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 (

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

Rock Candy Logo

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?