle!!

1: The mold before any rubber has been poured onto it









2. Top down of the mold in its new home, it`s looking at you!!









3. Scrapper building the rubber box









4. Pulling out the hollow back









5. Removing the box









6. Pulling out the foam shape









7. Cleaning the mold with a high pressure air line









8. Polishing :P









9. First pour, not bad!









10. Dobby getting all animal on it!

Review > Contact Climbing > War Of the Worlds 2

When we posted these holds on the news section there was a reaction to them, some positive, some negative. So much so that Dale (from Contact) offered his email address and phone number so they could bitch at him rather than anonymously on the comments section, the neigh sayer didn't get the number and Dale stood by Contact's creations... and know what... rightly so.

Seeing the images of the holds doesn't really do them much justice. I was expecting some weird looking jugs, and what I got some people would class as a novelty hold but what these holds are is function over form, yes they've been sculpted to look like alien space ships, and yes some people may find this a little weird, but what the sculpting doesn't take away from is their function. Contact made some huge ass jugs and then made them look like alien space ships, hell So Ill mold telephones, so alien space craft isn't really out there...It doesn't take 5 seconds to guess where these holds were going, it's obvious once you see them that these puppies are roof dwellers, they can be put absolutely anywhere and you don't need to worry about how they're going to be... bomber is going to be the word of the day!
As we've got our new box up and kicking we figured we'd come out from under the box to one of the holds set as a side pull and then have a chuck across the roof (it's about 4ft to the hold) and see how that went... getting across was fine, getting back was a different kettle of fish!! It's easy if you use the side wall, so we took it out for fun.

The biggest of the holds is a huge double handed butterfly that has huge jugs on either side, that are more than matchable whichever way you fancy grabbing them. The other holds are just as large, except they're single sided not double sided, but whichever way you do look at the holds (and we'll say this a lot) they're huge, they're some of the biggest bolt ons that we have and have seen. Barring stuff like Climb-It's "Sleeping Giant", but that's a piggy back hold that takes other bolt ons!

SUGGESTED USES



The answer to this question is "where not to put them!?!", they're one of those holds that is a gimmie in any situation, roof's, super steep overhangs, they're going to be great pretty much everywhere. If you have a roof and want to set an easy route for beginners these will be go to holds for your setters, anyone should be able to haul on these holds pretty much anywhere

Incut is not the word I would use for these, hand eaters is a better description on what these holds are... super comfy once they've got some chalk on them bomber monsters from another planet.



In fact I'll go so far and give them a film rating, yup, they're rated E for Everyone! No parents needed, no having fake ID, just get them and you'll see just how big these holds are!





OVERALL BUILD
Excellent, which is what we've come to expect from Contact. Even with these holds being big the backs are well sanded and sit flush to the wall. The bolt hole and screw holes are nice and clean and well situated (we're yet to put screws in). Even with the intricate design of the holds they're well molded and look great. Texture does take a little bit of time to even out with chalk build up, but its in no way a bad thing and the holds don't rip your hands to shreds

There are a couple of minor points, I'm not all that keen on the color. As these holds are huge I'd want a brighter color if I was buying them, but bear in mind we didn't specify a color, ours are the green you see in the images. If I were you ask for the brightest color that Contact rock as it'll be worth it.

The final point is the way the holds were packed for shipping, they were in a box surrounded by paper, which means the holds can move about when the post people use the parcels in their care as a party pinata. It's something that they need to look at, but nothing that can't be fixed in a few minutes.

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
There's not much I can really add, it's been hard to review three holds, but that being said it was a pleasure to do so. Bug jugs are always tricky, they're holds that you swing about on and if the texture isn't just right you end up taking skin off, thankfully Contacts texture translates well from their small holds to their big holds, add chalk to these holds and then it's not even noticeable! When I added these holds to the news section there were some negative comments, and these I feel have been put to bed, yeah Contacts made some holds that are a little funky, but they're better than if they were up there and we're just plain old hunks of urethane, this is especially the case with these holds are they're massive and you notice them right away!

My one gripe is the color, but it's super minor and nothing that's worth much of a mention. These holds are the same color as the Hex holds we reviewed a way back so in essence we're extended the set and now it's easy to rock both sets in longer routes. If I were buying them (like we said) I'd go for a brighter color so they really stand out, the red that Contact does will really make them pop out.

If you're looking for some monster jugs for beginners, or something you can chuck to and not worry about having to be super exact with your hands then these will do the job and then some.

CHRIS
Definitely function over form. These green invaders will spice up your wall, aesthetically and in function. I don't know if the guys from Contact did it on purpose but I realized that if you invert the holds you can use the features as crimps or better yet a massive (there it is again, MASSIVE) pinch. As noodles pointed out those same features can be used to match or bump.

When we set for a review we try to user only the holds from the set. We're lucky on the fact that we have a massive box on our roof so we could do that interesting move from under the box to the front. Even when we set for long moves, these holds are huge and it would take a blind man to miss these monsters.

In the roof, the holds are bomber. If you're like me and freak out a bit in roof sequence, these holds will help in getting rid of that psychological hex. One, two, three moves and you're on the other side.

As for the colour I don't really have any problem with it other than the fact that many companies do not carry this shade of green so if you set in a gym you can't exactly match the colour....no big deal.

What else can I say? They're massive, huge, juggernauts, monsters...you get the picture.

PROS

• Texture doesn't rip your skin to shreds
  
• Nice shapes with no burrs, you can even match some of the alien features if you're feeling up for it
  
• Good for any angle... ANY ANGLE!!
  

CONS

• If space is low then these could be too big...
  
• Colors not the best (but this is upto you)
• Packing needs a little bit of a look at
  

PRICE
Three holds for $85, but they're monsters!!

volx

Friksn

Lapis Logo

Review > Atomik > Fonts (Various sizes)

Atomik sent us a whole bunch of holds.. when we say a whole bunch we mean it... two boxes arrived and a couple of hours later 169 new holds were sitting on the floor, we marked each one and then in a stroke of genius this happened...
There were just so many holds that we decided to make a quick Police style body outline on the floor.

What was pretty impressive from the get go was that even though these holds came all the way from Utah to Montreal, which is a distance of 2276.46 miles and the fact that UPS normally play touch football with some of our parcels was the fact that there wasn't one single, dink, scratch or bump mark on ANY of the holds! Not one! And this was from two boxes that we're pretty full to the brim, there wasn't one defect on anything. Now that tells you something about Atomiks shipping department, they actually pack the holds really well.

Right enough about us playing with the holds in the living room, lets look at the holds:

Mini Font Roof JugsFont JugsLarge Font JugsXl Font Roof JugsXXL Font Sloper

What the above photos don't show is the color of the holds we received, most of the Fonts are yellow, but not your normal run of the mill yellow, oh no, these are the brightest yellow that I've ever seen in a hold! The largest Font the XXL sloper is blue, and again it has a kind of stopping power that when you have a pile of holds on the floor you're drawn to and just want to touch! The final holds we have are some of the pinches from the site, they're green. (You can see one of them by Chris' head)

All the shapes are split across Atomik's site by size, and rather run reviews for some holds we decided to do it by shape... we grabbed the holds (easy to find because of the color) and we got to setting..














As usual I'm looking confused :P I decided as most of the holds we're jugs of one kind or another to set across the roof and then onto our overhanging wall, to the flat where the slopes and pinches would end up.. oh we were in for a treat with these, Font is one of my favorite places to climb so I was looking forward to getting onto some of the shapes!

In the below video you can see what happened, I think I got a little carried away with the roof sequence and made the route a little harder than expected, but as we like a challenge we left it as was and went at it in our usual fashion :)

What you're going to notice about the video is that neither of us got around the route! Well actually I did after the camera that we were using to video was turned off and we switched to the stills...The roof was the trickiest part, but thankfully even the mini jugs that we're up there were pretty bomber! But even after the first attempt, we noticed one very important thing about the holds... here are some stills from the video, can you guess (if you've not watched the video) what I'm going to talk about?? Yup texture! It's fierce, really really fierce. The molds from Atomik are still first generation so the texture is crazy, it'll be super good for a commercial gym as the texture will get worn down by all of the traffic but for a home wall it was a bit OTT! So here's what we suggest, you should try them and then if needed get a rubber sanding sponge or some sandpaper and then take the texture down a little so it suits your preference.

SUGGESTED USES - JUGS



We suggest the above angles for the jugs, which as you can see is everything from slabs to roofs. Most of the shapes lend themselves to roofs when we look at any of the jugs, from the minis to the larges. They are really positive to pull on, what isn't so nice is the texture which is very much like 120 grade sand paper, like Chris says in the video you want that if you're hauling long sketchy moves across a roof, I'd agree, but for a home wall you're going to want to comfortize the holds a little with some sandpaper. In a commercial setting where there are lots of sweaty hands and street shoes hitting them the texture seems like it will hold out and becomes a big positive.

Bomber jugs, each size is large enough and deep enough that you can hang off of them without worrying too much, the larger ones can be matched if you can bump your hands. What I like is what they say on the website under the large climbing hold section... and I'll quote "Large does not mean easy to hang on to"

SUGGESTED USES - PINCHES / SLOPERS





The pinches again are very positive, they've got a nice shape to them and when they're on steep or very overhung terrain the texture helps them out a lot. There's nothing super bad to say about them, they remind me of Font, which was the purpose behind the shapes.
If I can haul a long move on a roof with them then they're pretty damn good, you just need to find the sweet spot.

The slopers again are pretty damn good and are some of the best representations of font shapes that I've seen in a long while, big and open handed, they're tricky to hold on the vertical and crazy hard on anything that starts to run into an overhang, which is the way we like it. As usual with Font style holds its always where you place your hands and fingers on these holds that determines how easy or hard they are to stick.

Both sets of holds are pretty positive even though they are slopes and pinches, but they're harder than they look, terrain aside. It depends upon your strength and climbing style that will determine how well you're going to go on these. Foot work is going to be key as is good core strength.


OVERALL BUILD
I could have sworn that these holds were resin, but after checking with the site and Kenny over at Atomik he confirmed that they are urethane. My bad :P The colors are vibrant to say the least, they're some of the brightest hues that we've seen for a long long time, there is no doubt that these holds will stand out on your wall whether it be the gym or at home.

The backs of the holds are flat and there were no surprises in 169 holds, the bolt holes are clean, so clean in fact that there isn't any urethane in them. On the material side you're going to notice that there are very few bubbles in the urethane, less so than most holds so the mix is good and consistent. The smalls holds from Atomik have been tested to destruction at around 1100+ lbs, the mediums to 1800 lbs, so the mix is good and strong!!

We'll talk texture a little bit more, what Atomik say about the texture is this:
"If you want texture, here it is. If you would prefer a slightly smoother hold with less texture, simply rub the hold a little with some sand paper or a sanding sponge", simple enough! Atomik aren't the only company that makes holds with an aggressive texture out there and it's probably for the best that they know this and tell the end user to drop the texture if it's too much, it's pretty much pimping your holds to make them totally custom

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
Yowser... texture, texture and once again texture! I wasn't expecting that, even when we were feeling the holds on the floor it was kind of hard to tell what they're going to be like until you climb on them, and they do grip a lot! But this is not like the Asana Joes, they just ripped your skin off, these you'll notice is more like climbing on emery boards so they sand down the rough patches of your skin :)

I set quickly on these holds, put some thought into it and just let rip and somehow it came out alright (I suppose 20 odd years climbing helps as well!), apart from one move that stopped me on the roof it was all good and when I did make the move the route went. Getting onto the overhang onto the pinches was nice as the pinches and then the large font sloper are amazing to grab onto, you fingers just get sucked onto them. The sloper on the vertical was good enough that if you kept low you can get a little rest, but as soon as you move it to anything overhanging you're going to have to stick it and then move off quite quickly.

Overall I'm impressed with the holds apart from the overly aggressive texture, but it's one of those things, it's not like I'm not going to climb on the holds, I'll just sand down the worst ones a little and keep them up. Some I will leave as is and then see how the texture wears over a period of time. One of the final points I'd like to make is that these are some of the best Font holds that I've seen in a long time, they may have even topped some of the Sloperz from Holdz that I've had for years that are similar, and that's a hard thing to do!
Next up we'll look at the sandstone shapes, that's going to be a longer review because that's the bulk of the shapes... did I mention that my local crag in the UK in sandstone?? Excellent!

CHRIS
Yup. I agree. The texture is pretty agressive although it was a nice relief when I got onto the big blue slope on our newly built box:) The slopes and pinches seemed to soak up the chalk more so then the jugs on the roof.

As you can tell by the video the first green pinch is tricky to get onto and I was able to get low on it to push out to the jugs sequence. Out of all the pinches that we received the best one was on the roof....obviously! The jugs is that they are big enough for one hand and they can be a real challenge to match on the roof. The problem got a facelift after we bolted the box onto the wall so the big blue slope got put onto the face of the box and the small slopes got put around the sides. In our original sequence we needed to match on the last jug but now I can forget about the match and Big Blue as a foot (much to noodles disaproval LoL) and I'm away with completing the problem.

PROS

• The fierce texture works well on the slopers, on the jugs it's so-so, it's a little bit much. But you can comfortize the holds with some sandpaper to make it to your liking. Commercial gyms WON'T have a problem as traffic will do the work for you!
  
• Nice shapes with no burrs, other than the obvious Font shapes
  
• Good for any angle...
• Jugs are good every where
• Slopes and pinches will be good up to 30 or 45 (strength depending)
  
• Packing was second to none!, no breaks or burrs
  

CONS

• The texture will need some time to wear down or you'll have to lessen it on some holds
  
• The texture does take shoe rubber really well, so hard to clean off
  

PRICE
5xl Fontainbleau Roof Jugs: $47.49
XXl Fontainbleau Sloper: $19.50
6 Large Font Jugs: $41.49
7 Font Jugs: $38.49
5 Mini Font Jugs: $36.99
The pinches weren't a full set, so you'd have to ask for a price on those