Review > Revolution > Jibs

Let's go back, waay back, before there was ClimbingHoldReview to a time just after Chris had been a gleam in the milkman's eye... to a time when I'd built one of my first walls, a monster cannibalised from a campus board from a local gym. Back then the hold market wasn't all that big, or if it was I wasn't aware of many people, there was Metolius, EP, S7 and some other people that were easy to get holds from... there was this other company called Pusher. These days Pusher is a thing of myth and legend, the holds that had a little (P) on them are something to be cherished, and when they get broken they need to be mended with some super glue and a steady hand!

But, that was then, and this is now! Revolution Climbing, born out of the Pusher / Cordless / S7 days. They're still a big player in the hold market today, and I've chased them to get me holds for review since day one of this site! Thankfully they heeded my call and some holds arrived, first up of what will be a number of reviews over the coming months are three sets of jibs, we've not done much on screw ons for a while, and as they should be a staple of most home walls, and gyms alike, we figured it'd be a good crack.. as I loved the Pusher holds I wanted to see how they measured up.The sets we received are:

• Pockets from their Basic hold line
  
• Diamonds from their Abstract hold line, set1
  
• Fonts from the Real hold line, set 1
  

From the get-go, the packaging of the holds catches the eye... the holds are sent in a static bag that you'd normally find wrapped around a new hard drive or other hardware, so when you open them the holds are static free :P The screws were in the bag as well and they were loose, so soon as the bags were opened I checked the holds to see if they'd been damaged, thankfully there was nothing to report, but as the holds came in a box full of larger holds they wouldn't have been bashed about too much. (I'd like to see them come out of the regular mail without a dink!)
I set the holds out onto the floor and go to work, as usual I had a laugh with the video:

There's one thing about jibs is that they're very space friendly, despite the fact that you're not going to move them around a whole bunch. One of my old walls had a section that was 15 degrees overhung and 20 ft high, the entire wall from top to bottom was nothing but jibs, there wasn't one single bolt on hold on there... now as jibs are so space friendly you can imagine how many holds were on that wall :)

$33 for a set of ten
$33 for a set of ten

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Review > Nicros > Infinity Board

NOTE:

This is a preview of a product that isn't in full production at the time of this review going live. What we're looking at is a prototype..

It was with great anticipation that I spoke to some of the folks over at Nicros months back, my emails were answered by Nic who gave me a very early sneak peak at something that had been in the works for three years... how could my interest not be kicked into overdrive at something that looked like this:It's called the Infinity Board, and it's Nicros new modular training board that's due to be released this October. What we have is a prototype of the final version, so please take that into account when reading.

The board arrives at work so I carry it home and wait Chris to come over so we can mount the board, I check the paper work that came in both boxes for the mounting instructions, guess what? There was none, but as I've mounted hang boards before I set to work, normally I'd mount the board in the normal fashion of putting some plywood up, drilling holds, adding t-nuts and mounting the board off of our normal climbing structure. This time I went a different route, I measured the distance between the bolts on the Infinity and my wall, found that they were different and then just drilled a 2x6 to use as a mounting bracket. Anyone who actually orders this board will receive a template for mounting the board, the paperwork is currently being made up by Nicros.

We grab the holds off of the living room floor (they'd arrived in a parcel a few weeks before as I'd ordered some holds) and get the cat hair off of them, and then check what we should have, the holds we have are the easy set... which consists of: Two easy slopers, two jugs, two pinches and a rail. We have two rails and no jugs, but we labor on none the less, we've come this far so we bolt up the holds as per the image off of the blog for the board (here), jugs on the top... well a rail for us, the slopers on either side and the pinches underneath... the slopers are what I'm going to spend the most time hanging from (they're the nicest shapes to train on) so I grab these, and then fall onto my ass. The slopers are dual texture, which is overkill really for what they're being used for, and the texture is pretty smooth so they're hard to hold onto... and these are the easy holds! The way Nicros change the holds from easy to hard to just to make the radii of the hold smaller. I'm not finding them easy to hold onto, but maybe I'm a huge wuss or not as strong as think I am. With this in mind I chat to Kimberly over at Nicros and check on the holds and who shaped them, and it was Eric Horst that shaped the pockets and some other people that shaped the other holds, so I do some more checking and ask why they're dual texture because for the life of me I couldn't figure out why. The reply was so simple I kicked my self in the ass, the top part of the hold is textured for you to hang on, the bottom is slick so then you can't cheat the movement by using your thumb as a pinch. So Nicros are being very very clever with the design. I head back to the wall and with
some perseverance I get the holds set so I can hang them easily and start doing some dead hangs and some assisted pull ups. I really think that the texture on the slopes needs to be a little more aggressive than it is, because if you're running sets of hangs or pull ups you're going to find yourself sliding off backwards after a while, it's nothing serious, but I do find myself chalking to get onto these and really I'd prefer to train without chalk... so then when I use chalk it'll feel like I'm cheating :P

We move onto the rail, and find that it's nice and deep, Chris is having no problem hanging about and doing pull ups on it, same for me... but I find that the edge digs into the last pad (closest to my palm) and raises them a little. I'd have preferred the rail to have a rounder radii than it has as it'd be much more friendly on the skin. Again the rail is dual texture, the top has texture and the bottom and front side are dual texture so they're (again) trying to stop you from cheating. What would make the rail even better is if it tapered towards the center so you can train a greater variety of grip positions i.e: single pad, dual pad etc. The resoning behind this is this; (Again we asked) The rail is diff tex not necessarily for cheating but some people complain their finger pads hurt and like training on no tex while other people insist they need grip to be able to stick on. So, we drew a line down the middle and appeased both sets of people. We can see this being a problem, but think it should still be tapered and the radii lessened as it'd add more variety too this hold.

We switch the slopes for the pockets and go for another round of pull ups and hangs, we're training three's here: we're pairing first finger and your middle finger together and hang on it and hold. Then we're pairing our middle finger and ring finger together and hold.We'll get round to using our pinkys and ring fingers when we get stronger. Doing this we found that there is a slight edge that digs our skin a little

The final set of holds for the board are the pinches, and they're again not as big or as easy as we expected them to be, an easy pinch should have nice soft curves and a nice deep area to grab. We think that these are the closet to an easy hold out of the set, they're big enough to do pull ups on but not so big that you can hang off of them for minutes at a time. Right now we're using them instead of the rails as edges, because they have a slightly nicer edge to them than the rails.

SUGGESTED USES
No symbol needed here, the board is obviously made as a modular training board. You can mount it anywhere you wish, above a door is a prime place to mount this beast! As a training tool for training specifics, pinches, slopes, jugs and edges, it is good, but you're going to have to move the holds around if you want to get variety out of it. Moving holds mid workout is a pain, and as most people have hang boards because they need to train and don't have much time we think that most people will go with a simple set up and will rarely change it from workout to workout.

OVERALL BUILD (BOARD)
The board is fiberglass that's been molded and then drilled and the t nuts are finally glued onto the back, the boards overall build for us is so so, when you look at the quality of the Jug-or-Not that we have and have reviewed we think it's substandard compared to what we've seen Nicros make, the nuts aren't all totally covered with glue and this could compromise their placements, but remember this is a pre-production model.

But as a fiberglass shape it's well formed and we've not seen anything like it, the structure is sturdy and it's been built to last, but there are problems that do need to be addressed with something of this kind, there was one problem from when Noodles was carrying it home from work, the fiberglass edges of the board were not sealed so carrying the board gave Noodles fiberglass in his arms. These should really have some sealer of some kind painted over them

OVERALL BUILD (HOLDS)
Nicros have made holds for a good long time, so you're going to get some quality shapes from bomber quality polyester resin. Like we mentioned before, we didn't get the jugs for the easy set, so we can't comment upon them, but we can talk about the rail, pockets, slopers and the pinches. Again it's easier to list the problems that we see with the holds in relation to the board:

We think that as we have the easy set of holds, these need to be looked at a little more:

• Pockets: Are smaller than expected, and you can only get three fingers into them. For a beginner pocket we were expecting something that'd allow four fingers, they have a slight edge upon them that catches you when they're placed on certain angles
• Rails: These can only be placed on one of the surfaces of the board, and should have the edge of them rounded off as they catch your finger pads. They are nice and deep, but they should taper so you can train for different edge depths, right now they're a constant depth all the way along
• Pinches: They're not as easy as you think, we're using them as edges as they're slightly nicer on the fingers than the rails. You'd expect them to be more beginner friendly than they are.
• Slopers: The texture needs to be beefed up, and they have a super wide grip so beginners are going to have a hell of a time hanging them. One of our slopers is hollow backed and the other is solid, which was a little strange.
  

Overall for three years R&D more time and effort could have been put into the shapes that we have.

WHAT IT'S MADE FROM
The board is fiberglass and the holds are polyester resin, what you're getting whether you just order the board or just the holds is some seriously heavy shapes.

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
I've looked forward to the board hitting my house since I saw it, and I'm glad that we got to see it before most people, it's a pre-production model, so there are going to be flaws, so I guess this review is more of an R&D exercise for us and Nicros than anything else, but it is a good look at how Nicros are pushing forward with design of things that have become commonplace in most climbers homes.

Along with all of the negatives and improvements that we've suggested some people will reap huge benefits from this board and holds, but I'm going to point out a number of things that we've not had in the review above and what most people might not realize: The board is: $159.95, and the holds are $119.95 on top of the price of the board, someone must be having a laugh pure and simple. As a concept I applaud Nicros on their forward thinking, but I'm not sure that many people will buy something that's as multi use like this, they want to just get on and train without moving holds around.

Now that being said adding a Croc Bloc from Nicros to the board will make it better for all around training, this is something that I shall be doing in the next few weeks, as it will add more variety to the board.

Last time I checked most hang boards prices were sub $100, hell Nicros own hangboard is $89.95, so $160 for the base is steep, adding more for the holds is just insane. My advice is this: a standard hang board has more variety without having to move holds around, sure if you want to train real serious specifics then the Infinity board is more able to accommodate you (but honestly I cannot see any thing that the Infinity board does that a hang board doesn't do three times over), buying a standard hang board is cheaper... by $180, if the first board doesn't have what you want, buy a second one, and you still have $80 to spend on a night out. Harsh but fair. I love Nicros holds, they have some of the best shapes on the market, I love their EHT (Extreme Hold Technology) shapes, but this time they fell short of the mark for me, it's a finite board, not infinite.

CHRIS
I was just as excited as Noodles for this hang board to show up. I'm the kinda climber who doesn't do a much training on hang boards and so I wanted to get some good training done on this board. The base of the board is a genius idea but three years to develop...come on. I wanted to give Nicros the benifit of the doubt on this one (cause I really like the concept) but when I checked out the price it changed my mind in an instant. At first I thought that the $159.95 price on the infinite board blog included the one set of holds but after taking a close look at the page I realized that the holds come seperate with the steep price of $119.95. So out of curiosity I checked out some other companies that supply system training holds, now there is a lot to offer on the market and some of the shapes have more diversity than the holds that we received. Did I mention that they were cheaper?

Other than the price, I found that the shapes aren't half bad. The rail didn't dig into my fingers and the pinches are a good width to get your hand around but they work better as ledges. The pockets could be a little bigger if the holds are meant for chin ups or for strengthening your lock off but if they are designed with hanging exercises in mind the pocket should be smaller with different varieties incorporating three, two or one finger on the same hold (like those that you see on the bottom portion of most hang boards). I'd rather see these pockets on a route than a training board. Another point that I disagree on with Noodles are the slopes. If you've been keeping up with our reviews the past few month you'd know that we've both had problems with the tendons in our fingers. Now the perfect half sphere shape of the hold makes your hand sit flush around the hold, with your weight pretty much evenly distributed along the length of your fingers. It was actually a relief to be hanging off of the slopes!

All in all this could be a valuable training tool if you want to train specifics and if Nicros could find a way to lower the cost. You'd have to invest into other system holds (or matching pairs of holds) so it will match your specific training and level of climbing. In my opinion, if you're looking at getting the most for your money I would go with the standard hang board or better yet bolt a bunch of system holds to a piece of plywood and stick it above you door.

PROS

• Modular hangboard, use it as you wish
  
• Three different difficulty's of holds, so pick your level and train what you need
• Good concept
  

CONS

• The price is a big factor, the board and sets of holds are expensive
  
• Not enough variety, you can train slopes, pinches, jugs and rails on all the sets of holds, but you only get one type of each per set

PRICE
The Infinity Board is: $159.95 (board only)
A set of holds are: $119.95, there are three sets easy, medium and hard
The board and holds will be available in October

Review > Three Ball Climbing > Freshly Squeezed

When this was posted:
there was a few comments about it being a novelty hold, so you know what we did? We got Three Ball to send us one over, so we could feel what the fuss was all about, people were straight out of the gate like a bunch of racehorses saying that it was a novelty hold... so we set out to find out. We'll be honest, there are two camps right now over here...

So we have had the hold all over the place... grabbing the lemon, the orange... or just avoiding them all together. It's been on the roof, the overhang and then finally on the vertical wall, always in different routes and as always with various people grabbing onto it wherever it's been placed.

Is it form over function? It's a really strange mix, and a really strange hold, let's face it, it's not everyday you see a hold that's molded from fruit! From the get-go you're going to notice one thing, this hold is dual texture, but the anti dual texture, Three Ball want you to grab the fruit not the base of the hold... the fruit being the dual texture part of the hold and the base being the normal textured part. How Three Ball get you to grab the fruit is pretty simple, they've made the base as useless as possible, if this hold is anywhere near an angle you're going to have a hell of a time avoiding the fruit and using the base.... so we started with the base, and left out the fruit:
















The one place you can grab the base on an overhang is the right hand side as there is a tiny little dimple, and even then it's pretty marginal... so the base on an overhang is not going to be all that good... so far BASE-3 : Us-1, and don't even look at trying to grab the base on a roof, we're daft but not that stupid... it's NEVER going to happen! So we moved the hold to the vertical, set another route and again, skipped the fruit:

















So on a vertical wall you can grab the base, on both sides, we did try the hold up the other way, but the pictures are just as sitting on the floor, it's rubbish to hold on to! So after round one with the base it was: BASE-3 : Us-1, now after the second and final round we end up at: BASE-3 : Us-5. So Three Ball have made a base that is pretty useless, so you WANT to grab the fruit... why would you grab the base anyways? We were just seeing how it felt, and compared to other Three Ball holds they have changed the texture to make it worse than their normal holds, you can see that they've thought about the design of the hold a lot, from the base, all the way through to the fruit. Three Ball went out and used a lesser texture on the base than they do on their normal holds, if they'd used their normal texture it'd be OK to hang as you'd have way more fiction. This does lead us to another point about the base, we think that they should make this hold as a standard design without the fruit, it'd be a great sloper!!

Now we moved to the meat(?) of the hold, the place you're actually meant to grab, the fruit! I have no idea how Three Ball managed to get the texture of the fruit so right, of course they don't give like a normal piece of fruit when you squeeze them, but the texture is pretty well spot on, so it feels like you're grabbing an orange or a lemon... we did have a plan to freeze some fruit and bolt it to the wall for the video, but after a few tests it was just too dangerous... plus I was starting to get frost bite. But if you hold an orange or a lemon in your hand and then grab the hold it's very very close to the real thing, we'll have to leave how it feels to haul on a real orange for someone else to try! If you have this hold on a vertical or even steep overhung terrain it's a complete jug, be it a dual texture jug, but it is a jug none the less. People aren't going to have any trouble climbing on the fruit, feet might be another issue, but even in a pair of sneakers I was rock solid standing on the lemon or the orange... the dual texture is slick, but not a "don't grab this" slick, it's more welcoming.

As per usual, we grabbed the hold and bolted it onto the roof and surprisingly both sides of the hold are really quite positive, despite the fact that the areas that you're grabbing are slick, for the hands they're totally fine, but for the feet... holy jebus, they're hard as hell...








You have to really have to jam your foot onto the hold hard otherwise you foot skips off and you're flying backwards... I did try to toe hook the orange and lemon one time, and it was possibly one of the hardest toe hooks I've ever tried!! It was there, but not really, totally marginal, but on a vertical wall hooking on the orange is easy as pie.

Overall it's a tough hold to gauge, people aren't going to grab the base, they'll go for the fruit and the fruit are positive enough to swing about on once you've got used to the fact that they're dual texture... I'm not sure what people made all the fuss about in the comments when the image of the hold was originally posted. Three Ball have done something different and the hold was touted by the commenter's as being a novelty hold and therefore worthless... some bright spark that will remain nameless (Yes, we know who you are!) responded then that that means So Ill's holds are novelty holds for large part as well then :) This is one of those debates that will go on and on, some people will love them, and others will hate them, that folks is just part and parcel of life!

SUGGESTED USES



Stick it wherever you want as the orange and the lemon are nice round shapes to get your hands all over! Yes they are dual texture, but beginners and kids don't know that the dual texture part is the area you normally avoid, so it's no biggie. If you're being mean and setting the base as the only part of the hold you can grab you're lessening the range of the hold a lot!, you're not going to get much over vertical before it becomes useless. Give the fruit a squeeze, you might be surprised

OVERALL BUILD
Three Ball have done a bloody good job on the hold, the base as we've said above would make a perfectly good hold (hint hint) on it's own, and the orange and lemon texture's are pretty spot on. The hold is hollow backed, so it's not super heavy (mind you it's not light either) the bolt placement and the subsequent screw hole to stop the hold from spinning are well placed.

Despite the fact that the hold is hollow backed it's back it nice and smooth and it sits flush to the wall. The hold color is funky to say the least, I've never seen a blue lemon before, it's a mix of blue and orange and even without the fruit stands out :)

There is one negative, and it's a minor minor point, the end of the lemon when grabbed a certain why does dig into your hand a little bit, I think it's where the fruit was originally attached to the tree that it was grown from. The only time this might happen is if you have this end of the fruit facing up, and being the direct area you want to grab, maybe loosing this part of realism might be a good choice and making it a little smoother... that said we half expected the fruit to rip from the base so we had Seb have a swing about and they're bomber.

WHAT IT'S MADE FROM
All Three Ball holds are made from super sturdy, and expensive poly urethane (I didn't know that PU was three times more expensive than resin)

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
Here we go... this is going to be fun. I think that novelty holds (for want of a better term) have their place! Hold company's make everything from letters, to embedded phones, to teeth, to dinosaurs, so why not some fruit?? Kids need holds to climb on, and this is where it lies in the realm of climbing, kids will WANT to grab this hold as its something that they can recognise in normal life and it might, just might, stop them thinking about the fact that they're 30 odd foot from the floor tied onto a bit of rope! I had a hoot climbing on the hold because it was just weird to start with and then after a while it becomes part of a route and you forget that you're hanging onto fruit and just pull through to the next move. Chris is going to say that it's form over function, and I'm going to say it's function over form as we've proved that it can be used on most (if not all terrain), and that as a hold performs as well as other holds out there on the market. Next time I get with blue holds at the gym this one is going into my bag of tricks and we'll see what people think of it when it's out in the World!

Overall I think that holds a bunch of giggles and as it does perform as a hold rather than an ornament, so I have no problem with it at all, that's why I have lots of holds and no ornaments at home, I will raise the point that the price is a wee bit steep for a hold of this size, but fruit has always been expensive :P

CHRIS
Looks like I need to defend my position. Granted there's a market for novelty holds, its not like we need to simulate the great outdoors on every hold and its a great way to get kids into the sport. Where I think its form over function is the fact that no matter what direction you put the hold the orange is still an orange and still bomber to hold onto, there is no challenge here for experienced climbers. At the gym there was a climb that had a little worm hold on the boulder wall, from time to time they would change the direction of the hold and it would force you to find other ways of grabbing it. Climbing is a learning experience and at least with some other novelty holds it allows you to use your head to get through the sequence. I thought that we could get a little more out of the hold if we tried using the base as a hold and it worked out pretty well but even at that you still want to grab the fruit, they look soooo scrumptious:)

I think people will like the hold for its ascetic value but will take a second look when they see the price. I think that if Three Ball would have made the base smaller (since you want to grab onto the fruit anyways) it would be a bigger bang for your buck.

PROS

• Good for any angle... there is always someplace to grab... namely the fruit
• Great for beginners and kids, it might take their mind off of the fact that they're on a rope above the ground
• When people do see the hold the first time they do ask where it came from, and they do want to touch it
  

CONS

• The price is a little steep for a hold of this size
  
• Some climbers / buyers will be put off by the "novelty" aspect of the hold
• Not go challenging for experienced climbers
  

PRICE
Your vitamin dose will cost you $74.99, it's made from poly urethane

BONUS: FOR STEVE: NO V10's EH?

Steve over at Three Ball said this: "I don't think you'll see it on the crux of any v10....Unless its a huge dyno to or from it. I'd like to see an all points off dyno where you have to catch both the lemonand the orange in order to stay"... well we can't pull V1o's but we did our best... for reference I'm 5'7, and my span (finger tip to finger tip) is 5'7... Chris is 5.7 1/2 (he disputes this) and his span is 5'9 :P

From launch jugs to hold 4'7













From launch jugs to hold 5'3


















Yeah I was happy to hit it, I hit pretty much everything else in the place trying it.. do we have to say that trying this at home is a silly idea?

Review > Metolius > Blue Ribbon's

When we receive holds to review our first thought is usually can they be put on the roof? It normally doesn't matter what size the holds are, from pinches to crimps we always try them on the roof at some point! So it came as a relief when Noodles told me he'd gotten some holds for the roof and that they were the Blue Ribbon mini jugs from Metolius and as an added bonus the Blue Ribbon roof jugs. You all know how it go's now, we climb and go through our process of looking and setting with the holds and then we end up hitting the computer.... these days with videos and whatnot we end up on or near a PC a a lot of the time :)

We received one set of roof jugs (the set includes a pair of holds, Metolius has two other sets in this line) and prices run $21.95 for the set of two and $62.00 for the full set of six. The mini jugs came in a set of five for $34.95, so with these prices you won't have to break the bank to get yourself some bomber holds. Noodles grabbed some Blue Ribbon screw on hand holds way back on the original wall at his other apartment, so they've been on the wall in various formats for a year or so, right now as we're cranking down on enough crimps at the gym we're using them as foot holds, but they're more than big enough for most people to climb on on angles up to 30 degrees, after that they become a little marginal to hang, these guys run at $25.95 for a pack of ten.

Blue Ribbon holds are true to their name as the holds only comes in the one color....blue, just like Henry Ford when he said "you can have the car in any color you want as long as its black" that's what you're getting with these, except they're going to be blue! If you do your research (as Noodles did) you will find out that "Blue Ribbon" is a term used for grading high quality livestock and for items that are deemed of a high quality, and lets face it, Metolius have been making holds for long enough to know what they're doing. You're going to get clean consistent resin shapes that stand up to a hell of a lot of abuse, cleaning, traffic, hand gunk, shoe gunk and god knows what else and they'll always clean up like new! (We find resin holds do clean up a bunch easier than urethane holds, but it depends upon the hold)

All of the holds from this series, have a distinct thumb catch ridge that runs along them so when you're looking through a box of blue holds these are pretty easy to find, and when you climb on them you're going to find yourself using the ridge as a thumb catch when the holds are set at an angle rather than flat horizontal. Like all jugs these holds are best suited for steep terrain, anything will do from an overhang to the roof depending on your climbing ability, we've mainly had the minis and the roof jugs on the roof and steep terrain and this is pretty much where they will continue to dwell unless we take them to the gym and set a 5.6 with them on the beginners wall. I set a short route that started on the overhang and into the roof. I thought it was a good set until this:

If you pay attention at the beginning of the video you can hear me say that Noodles is climbing in his regular shoes and sends it (Ok he fell off once, he did it second try). Conclusion: the holds aren`t small enough to stop Noodles in is regular shoes but for a normal climber of average ability this route and sequence would be a challenge, and that's where we think this set lies in the grand scheme of things... anyone that has a wall and needs some challenging shapes that are skin friendly and durable for climbers that are just starting out and need to gain confidence you should have a look at these! Routes that beginners haul on are going to get mucky, slimy and covered in gunk from normal everyday shoes, and this is what these shapes are for... getting dirty and then cleaning up nicely with a wire brush and some soapy hot water. Don't get us wrong, these holds are for everyone, but we'd point beginners and gyms that needs good shapes in these holds direction first and foremost. But, if you're like us and have been climbing for a long time we'd suggest getting the mini jugs and the screw ons, then you're going to have fun as you can monkey across roofs on the minis and then have some nice challenging tendon friendly screw ons for the harder part of the route!! The minis are there and are good enough if set close enough together to be a jug haul on any angle, but start to spread them out and they start to get very interesting, and as I've found out over the last few months.. not as big as you'd like them to be when I'm pumped out :)

SUGGESTED USES

MINI JUGS AND ROOF JUGS
go ahead and throw a few of the mini jugs into the roof and see if you can get across, for more of a challenge set them further apart, if you can't make the move do what we did and stick in one of the bomber roof jugs, Noodles is campusing across the roof, so they're super big, The roof jugs can only be described as huge, as their name suggests they are best suited for the roof but make for a bomber hold that any climber will feel confident grabbing onto, Seb who hates roof's loves these holds as he feels like he can hang off of them all day, they're some of his favorite holds next to the Huecos

SCREW ONS



When used as hand holds they can be used exclusively on vertical walls for the average climber. I personally would not want to be using these on any kind of overhanging terrain, but we have had them on our old 45 degree wall and they were fine there, you have to be a little careful with setting with them as moving screw ons is a pain, but we had them all over a vertical and overhung wall randomly and they were great to grab onto, not super huge and sometimes not super positive but with careful footwork they are more than doable. These days we have them as feet on the overhanging wall, not because we don't like them but because at the time when we built the wall they were close to hand and we had the drill charged! They are wicked feet as well as handholds, as they're big enough that we can use them in a pair of sneakers or a worn out pair of climbing shoes that have no edges anymore.

OVERALL BUILD
Metolius is one of the original hold makers and it is reflected in their product. The back of the holds are sit flush on the wall and the texture is skin friendly. The largest roof jug has a bolt placement off to one side that's not optimal, on a roof it's fine, one of the corners lifts a little but it's never spun, what could (and probably will happen) is that if you use it on a vertical wall due to the bolt placement it will probably spin on you. The mold for this hold needs a screw hole to stop this problem, or you could put in a self tapping screw to stop this from ever happening. Thankfully if you pre-drill a small hole and then put in the self tapping screw the hold won't explode on you and you've solved the problem

All of the holds have nice flat backs that sit flush to the wall, and other than the hold that's mentioned above, the bolt placements are set so the holds don't spin when tightened properly
The hue of the color isn't all that bright, but they're good enough that you can see them against other manufacturers holds so you don't get muddled on a wall covered in blue holds, the ridge is a dead give away as well :)

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
As per usual I was pretty surprised by the holds, and again by Chris' setting, you'd think that 20+ years would see me looking at the route and going "yeah, my hands go here in this sequence" and yet again I fall off of the roof... I am blaming the torn and not healed finger on this :P
Metolius have a lot of holds out there in the World, and I've always seen them at pretty much every gym I've ever visited, I think that the Blue Ribbons will be being seen sooner rather than later at a lot of places because they are so beginner friendly. If you're more advanced then grab the mini jugs and the screw ons (Metolius should really do a box set of most of their lines) and you're sure to have a ball. I found that the mini jugs are good when you're fresh and not so good when you're pumped, the roof jugs are a "thank god" hold everytime I grab them when i'm tired, they're not all that easy to match upon, but with a little determination it can be done... I'd class the roof jugs as single handed, matchable but you need to work for it! I need to sort out a kick board on the overhanging wall and when this is done the screw ons are going back to where they belong... no longer as foot holds but as hand holds as they were intended, all I need is some wood... as per usual.

CHRIS SAYS
Sneakers (or as Noodles call's them trainers), if we're hauling about on these holds in sneakers then they've got to be good, even when you've got your feet on the roof they're fine, the holds have enough surface area to take any foot. Apart from one hold that I noticed was pulling off of the wall when we climbed on it the holds are fine in every respect, there are no sharp edges, the backs are flat and the bolt placement well thought out. I love the minis as they're a challenge on the roof, the jugs are what I use to spin my body around when I'm coming back into another wall. The entire route was Metolius holds with the starting and ending holds being from one of their other lines which is called the "Power Line" apparently Noodles brought these holds over from the UK when he first came over (He came here with a skydive rig, a suitcase of clothes and climbing holds!!!) so he must of liked those ones. The videos a bit shorter than usual and shows only one of us climbing, I'm repairing the video camera we use as the focus has gone off on us... and guess what? the camera is full of chalk! If you're starting your first wall and need to gain strength without killing your fingers the minis and roofs are good for monkeying about as much as you want, they're great holds to bounce about on.

SEB SAYS
Huecos or the Blue Ribbon roof jugs? It's a hard question to answer! I'm not fond of roofs in anyway shape or form, but when Noodles says he has some new jugs from Metolius (after I got across the roof the first time on the Huecos) I wandered over and see what they're like. I have a particular fondness of anything large and from Met these days and when I'm allowed to move holds around I do grab these holds more often than other holds that are just as big. They're not as big as the Contact holds that i'd not seen as they are HUGE, but if I can haul my self across the roof on these holds then chances are you can aswell. The mini's aren't as good for me as my hands are quite big, but I can see them being good for beginners on most slightly overhung terrain.

I'll see you all, no doubt, on the next Metolius review... Seb out

PROS

• Beginner friendly, soo beginner friendly on vertical or shallow overhanging terrain
  
• They're multi use holds (except the screw ons) strength dependant the minis and roof jugs are great on overhangs and roofs
  
• Skin and tendon friendly design, nothing that will catch your skin
• Price is pretty good
  

CONS

• One of the roof jugs does need a screw added if used on high traffic (Read lots of feet) routes
  
• Color, its a minor gripe, but we wish that Metolius would get some brighter colors
• (This is a pro as well) The holds are super easy on most terrain, so if you want hard problems these aren't necessarily the holds you want for your wall. BUT if you're starting out they're kick ass and will give you a work out
  

PRICE
Roof Jugs: $21.95 for the set of two and $62.00 for the full set of six.
Mini jugs: Set of five for $34.95,
Screw Ons: $25.95 for a pack of ten.

Review > Nicros > Combat

Ah it's been a while, last time we looked at anything from Nicros it was this, their Jug-Or-Not, which is a monster and a staple of our wall. The Combat have been out for a while and we've had our eyes on them as they're dual texture pinches (like the E-Grips 2-Tex Pure Crimps) but bigger and we figured they'd be a good addition to the wall.
The Combats for one bring up certain images of fighting, and this is compounded more by the fact that these holds have little kung-fu images embossed on them... no really! Look at the above image and you can see the little guys on the left of the picture. Although we knew that the little fighters were on the holds they were not all that apparent until you actually climb on the holds and get some chalk onto them, once you've touched the holds the raised image is easier to see :)

I set a route that has some similar moves to what was set way back when on the E-Grips 2-Tex Pure Crimps (Yes they are crimps but I was using them as pinches more than crimps!) you can see that video here, it was an exercise to see how these holds matched up with similar moves and with these holds... and after playing for a few hours it can be simply put that these holds are nice positive pinches that depending upon the way you rotate them can be hauled on my pretty much anyone. Of course there are a few holds in the set that are harder than others but even these are positive, they're just a little thinner than the rest. Once we'd got a feel for the holds we did something that no normal person would try with these holds.... we stuck a few on the roof, making sure ay the same time that we had some nice feet so we could see how they felt when you have to grab them overhead. The video below tells the story better than words :P

The holds are actually on the Nicros site as shallow pinches, but we think that they're not actually that shallow, they're shaped by Nic Oklobzija who i've spoken to a little bit over the last few months and he's been shaping a bunch of stuff of late, including the Infinity Training board (which took three years of R&D) which should hit my doorstep this week sometime!

If you read the Nicros Training page, which is written by the godfather of all that is climbing and training for climbing Eric Horst, you can see the full list of holds that he recommends (here) for indoor training that Nicros make. I found the page after we'd written our suggestions on angle and it's nice to see that we're spot on for what we recommend using the holds on!!

I prefer pinching to say crimping so I like these holds a lot and had a bunch of fun making Chris make noises as we gripped the holds for the video. We've had a bunch of pinches that we've reviewed over time and these are some of the nicest that we've had our hands on. They're good enough for steep walls and some serious training or for setting easy routes for beginners that teaches them body movement. Right now the holds are at Allez Up on a 5.10 that I set last weekend, I'm using them half of the set in their intended format on the first part of the route so the only feet that the climber has is the slick dual texture part, and then on the second part of the route they're set as slopes and crimps. From what I've seen and heard so far people really like the holds, there's been no complaints.

The only thing I can fault Nicros on is the fact that their packing wasn't that good, some of the other holds in the box had moved around in transport and had chipped. It wasn't a case of Fed Ex throwing the parcel around, the box that arrived at my door didn't have a scuff mark or ding on it, it was just a case of loose holds moving and bumping into each other. I spoke to Nicros about the problem and they're sending replacements out, their customer service once again has been faultless!

• Some of the best pinches on the market for training
• They're multi use holds, if you use the holds in a horizontal position they are nice one pad slopes or incuts.
• Skin and tendon friendly design
  

CONS

• (Minor point) Can't see the little fighting guys on the holds, they could be raised a little more
  
• All the holds have a similar design, you know what to expect from one hold to another
• Nicros packing wasn't all that great the first time around
  

PRICE
The Combats are $56.95, and considering you're getting 10 training friendly pinches the price is pretty good.

**Thanks to Brian O'Connor for sorting us out with the holds, he's leaving Nicros on Sept 5th and we wish him all the best in his future endevours, lucky bugger will be living right next to Smith Rock**