Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Review > Climb It > Silverado Cobbles
I want to see the size of Louis Andersons garden because the shapes from the Sliverado Cobbles come from the rocks in the stream in his backyard-I wonder if there's anything big enough to climb on? The shapes come in all different sizes and the texture is slick, they feel like the smooth stones you would find in a stream. Louis shapes for many different companies and we've given a lot of praise to to other companies for the shapes that have been sculpted from Louis but personally I think these are the best shapes we've ever gotten and I've been wondering when someone will make holds from the real thing, which I suppose these are an instance of!


Out of the box and onto the wall you're going to have trouble hanging onto these holds, a real hard time, but once you get these things caked and I mean CAKED in chalk then you're in a whole world of fun! Yeah Climb It advertises with us, and yes we've done a bunch of reviews for them... but I / we / climbingholdreview will point out one thing about these holds: they're amazing, and that's not because of ads or anything else... it's because they're sick, straight up sick. Well slick... and then sick. As per usual the 45 degree wall got the holds first, there was no way these holds were going anywhere near the roof, there's not enough to hold onto, but on the 45 you can hold, pull and set some good routes. Until this man turned up:
VIDEO
VIDEO END
and as you can see he turned the 2xl the largest of the holds, and the crux of the route upside down... then it became something beyond technical and strength alone, it just became something mental; as you can see!
Once we stopped mucking about and realised that we weren't going to finish that, we set the hold back to normal and let other people have rip at it, most people liked the route, loved the holds but found it hard.. so we changed the route and let people have rip at it. With normal feet it seemed easy enough for most people, so Jacky and Chris started only using a start foothold and then hooking for the rest of the route.
VIDEO
VIDEO END
Overall once you get past the initial slickness of the holds you're going to find shapes are are very real rock in feel and texture, they're quite possibly the best "real rock" shapes out there, normally when a hold is described as being real rock feeling it means sharp edges and something
that's going to be a little brutal on the finger tips, in the Silverado Cobbles case it's nothing but smooth shapes and clinging on in a whole bunch of different manners so you get the send. We've racked our brains to find a place that we've climbed on real rock that is something like these holds, and other than Dan Osman climbing a waterfall (anyone remember that gem) there's no where we can think of.. unless of course you're strapping on a snorkel and then climbing upstream in a river (something we suspect Louie may actually be doing) It's a shame there's not more of these holds, we guess that Climb It were waiting to see what the impact of these shapes were and how well they'd sell, well Louies got a river, so I suspect there will be more of these coming. Natural shapes molded from real rock is always going to be a winner, add the fact that years of water flowing over stone is going to make some smooth shapes means you're going to end up with some comfortable climbing, as long as Captain Stupid doesn't think that an under cling on a smooth hold on a 45 degree overhang is a good idea :P (oh and we're going to reset that problem, it's got to go down at some point!)
Ah were would we suggest you put these? Well to 45 no worries, 60 yeah sure no problem.. it'll be hard but more than doable with some 

screaming; anything more than that is going to be a real test of your foot work and sloper strength. These holds aren't all slopers, most of them are incut and super smooth, there isn't a single sharp edge on them... they were molded from stones from a river, so water running over what was once sharp rock is now smoooooooth!! As a representation of "real rock" these are some of the best shapes out there, setters are going to have a blast making routes that challenge everyone. Noodles set with these last week and we'll have a video and pictures of the route that he set fairly soon, can anyone say mantel or rock-over? Yeah, that's what he set!
And it looks porous, but it's slicker than you think, nice smooth ridges and the only sharp edge is the one that hits the wall. Like I said, hard to explain, but wonderful to hold, consider that these are the stones that the holds were molded from (click on images for super view):

sent the whole line. Its safe to say that there are a wide range of sizes and even when you look at the regular Silverado Cobbles, the set alone has a lot of potential.
We try to be objective in our reviews here at climbingholdreview, but (as with most of Louis shapes), we couldn't help but praise them just a little. After we managed to stop drooling on ourselves, our imagination went wild trying to figure out where to set the holds and decided that it was on to the 45! Now despite their size (most are open hand pinches) we figured that we could turn them up the wrong way and get up with no problem and as you can see from us repeatedly trying to stick the big boy on the 45, we underestimated the sticky factor of the holds. When you get a set of holds you can see the texture that comes from the air pockets from the mix. Air pockets are practically non existent on these holds and the texture is slick. When we set the new problem heel hooks were a breeze and comfortable. There is a problem in Niagra Glen that reminds me of the Cobblestone, it has a perfect heel hook, very comfortable (heel you can even do it in bare feet) and the Cobbles are the same in that your heel just falls into the right place.
Do you like climbing outside? Do you like comfortable holds that you could climb on for hours? Is your answer yes to any of these questions? Then chalk up and get a set of these holds.
EVE
Luv 'em! The color is bright and fun, the texture is simply amazing... it doesn't leave you with the softest skin but it's not painful. You can feel every little rock-like crevice and bump, and its sticky icky icky!!!! :D They come in a nice variety of size too, which means you don't destroy the same muscle or tendon for a whole route. The part that sucks is that I don't have much to say about them except for: try them.....now!!! Lol!
JACKY
Cobbles XL = BIG & SLICK.
It’s nearing the end of winter, and I can’t wait to touch real rock... I've been waiting a long time for a near real rock feeling! They're shaped like a real rock, and feel like a big greasy rock that you can’t trust because it’s hot outside the rock itself is sweating. The holds are big and you can’t use your whole hand on them, which lowers your grip even more. Like that wasn’t enough, Clim-It made them slick! Yeah… there’s some grip, but the surface is mostly smooth, and that’s what reminded me of that good feeling of a huge, hot and sweaty rock. Mixed with the set of standard cobbles, we set-up a nice problem, which was just my style. Old school, heel hook, little over hang and a dynamic final move ...really fun! The standard set is good too. The effect is the same, reproducing the feeling of moist rock. We had a nice presentation and I had a good time with these holds. Since I’m missing some minerals on my fingers, here’s what I think in two lines:



Out of the box and onto the wall you're going to have trouble hanging onto these holds, a real hard time, but once you get these things caked and I mean CAKED in chalk then you're in a whole world of fun! Yeah Climb It advertises with us, and yes we've done a bunch of reviews for them... but I / we / climbingholdreview will point out one thing about these holds: they're amazing, and that's not because of ads or anything else... it's because they're sick, straight up sick. Well slick... and then sick. As per usual the 45 degree wall got the holds first, there was no way these holds were going anywhere near the roof, there's not enough to hold onto, but on the 45 you can hold, pull and set some good routes. Until this man turned up:
VIDEOVIDEO END
and as you can see he turned the 2xl the largest of the holds, and the crux of the route upside down... then it became something beyond technical and strength alone, it just became something mental; as you can see!
Once we stopped mucking about and realised that we weren't going to finish that, we set the hold back to normal and let other people have rip at it, most people liked the route, loved the holds but found it hard.. so we changed the route and let people have rip at it. With normal feet it seemed easy enough for most people, so Jacky and Chris started only using a start foothold and then hooking for the rest of the route.
VIDEO
VIDEO END
Overall once you get past the initial slickness of the holds you're going to find shapes are are very real rock in feel and texture, they're quite possibly the best "real rock" shapes out there, normally when a hold is described as being real rock feeling it means sharp edges and something
Ah were would we suggest you put these? Well to 45 no worries, 60 yeah sure no problem.. it'll be hard but more than doable with some 

screaming; anything more than that is going to be a real test of your foot work and sloper strength. These holds aren't all slopers, most of them are incut and super smooth, there isn't a single sharp edge on them... they were molded from stones from a river, so water running over what was once sharp rock is now smoooooooth!! As a representation of "real rock" these are some of the best shapes out there, setters are going to have a blast making routes that challenge everyone. Noodles set with these last week and we'll have a video and pictures of the route that he set fairly soon, can anyone say mantel or rock-over? Yeah, that's what he set!

sent the whole line. Its safe to say that there are a wide range of sizes and even when you look at the regular Silverado Cobbles, the set alone has a lot of potential.
We try to be objective in our reviews here at climbingholdreview, but (as with most of Louis shapes), we couldn't help but praise them just a little. After we managed to stop drooling on ourselves, our imagination went wild trying to figure out where to set the holds and decided that it was on to the 45! Now despite their size (most are open hand pinches) we figured that we could turn them up the wrong way and get up with no problem and as you can see from us repeatedly trying to stick the big boy on the 45, we underestimated the sticky factor of the holds. When you get a set of holds you can see the texture that comes from the air pockets from the mix. Air pockets are practically non existent on these holds and the texture is slick. When we set the new problem heel hooks were a breeze and comfortable. There is a problem in Niagra Glen that reminds me of the Cobblestone, it has a perfect heel hook, very comfortable (heel you can even do it in bare feet) and the Cobbles are the same in that your heel just falls into the right place.
Do you like climbing outside? Do you like comfortable holds that you could climb on for hours? Is your answer yes to any of these questions? Then chalk up and get a set of these holds.
EVE
Luv 'em! The color is bright and fun, the texture is simply amazing... it doesn't leave you with the softest skin but it's not painful. You can feel every little rock-like crevice and bump, and its sticky icky icky!!!! :D They come in a nice variety of size too, which means you don't destroy the same muscle or tendon for a whole route. The part that sucks is that I don't have much to say about them except for: try them.....now!!! Lol!
JACKY
Cobbles XL = BIG & SLICK.
It’s nearing the end of winter, and I can’t wait to touch real rock... I've been waiting a long time for a near real rock feeling! They're shaped like a real rock, and feel like a big greasy rock that you can’t trust because it’s hot outside the rock itself is sweating. The holds are big and you can’t use your whole hand on them, which lowers your grip even more. Like that wasn’t enough, Clim-It made them slick! Yeah… there’s some grip, but the surface is mostly smooth, and that’s what reminded me of that good feeling of a huge, hot and sweaty rock. Mixed with the set of standard cobbles, we set-up a nice problem, which was just my style. Old school, heel hook, little over hang and a dynamic final move ...really fun! The standard set is good too. The effect is the same, reproducing the feeling of moist rock. We had a nice presentation and I had a good time with these holds. Since I’m missing some minerals on my fingers, here’s what I think in two lines:
- IN: Holds that remind me of real rock
- OUT: Holds reminding me of the gym!
Review > Climb It > Halos
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SUGGESTED USES










OVERALL BUILD
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WHAT THEY'RE MADE FROM
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PACKAGING / SHIPPIN G
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RATING
NOODLES SAYS
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CHRIS
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OVERALL BUILD
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Review > Sequence Climbing > Matter Now
The Matters Now from Sequence Climbing are some of the thinnest shapes out there...ok ...maybe not the thinnest but after failing repeatedly trying to get myself up the 45 degree wall, they feel thinner at every attempt. Noodles had a blast on this one. After his third try at the problem he made the send, and I on the other hand couldn't. So here's one for all those who like to see me fall:And this weeks winner is Noodles by a long shot. At first I had my doubts and thought that maybe it was a fluke but he sent the problem over and over again just to prove to us that it was possible; but seeing Noodles lap the problem didn't make it any easier to clamp down on that hold. The first few times I managed to keep my feet on the wall the hold felt solid until my feet broke off and my hands would slide right off the holds. Now I don't want to make any excuses but the holds are slick, and after a few attempts we needed to brush the holds off. Did this make it any easier? Not the slightest. The trick here is to squeeze the holds with everything you've got. I thought that I could get around that by crimping the top and doing the move static but the holds are flat or slightly incut and when they're on a 45 degree wall and you really need to rely on your pinch strength. My lesson learned: I need more pinch strength.
Remember when I said that these were some of the thinnest shapes out there? That was a bit of an exaggeration and when we handed the pinches off to Seb he set the route with big gaps between the holds. You need to keep in mind that Seb has at least a hand length more than us, we ended up being full stretch on some of the moves and the holds felt much nicer (and bigger) than they were on the 45.
The holds were set up flat on the wall and there won't be any lack of friction, the holds are big enough to get all your fingers on them. We even skipped some of the holds to make the route harder! Lately, to make the easier sequence a little more fun, we've been getting into the habit of rotating holds for the reviews and we did the same for Sebs route. Once again the holds were solid and the problem was sent with ease. Now that this review is done, the holds are going right back onto the overhang.
SUGGESTED USES
Right out of the box we slapped these babies up on the 45. I was confident that it could be sent but my ego took a blow on this one. A 45 degree wall is the steepest I would go and on my second session on the problem I could feel the strain in my fingers. The holds for the most part are flat edged pinches, with the largest of the holds being
slightly incut you can see from the video that Noodles caught the hold and then could hold on and look at the camera without too much trouble.On the complaint side we'd suggest these shapes get a look at on the edges front, they could be a little rounder to stop any finger pain that could occur, and some people will find that the wide pinch grip isn't for them.
OVERALL BUILD
WHAT THEY'RE
Sequence has a new owner, Brock, who we've mentioned before. They also have a new mix, so begone the resin shapes that snapped when you tightened them, begone the heavy shapes, begone that mix (Which we still like btw)... and bring in the new urethane, that feels like resin! Don't know how they did it, but the new mix is great! And it's strong, how strong? Let me let Brock tell you, and then a shotgun show you!
Brock: "Ok, so.. this hold was dropped from 100 feet onto concrete about 5 times, beat to shit with a hammer, driven over by a 3/4 ton Ford repeatedly (we also did two burn outs on top of it), shot with a 12 guage loaded with buckshot twice and it still would not break. There were lots of dents in it and some tire rubber but the hold never actually cracked or shattered. Here's the best video I have, it's us shooting it with the .30-6, which finally put a hole in the hold!"
(The following video maybe disturbing to hold fanatics out there, it does involve firearms and the demise of a hold through use of firearms. Climbingholdreview.com does not recommend the use of firearms in any way, shape of form, for anything. Always practice the best gun safety by not having one)
Now when Mike was running Sequence you were always going to expect some high jinx with your parcels or when the phone rang you may get called my the Police... yup! One time he phoned pretending to be the Police and then one of my parcels was addressed to something like Jeremy "Big Dog" Dowsett, the postman thinks I'm a loon anyways.. now Brock is the CEO what do we get?? SHOTGUNS! I suspect the Mike was involved somehow :) It's good to see and feel Sequence's new mix, now no one can complain about their holds breaking; we're going to look at them side by side fairly soon so we can show you the difference in the holds that you're going to get, so stay tuned.
Overall, I'm impressed. These are pretty old shapes that we'd not seen before and they climb well with the new texture being a treat for the ol'fingers. What I'd have liked to see was someone other than me getting up the route on the 45, we have video of Jacky falling off a whole bunch (It wasn't just Chris) and there are some attempts at the end of a session where I tried it and failed, it happens sometimes :) Giving the holds to Seb to play with was a treat, he wanted a warm up stretchy route, and that's what we got, nice long reaches to the holds as pinches, and then we rotated them by 90 degrees to change it up a little. Both ways the holds were fun; infact I'd go so far to say you could have the same shapes but half the thickness and you'd still be ok with the moves. I like the texture, its there and it's good enough for a 45 (Chris disagree's he thinks it's too slick) without ripping your fingers to shreads and when the holds are on a vertical wall they're just big... on the 30 degree wall again they're huge.... you can hang on them all day and not worry. Sequence is back, they're shooting stuff and putting out new holds, keep an eye out (Especially if Mike is holding the gun!)
Testing these holds raised more questions than answers in my case. But, before let's state the facts before the questions:
-LOOK: Average as they have nothing special, but don't look bad
-TEXTURE: Liked it a lot actually. Don't requite that much chalk and I've still got all my skin
-VERSATILITY: They don't do much, but what they do... they do it well
-ARE THEY FUN:
-PRICE: A little expensive from my point of view
Now the questions: Does a set of holds always need to be combined with other holds in order to see it's full potential? Let's leave the huge features and foot holds out of this discussion. The reason i'm saying this is that I've often seen sets that were self sufficient in the art of creating potential and variety in routes. And when I'm thinking about the Matter Nows all I can see is that they are a great addition to an existing collection. Now don't get me wrong; I am not saying that a set of holds needs to be self sufficient but when I pay $72 (I know I didn't here) I'd like to have that little value on top
My final question: Would I buy them? My answer is iiiccch. I usually REALLY like the Sequence holds but these are a little expensive for what they have to offer me. And the me part
Good for all levels of climbers, depends on angle of wall and sequence - Skin friendly texture (even on the overhang)
- Virtually indestructible
- $72 for five holds is a little steep
- Edges may dig into some peoples fingers (we didn't have a problem)
Monday, February 23, 2009
this one!! Review > Rockwerx > Sandstone Big Ribs
Big pinch or finger jugs, its your choice when it come to the Big Ribs from Rockwex. When Noodles first told me that we were getting holds from them I said "who?" and went onto the computer for a little research. With its head office now residing in Massachusettes, Rockwerx started its humble beginnings in Cort Gariepy's garage in California, the company has grown to involve itself in all streams of indoor climbing. As for their holds you might ask, these ones are BIG with craters in the pockets where you can find and fine tune your hand placement with the options between pinch, finger jug and crimps.



Rockwerx sent us samples from their line and I wasn't around when they arrived so Jacky and Noodles were the first ones to set with them. Once on the wall these holds will stand out for their size and color (they sent us our holds in a deep orange). When I came in and saw the Big Ribs going up the 45, my first impression was that it would be easy enough to get up, but they are more difficult to hold than you expect. The craters in the pockets of the holds make it hard to get a good grip and I didn't feel solid on some of the moves (Noodles accuses me of cheating at the end because of the bump, but I didn't feel like I could lock off on that last hold). The pockets on the holds are shallow and when we flipped them around and used them as finger jugs the craters acted like crimps inside the pocket much like features you'll find on real sandstone. The craters again left me second guessing my placement and praying that my grip would hold. Our next step was to make things interesting by setting a problem with a roof section:
Its obvious when looking at the holds that they are meant to be used as pinches or finger pockets but when I got onto the front face of the box I found that the best grip was to crimp like hell, and then go for the roof moves; the first roof route was easily dispatched, the second route was a different case altogether; to say we spent a lot of time hitting the floor is an understatement, most of the holds are more than OK for roof-pinches except one that is just so hard to hold onto that it's almost impossible to grip :(
After the last review (DRCC Setters Delight which are small and crimpy) I was glad to be climbing on some bigger holds and even though my fingers still feel a little sore, the crimps felt comfortable and personally I would go as far as saying that I felt the most solid with this grip. Since the sequence was sent within minutes of the set we pushed the bar up and put them on the roof. It takes some brute force to prevent yourself from falling and Noodles was convinced that he could hang on two pinches to get his feet around to the other side of the wall, but first we needed to figure out how to get through the first section of the problem. With some classic falls (courtesy of yours truly) Noodles used a hook to get himself across the roof, which meant we had to move some lights to allow him to hit the edge.
So we finally figured out the beta for roof and the holds are deceptive once again. We set a route straight up the box. On a vertical wall we could use the holds as jugs and now that we weren't trying to pinch them the holds are quite comfortable.
So we finally figured out the beta for roof and the holds are deceptive once again. We set a route straight up the box. On a vertical wall we could use the holds as jugs and now that we weren't trying to pinch them the holds are quite comfortable.
All in all, good holds aimed for the more advanced climber but still having great applications for the novice climber if set on vertical terrain or shallow overhangs

Roof anybody? I definitely would not recommend that you put these holds on the roof, but if you're don't mind
falling on your ass (or seeing your friends fall) you'll have fun trying to figure out the beta. Rockwerx doesn't give any recommendations on wall angles on their website and leaves it up to the climbers imagination to find the best place to set the holds. The novice and advanced climbers will find good use of the holds however I find that the unsymmetrical design of the holds lends itself to more experienced climbing. To a novice or beginner climber the holds are finger jugs or pinches, but for experienced climbers and setters you can see all the different sequences that can be made with the holds, the pockets on either side of the holds vary in depth (some of them being near to non existing, the best description would be thumb catches) and you could set some tricky weight shifts if you set the holds up vertically.WHAT THEY'RE
Urethane, it's a pretty dry mix so it does feel like resin.
It was a pretty big box, there were a few scrapes on the holds, but nothing too major. All the holds were wrapped by themselves
RATING
NOODLES SAYS
Now, as some of you may know I'm from the Uk; Essex infact, and that means the only rock that's close to me other than coastal cliffs is sandstone and I've spent a great deal of time hiding in the forest slipping off of sandy holds! With that important segway done and dusted lets look at the Sandstone Big Ribs!
CHRIS
The holds are pretty easy to match in most cases, they're not going to take up huge ammounts of your home walls space and the price isn't all that bad. I'd like a different color, the ones we have are right in the middle for gyms to use near to routes that are similar. We have a huge long route with the other holds we'll review and some of the holds are just plain evil, we're going to split them up soon and see what we can get out of them.
Let's start with the obvious. How do they look? Well good enough to be considered average and above. That is for a guy who would not want his wall to be some form of modern art but rather something that looks and feels like the rock that I'm missing.
How do they feel? Weird, as I first thought that they would rip my skin apart and force me to carry a chalk bag... like I can hold on long enough to justify it :) (Editor: They do suck chalk off of your hands thou!) Anyways bottom line is that I was completely wrong and that they ended up being very comfortable and harmless
Now the best part: testing the route that I have set (read: follow the unpleasant path that I thought would be a cool warm up) Things to know: I didn't use the roof as I don't feel strong enough to play the monkey (I'm more in the fat gorilla range!) and no 45 degree for no particular reason. I am commenting on a traverse that was surprisingly not that bad BECAUSE of these holds. The grip was really good and with a certain degree of complexity which is usually not a default feature to every climbing hold. And what do I think is their best feature, they're amazingly versatile, offering a wide range of fun (for an intermediate - top rope not boulder type of climber)
Would I buy them? Hell yeah for the versatility as they suit a style of climbing that I really like. I would actually consider giving them the editors choice, golden monkey thing... if there was one. Hummm, Noodles!
- Interesting shapes that will challenge beginner and intermediate climbers
- Urethane that feels like resin
- Because of the color we have we can see that once covered with chalk telling the difference between red and orange might be a problem if there are routes of a similar hue nearby
- There are some sharp edges due to the shaping of the holds, but once your fingers hit the grooves you should be fine. Just be warned against huge dynos and deadpoints!
Ten holds will cost you $68
Friday, February 20, 2009
href="http://vimeo.com/3275758">LT11 Presents - Project Holds!
from Jordan Shipman on href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Review > DRCC > Setters Delight
Between running gyms down in Michigan and mixing tracks for our videos, Vince and his brother Nick somehow found time to start up the Detroit Rock Climbing Company. We've done some reviews for these guys in the past and it took them some time to get the buisiness off the ground, but with a little pursuasion on Noodles part we were the first in Canada to get our hands onto some sweet, sweet holds, since their start less than a year ago they've shipped holds all over the World
The holds that we reviewed back in November were the BFD slopers (review here) and this time around we have cirmpy purple edges that they've named the Setters Delight. And here's what the website says about these holds:
"Setters find these holds absolutely D-lightful! These low profile positive omnidirectional crimps make creating and forcing sequences a breeze. If setting is your job than these are an excellent tool to have in you bag! Fit for everything from 5.9s to 5.14s. "
You won't have much to work with when you're climbing on them, making them great for setting those forced sequences, as they suggest.. The area that you're going to grab are pretty flat edges, they're not incut at all, so we set to work to see what we could do with them. We set them on the 45 and we barely got ourselves off the floor, even when we switched the slighly more possitive holds on the start we still couldn't get past the first couple of moves. So one thing about these holds: crimp strength is a must, but you can get a thumb catch on the little lips that are on the holds if you really bear down on them.... we failed on the 45, not managing to get past three moves, the holds just aren't incut enough for us to be able to stick and then move from them :(
We ended up giving the set to Eve in hopes that she would be a little less naive and set a sequence that we could actuallly get around. Despite being on a vertical wall the holds still posed a challenge in that you're never quite sure when you're going to pop off the holds, with a little work we all completed the problem.
After we'd all run a bunch of laps on the holds we gave the holds to Jackie; we've learnt in the past Jackie sets like a loon! Because of the nature of these holds the start of Jackies problem forced us to either bump to the next hold or cross over statically. As you can see from the video, the bump takes acertain amount of commitment and after seeing Noodles fail a few times I figured the best was to cross to the next hold. The move itself requires your crimp strength, balance and the weight shift needs to be just right making these holds a Setters Delight (I couldn't have put it better any other way), Jackie set something that made us all work to get the send, with him being taller and having a longer reach he did have trouble on his own problem (something we always like to see), during the session we were filming but we also had a photographer over taking some pictures for the site, keep you eyes pealed as we'll get these images up as soon as we get them.
Overall the holds are fun to play on, they're not painful and really not suited to steep overhung terrain, but if you're looking for some holds that are flat that are big enough to match on for that crimpy traverse you've been wanting to set we'd suggest these.
SUGGESTED USES
We'd not suggest going past 30 degrees with these holds, if they were a little more incut then you could probably crank the angle up some more.
As the holds are flat, with varying widths for your hands you will find that forcing moves will be very easy, from side pulls to gnarly cross over reaches you can set some really technical routes, the difficulty will be determined by what you want to do. Noodles wanted to work on some fairly low-wide traverses on these holds, Jackie wanted to set a cross and Eve wanted to play with the holds on our box feature. We all set with them and some interesting routes came out of the sessions, as we've had the holds for a while we've had them all over the place, shallow angles are where these holds shine, pitching the strongest climbers we've had over onto the mats as they try to figure out how to balance on the moves and pull through
Overall, the holds aren't sharp, but some people might find the edges even though they are
rounded might dig in a little, but this depends upon how hard you're cranking down on the holds and what angle of attack you approach the holds at. Hitting them at speed is a little trickier than you might expect as you're going to need to be exact on where you hit them, otherwise you're coming off the wall backwards, you can see Noodles and Jackie getting spat off as they try to deadpoint one of the larger holds from the set when it was on the 30 degree wall.
We had the most fun on these holds on the 30 degree and vertical walls, but don't count these holds out for thin undercuts, they work well and you can really force a climber to have to lock onto the hold and then work their way up to the next hold. If pretty thin is your game, then the Setters Delight will fit nicely into you arsenal
OVERALL BUILD
Cranberry? Is that the color? Dark dark purple in most peoples minds for these, I'm not sure we've seen something of this color ever before! The rubber backing is great on these holds, you know that they're not going to spin on you anytime soon, the bolt placements are centred, backs are flat and we've had no problems with them at all . We'd like them to be a little more incut so we could get them onto the 45 degree wall, but that's just personal preference, and lets face it if they were more incut they'd be way easier to haul about on. As the hold area you're grabbing is flat cleaning them is easy a s hell because you don't need to get into any knooks and crannys with a brush, just give them a rub and the texture comes right back, and speaking of which, the texture on these is enough so that you can grip and be confident with what you're doing, but not so harsh as you're going to get skin burn! It's a nice inbetweener of grip and skin saving
Each hold has a screw placement incase you don't get the rubber backs (which we recommend you do) so you can stop the holds from spinning, it's a pain in the ass to have to unscrew a hold and then take out the bolt when you're setting, so the backs make our lives much easier; sure it's a little more expensive to have it, but in the long term you'll thank yourself for gettin g it!
The little DRCC logo on the holds is a nice touch, and as it's quite a intricate design it come out really well... it's all in the details
WHAT THEY'RE MADE FROM
Urethane people, urethane... it's pretty solid stuff as well. They have their mix down as they get some really nice colors on their holds
PACKAGING / SHIPPIN G
No problems, indiviually wrapped holds in a bag. Nothing bad happened on their trip from Detroit.. except the import / tax fees :)
RATING
NOODLES SAYS

Most hold companys a year in are still producing so so shapes and are perfecting their mix, the DRCC are a different breed of hold companys that are starting up these days. Vince and Nick took the time to have a pretty big mix of holds and get all of the molds / mixes down before they even opened their door s to the hold buying public, it means they were serious about hitting the ground running, and from what we've seen that's what they've done. How Vince manages a gym, mixes tracks and ships orders (and has a family) is no small wonder.
Bigger is better, so they say, these holds aren't going to take much space on your home wall, but are going to be something that you're going to move about a whole bunch. Sometimes its hard to set something and have people climb it the way you really want them to, with these holds there's really no cheating, you can match them sure, but if you're somewhere near your full reach you're going to be holding on for dear life as you try to shuffle your feet across the wall so you can move to the next holds. Rubber backing is something I've always seen as surplus to holds, chuck a screw in and you're golden, but with these holds despite having a screw hole in them just don't need them, the rubber backs stick really well to the wall and we've never had a hold spin on us yet.
If these holds were slightly more incut then you could get them onto steeper walls, and it's something we'd suggest the DRCC look at, same style shapes, same sizes just a little more incut so that they compliment these holds, not deeper, just slightly more incut so you can crimp and then pull without fear of smacking yourself in the face (Something I did a few times on the 45) To say these holds will stand out on the wall is interesting, they will, not because of the shapes per say, but because of the particular color that we have, even when covered in chalk the color comes through; matching this color to your existing holds will be a pain as I've not seen any holds in this deep a purple.
It's been noted before that i'm not a fan of crimping, but (depending upon the route / hold placement) I was able to get under these holds and hold them open handed alot of the time, you're only getting a pad of your fingers onto them in most cases but I found this enough to be able to move about without worrying about flying off of the wall.. these holds for me would be classed as edges or crimps, erring on the edges as they're flat, but if you watch Chris climb on them he crimps down on the them. These holds are up there with some other small holds we have (Teknik: Flaps and Contact: Hex / Rex) for small hold fun, I've never been a fan of the small stuff, but I'm coming around to the idea of playing on the smaller stuff more :)
CHRIS
The shapes comming out of DRCC are unique to say the least. I find 
that any of the shapes tha t they've sent us could be named "Setters Delight " being slopers or crimps. They're low profile and won't stand out on a wall but the compensation comes in the colour, dark purple. You could still see the colour through a few layers of chalk. I'd like to point out that there is a lip on the hold that I imagine is there so you can try to pinch the hold, and the key word here is try. I attempted this and found that the holds are best when you just apply all your weight on the hold. On this note the holds give your arms a good workout. Eve and Noodles found that the edges bite and are a little painful to climb on but I didn't have an issue with that (then again, I like crimps so I may not be the best person to comment on the subject). So if you want to improve your crimp strength or just like pulling with all your might on the tips of your fingers, look no further, the Setters Delight are for you.
EVE
Setters Delight....sounds to me like climbers hell! But although these holds will leave you panting they are not that bad! They are crimps and I found myself having to tape because they eventually hurt my fingers, I'm glad we didn't have more, a longer route might have been painful. They are fairly soft on the skin though, the corners are nicely rounded and the color is bright and very noticeable on a wall. I set with them and they are fun because you can make climbers do funky moves with these, although rotating them might not be the most practical thing ever! I don't think beginners would appreciate these holds....unless you're the one setting ;) Setters Delight allows one to push their crimping and weight shifting ability to the limit, no matter your skill and therefore can quickly leave you on the mats. I will definitely get on them again....didn't finish Jacky's route and I can't let him have that!
EVE
At first sight I didn't find that I was particularly attracted to these holds, I'd seen them on the wall two weeks before (Strange as they've been on the wall for 3 months!: Noodles) but I'd never tried them, almost because they look tiny and I wasn't sure where I wanted to hold onto them
That was just me not going near them, this week I had no choice to to climb on them as Noodles / Eve and Chris were all going to set routes that we were all going to climb.
The traverse that Eve set was kind of a warm up... and I was surprised by the holds and the fact that they're easy to stick onto, but due to the shapes they all look and feel pretty similar! But if they're on a slight overhang or vertical wall they feel bigger than they actually are.
When we had these on the 45 wall over the holidays I don't remember anyone actually getting anywhere near the route, maybe just a couple of moves and that was it. When I set on the 30 degree wall we found the true potential / limit of the holds as we started falling off becuase of the movements involved, some of the holds are big enough to match, some aren't. The route was getting hit quite a lot so the starting holds and the hold you see Noodles trying to hit were getting really chalky and slick, but with a quick brush they came back to being nice to hold again.
I'm wondering after climbing on them if I'd recommend them for gym use, home walls; sure. I think they'll be good for competition climbing and if you really want to work on hanging flat edges. Noodles is going to move the holds around some more for me so I can play with them, as I'm really undecided upon this point!
PROS
8 holds will cost $54.99
The holds that we reviewed back in November were the BFD slopers (review here) and this time around we have cirmpy purple edges that they've named the Setters Delight. And here's what the website says about these holds:"Setters find these holds absolutely D-lightful! These low profile positive omnidirectional crimps make creating and forcing sequences a breeze. If setting is your job than these are an excellent tool to have in you bag! Fit for everything from 5.9s to 5.14s. "
You won't have much to work with when you're climbing on them, making them great for setting those forced sequences, as they suggest.. The area that you're going to grab are pretty flat edges, they're not incut at all, so we set to work to see what we could do with them. We set them on the 45 and we barely got ourselves off the floor, even when we switched the slighly more possitive holds on the start we still couldn't get past the first couple of moves. So one thing about these holds: crimp strength is a must, but you can get a thumb catch on the little lips that are on the holds if you really bear down on them.... we failed on the 45, not managing to get past three moves, the holds just aren't incut enough for us to be able to stick and then move from them :(We ended up giving the set to Eve in hopes that she would be a little less naive and set a sequence that we could actuallly get around. Despite being on a vertical wall the holds still posed a challenge in that you're never quite sure when you're going to pop off the holds, with a little work we all completed the problem.
After we'd all run a bunch of laps on the holds we gave the holds to Jackie; we've learnt in the past Jackie sets like a loon! Because of the nature of these holds the start of Jackies problem forced us to either bump to the next hold or cross over statically. As you can see from the video, the bump takes acertain amount of commitment and after seeing Noodles fail a few times I figured the best was to cross to the next hold. The move itself requires your crimp strength, balance and the weight shift needs to be just right making these holds a Setters Delight (I couldn't have put it better any other way), Jackie set something that made us all work to get the send, with him being taller and having a longer reach he did have trouble on his own problem (something we always like to see), during the session we were filming but we also had a photographer over taking some pictures for the site, keep you eyes pealed as we'll get these images up as soon as we get them.Overall the holds are fun to play on, they're not painful and really not suited to steep overhung terrain, but if you're looking for some holds that are flat that are big enough to match on for that crimpy traverse you've been wanting to set we'd suggest these.
We'd not suggest going past 30 degrees with these holds, if they were a little more incut then you could probably crank the angle up some more.
As the holds are flat, with varying widths for your hands you will find that forcing moves will be very easy, from side pulls to gnarly cross over reaches you can set some really technical routes, the difficulty will be determined by what you want to do. Noodles wanted to work on some fairly low-wide traverses on these holds, Jackie wanted to set a cross and Eve wanted to play with the holds on our box feature. We all set with them and some interesting routes came out of the sessions, as we've had the holds for a while we've had them all over the place, shallow angles are where these holds shine, pitching the strongest climbers we've had over onto the mats as they try to figure out how to balance on the moves and pull throughOverall, the holds aren't sharp, but some people might find the edges even though they are
rounded might dig in a little, but this depends upon how hard you're cranking down on the holds and what angle of attack you approach the holds at. Hitting them at speed is a little trickier than you might expect as you're going to need to be exact on where you hit them, otherwise you're coming off the wall backwards, you can see Noodles and Jackie getting spat off as they try to deadpoint one of the larger holds from the set when it was on the 30 degree wall.We had the most fun on these holds on the 30 degree and vertical walls, but don't count these holds out for thin undercuts, they work well and you can really force a climber to have to lock onto the hold and then work their way up to the next hold. If pretty thin is your game, then the Setters Delight will fit nicely into you arsenal
OVERALL BUILD
Each hold has a screw placement incase you don't get the rubber backs (which we recommend you do) so you can stop the holds from spinning, it's a pain in the ass to have to unscrew a hold and then take out the bolt when you're setting, so the backs make our lives much easier; sure it's a little more expensive to have it, but in the long term you'll thank yourself for gettin
The little DRCC logo on the holds is a nice touch, and as it's quite a intricate design it come out really well... it's all in the details
Urethane people, urethane... it's pretty solid stuff as well. They have their mix down as they get some really nice colors on their holds
No problems, indiviually wrapped holds in a bag. Nothing bad happened on their trip from Detroit.. except the import / tax fees :)
NOODLES SAYS

Bigger is better, so they say, these holds aren't going to take much space on your home wall, but are going to be something that you're going to move about a whole bunch. Sometimes its hard to set something and have people climb it the way you really want them to, with these holds there's really no cheating, you can match them sure, but if you're somewhere near your full reach you're going to be holding on for dear life as you try to shuffle your feet across the wall so
If these holds were slightly more incut then you could get them onto steeper walls, and it's something we'd suggest the DRCC look at, same style shapes, same sizes just a little more incut so that they compliment these holds, not deeper, just slightly more incut so you can crimp and then pull without fear of smacking yourself in the face (Something I did a few times on the 45) To say these holds will stand out on the wall is interesting, they will, not because of the shapes per say, but because of the particular color that we have, even when covered in chalk the color comes through; matching this color to your existing holds will be a pain as I've not seen any holds in this deep a purple.
It's been noted before that i'm not a fan of crimping, but (depending upon the route / hold placement) I was able to get under these holds and hold them open handed alot of the time, you're only getting a pad of your fingers onto them in most cases but I found this enough to be able to move about without worrying about flying off of the wall.. these holds for me would be classed as edges or crimps, erring on the edges as they're flat, but if you watch Chris climb on them he crimps down on the them. These holds are up there with some other small holds we have (Teknik: Flaps and Contact: Hex / Rex) for small hold fun, I've never been a fan of the small stuff, but I'm coming around to the idea of playing on the smaller stuff more :)

Setters Delight....sounds to me like climbers hell! But although these holds will leave you panting they are not that bad! They are crimps and I found myself having to tape because they eventually hurt my fingers, I'm glad we didn't have more, a longer route might have been painful. They are fairly soft on the skin though, the corners are nicely rounded and the color is bright and very noticeable on a wall. I set with them and they are fun because you can make climbers do funky moves with these, although rotating them might not be the most practical thing ever! I don't think beginners would appreciate these holds....unless you're the one setting ;) Setters Delight allows one to push their crimping and weight shifting ability to the limit, no matter your skill and therefore can quickly leave you on the mats. I will definitely get on them again....didn't finish Jacky's route and I can't let him have that!
EVE
At first sight I didn't find that I was particularly attracted to these holds, I'd seen them on the wall two weeks before (Strange as they've been on the wall for 3 months!: Noodles) but I'd never tried them, almost because they look tiny and I wasn't sure where I wanted to hold onto them
That was just me not going near them, this week I had no choice to to climb on them as Noodles / Eve and Chris were all going to set routes that we were all going to climb.
The traverse that Eve set was kind of a warm up... and I was surprised by the holds and the fact that they're easy to stick onto, but due to the shapes they all look and feel pretty similar! But if they're on a slight overhang or vertical wall they feel bigger than they actually are.
When we had these on the 45 wall over the holidays I don't remember anyone actually getting anywhere near the route, maybe just a couple of moves and that was it. When I set on the 30 degree wall we found the true potential / limit of the holds as we started falling off becuase of the movements involved, some of the holds are big enough to match, some aren't. The route was getting hit quite a lot so the starting holds and the hold you see Noodles trying to hit were getting really chalky and slick, but with a quick brush they came back to being nice to hold again.
I'm wondering after climbing on them if I'd recommend them for gym use, home walls; sure. I think they'll be good for competition climbing and if you really want to work on hanging flat edges. Noodles is going to move the holds around some more for me so I can play with them, as I'm really undecided upon this point!
- Color, color, color... it's unique
- Order the rubber backing, you'll not regret it
- Fairly limited use, angle wise... but these holds are great for forcing a move
- Despite the varying depth you're always gripping the hold the same way
8 holds will cost $54.99
Thursday, February 12, 2009
ent prs-medium imperfect cobbles
Entre Prises is a company founded in France and made their debut making the first resin holds on the commercially marketed holds waaaay back in 1983. They quickly moved onto buiding modular walls and have since been building, inovating and being on the forefront of climbing wall projects.

What best describes the Imperfect Cobbles are doorknobs with a huge chip on their shoulder, so huge that they leave holes in your fingers. The chips on the holds give each hold a different feel with some being slopey while others have more of an edge on them.
So we were under the impression that the chipped side side (when we say chipped we mean the flatter in built imperfect side) would be the best way of grabbing onto the holds. So to the wall to test our theory! Our first problem was set on the 30 degree wall with the chips side up. Although Seb and Eve needed a few attempts to get around the climb, we found that we were able to get the send with less effort than expectected. In order to test our theory and complete this experiment we kept the route as is and we flipped all the holds 180 degrees and the conclusion is they're better the wrong way up. There are two reasons for this: 1: The real rock texture is rough and it hurts, 2: the rest of the hold make awesome pinches. With the chipped side facing up like we originally set it forces you to use that part of the hold for your grip and doesn't leave much room for error. Some of the holds have a negative angle and it makes it tricky to bear your weight on them without falling off. When we put them up the other way it was much easier to hang on and figure out what foot holds to use.
The chipped side on the holds are made with a different texture then the rest of the hold and are quite sharp. Noodles pointed out that his fingers burned after the session but despite a little redness my fingers didn't burn, the holds have a more airated look and feel than most resin holds we've come across. The next day was a different story, in the morning my fingers were feeling the burn from the holds, the texture of the chips have little ridges in on them like you would find on real rock and like real rock if you're repeatetly falling of holds your fingers will feel the pain.
SUGGESTED USES
Now our suggested uses and what the Entreprise website say are a little different on the angles... we'd have a go on these (and we did) upto
and
including 45 degrees... the symbol on the left is what they suggest, if you hover your cursor over the symbol you can read this "Most difficult on overhang wall. Fine-tuned for expert routes and boulder problems. Recommended for training, cruxes and comp routes"... we agree with the boulder problems, training... well they're a little rough (Entre Prise went for a real rock feel) but your skin won't get completely beat up (The digits will hurt thou) and of course cruxes and comp routes; what we disagree with is the angle, 105 to 135 is some seriously steep terrain and unless you can do one are pull ups whilst pinching you're going to be out of luck.
Ro tate the holds depends on what you get, becuase of the imbuilt imperfect sides you can have a flat edge, or turn the hold 180 you'll have a slope / pinch to grab onto!!
OVERALL BUILD

Red is red people... I think these would look crazy in black as the pourous nature of the holds would show through the layers of chalk. Backs are flat, and one hold has a chip in the side, but we're unsure if that was meant to be there or not! Bolt placements are nice and square.. for a first line of urethane holds we're impressed, but we've also seen better mixes and shapes that have more imagination come from some home grown / garage companys, bear in mind Entre Prise has a full line of resin holds with better shapes... hopefully their entire poly line will be avaliable soon
WHAT THEY'RE MADE FROM
Entre Prise has moved away from its concrete resin mix to a new urethane mix. They also manufacture holds with a polyester mix' the Cobbbles come from the urethane line of holds.
PACKAGING / SHIPPIN G
Bomber, couldn't ask for better packing. No chips no burrs and the box was in one piece...
RATING
NOODLES SAYS
Let me continue where I left off on the first sets of Entre Prise holds we reviewed the Jug'r Nots and the Patinas... well we let someone come over and dig through the hold boxes and she pulled these holds out, apart from a few holds the main ones are Entre Prise's... two weeks of work you get a video of me on a route thats about V6 we think... (low res sorry )
I still find the holds and shapes sharp, my finger is a little tweaked from the long horizontal chuck, and then the throw to the pinch... but that's life I suppose. I wish some of the holds were a little nicer.. and this leads me nicely into the Imperfect Cobbles!! (See what I did there??)
The Cobbles because of their shaping are much nicer to grip onto, even the imperfect area that does make your skin burn. What's inportant to remember is that Entre Prise went for a real rock like texture, this is cool, but wether this is a good thing for home wall training is upto you and your skin to decide. Like I said these shapes are nicer to hold onto there's no real surprises that are awaiting you, except for one hold that has a way slopier top than the others (The one Eve fell off of at the start of the video) Due to the radii I've been finding these holds pretty pleasant to hold onto, even the chipped side isn't that bad... the diffence is the shape compared the the first holds we reviewed. Real rock shapes are great when you're on real rock.. in a gym or on a home wall it also has a place; but long sessions on rough holds aren't going to happen.
I've had Entre Prise holds for a looooong time, I still have most of their line back at home in the UK from when I got them about ten years ago, the resin shapes are still going strong and are good shapes... I'd like to see their full line in urethane; thus far I've been impressed by the mix that Entre Prise as it will stand up to a bunch of abuse, there's been no manufacturing problems and shipping and service has been great. I'd like to see smoother shapes from them, sharp edges aren't fun to hang onto, coupled with the texture, just makes me want to hang onto them when I have to.... the Cobbles are the best we've seen so far, nice to hold, no really bad areas that are going to dig into your fingers and they're multi purpose, I think that Entre Prise have something more to give; their resin holds are great... the urethane overall for me thus far is so so.
CHRIS
Entre Prise uses the description "fine tuned for expert routes" which is fitting although I found that they had a use for the novice climber or for warm up routs on a vertical wall, maybe because of the texture. We've had holds similar to these on the 45 and the texture burns making them less than desirable for training, these holds are best suited for short hard sequences like cruxes and considering our routes were five moves long we were able to get a lot out of them. We had a good session setting then rotating holds to see the different way of grippping the holds and we actually found a place for them on the underside of the box. Even when we set the down low I could find a way to hold on to them
I wouldn't recomend these holds on a 45.... 105 - 135 that's just crazy. The overhang was the only place we didn't set the holds (Edit: Noodles did put them on the 45 with Jacky and we found bearing our weight on the holds was doable, but you got a real skin burn) Entre Prise suggests the angles as steep as our wall and it proves again the holds are designed with the experienced climber in mind. I still think the holds can be used for any home wall or gym, m y only beef is the texture, it could be much nicer... real rock is outdoors, not in!
EVE
Entre Prise's "Imperfect Cobbles" might not be perfect but they're certainly not bad in my opinion. The texture is amazing, it sticks like velcro and yet it's not to rough on the hands. They seem to be meant to be set in a given direction though, they all have one smooth round side and one side that seems to have been cut off with a rusty knive...that's the side that's gold and when they're set with the slopey side up, gravity just ain't your friend no more, these holds certainly remind you what your finger strength is like these days.
In other words, the same route can vary in difficulty just by turning the holds around which is a nice asset! Color? Well red is red now ain't it! Also, I didn't play on the 45 with these and I'm thankfull. Personally, I'd put them on a route between crux's. The Cobbles can be nice if you can put your whole weight on them, they could be used as a nice break although they can be a pain in the....wrist! ;)
PROS
The Imperfect Cobbles are $46.50 for five holds

What best describes the Imperfect Cobbles are doorknobs with a huge chip on their shoulder, so huge that they leave holes in your fingers. The chips on the holds give each hold a different feel with some being slopey while others have more of an edge on them.
So we were under the impression that the chipped side side (when we say chipped we mean the flatter in built imperfect side) would be the best way of grabbing onto the holds. So to the wall to test our theory! Our first problem was set on the 30 degree wall with the chips side up. Although Seb and Eve needed a few attempts to get around the climb, we found that we were able to get the send with less effort than expectected. In order to test our theory and complete this experiment we kept the route as is and we flipped all the holds 180 degrees and the conclusion is they're better the wrong way up. There are two reasons for this: 1: The real rock texture is rough and it hurts, 2: the rest of the hold make awesome pinches. With the chipped side facing up like we originally set it forces you to use that part of the hold for your grip and doesn't leave much room for error. Some of the holds have a negative angle and it makes it tricky to bear your weight on them without falling off. When we put them up the other way it was much easier to hang on and figure out what foot holds to use.The chipped side on the holds are made with a different texture then the rest of the hold and are quite sharp. Noodles pointed out that his fingers burned after the session but despite a little redness my fingers didn't burn, the holds have a more airated look and feel than most resin holds we've come across. The next day was a different story, in the morning my fingers were feeling the burn from the holds, the texture of the chips have little ridges in on them like you would find on real rock and like real rock if you're repeatetly falling of holds your fingers will feel the pain.
Now our suggested uses and what the Entreprise website say are a little different on the angles... we'd have a go on these (and we did) upto
andincluding 45 degrees... the symbol on the left is what they suggest, if you hover your cursor over the symbol you can read this "Most difficult on overhang wall. Fine-tuned for expert routes and boulder problems. Recommended for training, cruxes and comp routes"... we agree with the boulder problems, training... well they're a little rough (Entre Prise went for a real rock feel) but your skin won't get completely beat up (The digits will hurt thou) and of course cruxes and comp routes; what we disagree with is the angle, 105 to 135 is some seriously steep terrain and unless you can do one are pull ups whilst pinching you're going to be out of luck.
Ro

WHAT THEY'RE
Entre Prise has moved away from its concrete resin mix to a new urethane mix. They also manufacture holds with a polyester mix' the Cobbbles come from the urethane line of holds.
Bomber, couldn't ask for better packing. No chips no burrs and the box was in one piece...
RATING
NOODLES SAYS
I still find the holds and shapes sharp, my finger is a little tweaked from the long horizontal chuck, and then the throw to the pinch... but that's life I suppose. I wish some of the holds were a little nicer.. and this leads me nicely into the Imperfect Cobbles!! (See what I did there??)
The Cobbles because of their shaping are much nicer to grip onto, even the imperfect area that does make your skin burn. What's inportant to remember is that Entre Prise went for a real rock like texture, this is cool, but wether this is a good thing for home wall training is upto you and your skin to decide. Like I said these shapes are nicer to hold onto there's no real surprises that are awaiting you, except for one hold that has a way slopier top than the others (The one Eve fell off of at the start of the video) Due to the radii I've been finding these holds pretty pleasant to hold onto, even the chipped side isn't that bad... the diffence is the shape compared the the first holds we reviewed. Real rock shapes are great when you're on real rock.. in a gym or on a home wall it also has a place; but long sessions on rough holds aren't going to happen.
I've had Entre Prise holds for a looooong time, I still have most of their line back at home in the UK from when I got them about ten years ago, the resin shapes are still going strong and are good shapes... I'd like to see their full line in urethane; thus far I've been impressed by the mix that Entre Prise as it will stand up to a bunch of abuse, there's been no manufacturing problems and shipping and service has been great. I'd like to see smoother shapes from them, sharp edges aren't fun to hang onto, coupled with the texture, just makes me want to hang onto them when I have to.... the Cobbles are the best we've seen so far, nice to hold, no really bad areas that are going to dig into your fingers and they're multi purpose, I think that Entre Prise have something more to give; their resin holds are great... the urethane overall for me thus far is so so.
CHRIS
I wouldn't recomend these holds on a 45.... 105 - 135 that's just crazy. The overhang was the only place we didn't set the holds (Edit: Noodles did put them on the 45 with Jacky and we found bearing our weight on the holds was doable, but you got a real skin burn) Entre Prise suggests the angles as steep as our wall and it proves again the holds are designed with the experienced climber in mind. I still think the holds can be used for any home wall or gym, m
Entre Prise's "Imperfect Cobbles" might not be perfect but they're certainly not bad in my opinion. The texture is amazing, it sticks like velcro and yet it's not to rough on the hands. They seem to be meant to be set in a given direction though, they all have one smooth round side and one side that seems to have been cut off with a rusty knive...that's the side that's gold and when they're set with the slopey side up, gravity just ain't your friend no more, these holds certainly remind you what your finger strength is like these days.
In other words, the same route can vary in difficulty just by turning the holds around which is a nice asset! Color? Well red is red now ain't it! Also, I didn't play on the 45 with these and I'm thankfull. Personally, I'd put them on a route between crux's. The Cobbles can be nice if you can put your whole weight on them, they could be used as a nice break although they can be a pain in the....wrist! ;)
- Multi purpose, spin the holds 180 or even 90 and they're different
- Texture on shapes is nice compared to the other shapes we've tested it's not so harsh
- Real rock texture could leave your skin sore
- Super steep terrain is out, unless you're super strong
- Entre Prise suggest that these holds can be used on steep (105 to 135 degrees) but we disagree, 45 is the most we'd suggest using these holds on
The Imperfect Cobbles are $46.50 for five holds
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