[SA Chris]

"Change your life forever, swear to god"

Oh yeah, and the Irish crew, at Teahupoo.



With some great Xavier Le Rue footage too. And Burial. I'm really not into their music but you have to respect their ethos.

Sorry for highjacking your blogstream Nibile!

[Falling Down]

Burial? Gallows... ?? Bit different 

[SA Chris]

D'oh. Thought it sounded wrong when I wrote it! Something to do with dying anyway.

[comPiler]

DOLOMITES' BITES
23 September 2013, 1:54 pm

The rock bites the heavy climber.

The heavy climber eats Kaiserschmarrn.

The heavy climber sees this landscape and he's happy.

The heavy climber is glad he doesn't have to climb that mountain.

The heavy climber gets heavier with eggs, speck and potatoes. They go in the biceps surely.

Basically, I didn't do much in the last weekend, apart what the captions describe. The last time I'd seen those mountains was two years ago, and my life was completely different. I was about to leave Florence for Siena, to get back to my house, and to start commuting to work. This went on for two years, and is now over. I don't want to commute anymore, and luckily with the law practice going on and some other stuff, I can say a big "Fuck you" to the buses. My climbing was completely different also. I was a singleminded, obsessed punter with delusions of grandeur, who was easliy capable of going to Swiss for a basically one day round trip, or of going and putting laps on roofs with 37° in a Mediterran Summer. I was living mostly in isolation. Well, when I read back many of the posts here, I am ashamed by the amount of shit I've written in the past. The ego, the hypocrisy, the self-reference. But, I can see a thin line going through all this: I never never forgot that the only true joy is in sharing. Sharing everything. This weekend, as the last previous one in the Dolomites, was about sharing. Sharing the coffee that I usually drink on my own; sharing the boulders; sharing the thoughts; sharing the drive, the beer, the eggs. Sharing, sharing all. Spending hours with my friends trying to climb their first 6a. Then asking them to wait for me for a last go on something too hard. Then thanking them for their patience. A lot of time ago, I had a project. I climbed it in any possible condition, and despite reaching the final hold, I never toped it out. I think I've climbed it. I feel I've climbed it. My sponsors wouldn't be happy to hear about my indulgence towards myself, but given that I have no sponsors, it's all right. Why is it all right? First, because I say so. I climb for myself only, I am free at last, and if I feel that I've done something, I don't need to top out if I don't want to. Second, because when I first touched that final hold, I wasn't alone. I was with Andrea, my best friend, my brother and my climbing mentor. We were there, climbing together for the first time in years, and it seemed as if time had gone back to when we were in our 20's. It's not a coincidence that I climbed at my best that day. I was pushed forward by Andrea's presence, by the infinite power of brotherhood. Sharing. That's why, for me, I climbed the problem that day. Because I was with him and nothing can beat this, not even toping out on my own. There are moments that are uniques in our lives, and that was one of those: I eventually did my best effort on the project and that's enough. So, while I keep adding kilos to my deadhangs, and while my grades on real rock drop at a lightning fast rate, I say: share.  

Source: TOTOLORE

[finbarrr]

 

   (okay, so the description to that emoticon is "hug", but visually it seems appropriate)

[comPiler]

WOOD, PLASTIC AND PAPER
6 November 2013, 12:28 pm

Can one live just on caffeine? Yes.

As long as I'm climbing with friends, even these conditions are fine.

 



Are just five pairs of toe-downs enough? No. The Hornets make me feel super pr0n.      

Wood, plastic and paper are the current media on which my life revolvs at the moment. Wood, in the best form that wood can assume: a Beastmaker. Plastic, holds on my board. Paper: the amount of documents I'm writing and books I'm reading. This last months have been dedicated to improve both my brain and my climbing, and - the jury still being out on the first subject - the second aspect has improved indeed. First of all, I decided to get back to basics, and to dust off the mighty incut rung of my BM: set after set I managed to deadhang it with 14 kilos with right hand, and with 9 with left hand. I also managed to hang it back3 for both arms. I finally deadhung the monos with my pinkies - obviously with both arms in this case - very briefly, but still it's a progress. Anyway it was a friend's Beastmaker so it doesn't count until I do it on mine. Yay. Plastic. Plastic and rock are (very) different. I'm trying to build up some power endurance to climb the route of my life, so my board sessions are divided into power sessions, power endurance ones, and tests on a 30 moves circuit on my board. Funny. The power endurance and the tests make me literally sick. Rock is another thing. A three dimensional thing. I have been out bouldering a couple of times as of late, and despite feeling OK, if only a bit tired (I'm seven weeks into my training cycle now), climbing on rock involves a lot more than bearing down on a two directional scheme. D'oh.The real joy of climbing on rock is wearing some cool rock shoes.  Anyway the training is paying off, last Sunday I managed to repeat a couple of problems without getting pumped. Then, Adam Ondra. He went to Uni, and entered a competition, which incidentally wasn't the local Alpine Club gathering, but a Lead World Cup event. He just won. Why, one could ask, should the guy go to university, while he could easily travel the world and climb full time and live just on sponsors? Because he is a smart guy. My Roman ancestors used to say "MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO". Climbing form comes and goes, mental form comes and stays. I can't see why not asking 100% from our minds, more than just from our fingers (and arms and lats and shoulders and gonads): one year ago my life changed, and all I found in my hands was climbing. I started hating climbing, and with some help from close people I found the energy to make a move. Then to make another move. I entered a first degree Master in Criminology, and then went back to practicing in a law firm. I left Florence and commuting and settled back in Siena. I slowly started to find some kind of pleasure in climbing and in dressing up in a suite and combing what remains of my hair. My neurons started connecting again. Not only "How much weight should I use for this set?", but also "What will I write in my Master's thesis?", "Which books do I have to study to pass my lawyer exam?", "Do you give me your number, darling?" Every day in Court, I meet guys and girls, ten years younger than me, that are super smart, already officially lawyers, earning their livings with pride. I've done other things, I know, but BM feats of strength aren't a great subject for a nice conversation, aren't they. And they don'r pay the bills, unless you get paid to show off in a gym. Which I'd like to do, by the way. So, no one wants to be the ex-wad that works a shitty job. I think Ondra made a great move. He has already done every hard route in the world, and will win a few World Cups. In the meanwhile he'll get a degree and will somehow partially secure his future: when he'll grow up, and then become old, he'll finally struggle to onsight 9a's and at that moment, I'm sure he'll thank his formation, culture, and well functioning brain. I've met climbers who literally can't talk about anything else than climbing. I get bored. Have I been like that? I hope I haven't.



Source: TOTOLORE

[comPiler]

A SHITTY WEEKEND
18 November 2013, 4:13 pm

This past weekend should have been another great opportunity to train on my Beastmaker and on my board, in my endless quest for the physical limits. I still wonder why I keep buying climbing shoes. Unfortunately, the Gods had something else in plan for me.   On Saturday, I had planned to go to the Chiesina roof, because I wanted to put on (and use) my new climbing shoes, and given that I don't use them on plastic, the only chance left was to go on rock, but I was confident: the weather forecast was terrible, maybe it was the right chance to have an excuse and use the Hornets on my board!!! Unfortunately I woke up to perfect blue skies and a gentle breeze, so instead of having another coffee and going back to bed, I had another two coffees and waited for my friend (who is also the father of Italian 8c crusher Michele Caminati, and crusher himself) to come over and pick me up. Damn good conditions. Just the time to drive there and a quick stop for some coffee (because I had only brought a flask of it for the whole day) and we were ready to rock. Even with those perfect conditions, not everything was lost, and maybe there was still some chance to escape the dry rock and perform some sort of rewarding training; because the current state of mind is as follows: - rock climbing counts as a rest day activity (because it's still better than sitting in front of the tv; but not as good as going to the cinema); - board climbing on other boards counts as testing the form;- board climbing on my board prepares me to be strong on the fingerboard; - fingerboarding on other people's Beastmakers counts just if I smash their PB's, but it doesn't count for my own PB's;- fingerboarding on my Beastmaker is where it's at. The fucking real thing. Anyway. On Friday evening, between deadhangs, I took the time to build a small portable fingerboard, to help me warm up for those rare occasions in which I'd face some real rock.

There you go! That's how to put Mother Nature to good use! Spare the rock! Protect it! Hang the small board to a branch, and put some serious training in! Hell yes! After a good half an hour spent dangling from wooden edges, my partner decided that he wanted to actually climb. "Why?" I told him. "That'll ruin your skin! How will you fingerboard tomorrow?" He was not redeemable. I had to spot him. During a couple of attempts, while moving the pads for him, I tripped on my climbing shoes; I had taken my sneakers off because they false all the parameters of the deadhangs, so in tripping my feet accidentally slipped into a very tight pair of brand new Five Ten Team. Somehow, falling down, I also tightened the velcros. Hmm... "How can I take them off now?" I thought. "If I use my hands, I'll be tired for the next set of hangs... Oh Yes! I can slip them off in a strong double heel hook. Right on!" In the roof there's a strong heel hook for the left foot, but I needed one for the right one. I started searching. Almost completely covered by rocks and fallen leaves from ages, in the depth of the roof I spotted a seam. So I took a broom and started digging. Rocks, turf, leaves, all went out in a cloud of dust, and now I had a beautiful right heel hook to take my shoe off. I chalked up, and went. Did the first new moves, got to the heel hook, and unfortunately the shoe stayed on. Dammit! At least I could try with the left one, so I carried on. Fuckin hell! It stayed on as well. At that point I was so high (more than 80 cm from the ground) that jumping down was impossible. I needed to top out and get down from the tree. And that's what I did. This mishap completely ruined my fingerboarding session, and the day was consequently over. I took my shoes off and stared disappointed at the roof, with its new five moves and almost two meters of climbing that I had dug out.

Now I have to repeat all the problems from the new start. Damn: how am I supposed to train properly if climbing on rock gets in the way? I'll never get really strong. Sad but true. Sunday. After a tripes and liver based dinner on Saturday night, Sunday dawned cloudy and rainy. Yes! Brush the Beastmaker, quick! Sadly this time another friend of mine wanted to climb, so again I had no escape: before, he used to simply email me; then he started to phone me in the morning; now he simply comes over and rings the bell until I wake up and let him in. Crashpads, shoes, coffee flask, chocolate. Car. Rain on the road! Yes! Fucking yes! "Wait a second. If it rains I can't hang the small board outside!" Frantic and immediate search for a nearby gym. I had trimmed my nutrition, energy drinks and Antihydral to be performing on the fingerboard between 14:00 and 15:00 and we couldn't drive back home and play as amateurs.We found a gym. We went. Ahhh! It was open. Noooooooo! There was a competition! Fucking hell. Dozens of happy people climbing, smiles all around, fuck them. What was worse, there was no Beastmaker. I could have mounted my portable one, but everyone was already using liquid chalk! No one will touch my wood with liquid chalked hands (you see what I did there). Fuck me. Again. Two days in a row, I had to climb. Not only I climbed, I was also allowed in the final. How? I ask. I had given back my card empty! Dammit, someone must have seen me climb something. Never, never climb anything. Anyway, I was agonizing to go home and do at least one set of one armers on the incut rung, so when the final started I wanted it to be over as soon as possible. I was so angry that somehow I lost my concentration and started climbing well: powerful and precise. When I focused back again, I found myself eyeing the final hold of the problem, at roughly 3,5 meters from the ground. I looked down between my legs, on poor footholds, with the abyss below. I calmly downclimbed and felt safe on the mats.

No one toped the problem out, so I won the Veterans' category of the competition, in which I was the only competitor. What a shitty weekend.

Source: TOTOLORE

[keefe]

Brilliant.

[Sasquatch]

Man, I'm sorry you had such a crappy weekend.  Sounds like it was horrible and a total waste of time.  You really need to set your prioirities and stick to them.....

 

[Fiend]

That sucks man 

[Monolith]

Absolutely joyous post Lore!

[Stu Littlefair]

Genius

[Oldmanmatt]

Love it Lore!

 have just shared that with my sponsored lads.
Might get them out of the gym and onto some rock...

Maybe not.

They're all resting and saving their skin for the Barn comp on Saturday.

Last week it was the TCA comp...


All rest and no play,

makes Jack a Competition Climber.

[comPiler]

CLIMBING, GRADES, FIRST ASCENTS AND PICTURES
7 December 2013, 12:56 pm

For the third weekend in a row, I went climbing. I mean, real climbing, with real rock, crash pads, coffe flask, down jacket and cold. Despite the fact that climbing keeps getting in the way of training (for climbing...) I have to say it's been fun. I went back to Sassofortino after ages, and managed to open a new exit to a very old problem, the very first 7th grade problem in Sasso, to be fair, and probably in Tuscany, the good old "Shelter". Years ago I wrote a beautiful - or so I thought at that moment - story about the first ascent, revolving around how and why the first ascent was mine and not a previous one from a friend. Sadly I can't find this story anymore in my pc and therefore I don't even remember why the first ascent had to be mine. Anyway, the new line takes the upper lip of the boulder and goes left instead of straight up. It was late and humid when I did it, so probably my impression of it being Font 8b could be biased. 8a+? Yesterday, on the other hand, I went to Vivo d'Orcia, where with a good bunch of friends, I easily and quickly did nearly all the moves on a 7c+/8a problem by Michele Caminati, and that was really nice. After a couple of goes on the singles, I did it from the sitter dropping at two moves from the top. Unfortunately for me, those two moves are the ones that give the problem the grade, but I can still say that I've climbed the 6c+ part of an 8a. The important thing is that the 8th grade be mentioned. Because I climb for the beauty of the rock. Ha.All pictures copyright and courtesy of Carlo Chechi at www.carlochechi.com















Source: TOTOLORE

[tomtom]

Nice pics Lore.

[Nibile]

Cheers beast, I contributed very marginally to them!
Carlo had injured his hamstring indoors and so he just came along for the pics, with tripods, lights and all that malarky. I have to say that he did a great job, and I'm very very happy to have something nice to show, for once, instead of myself training on my board or BM...

[Fultonius]

Surely you should get him round with the lights/tripos etc. for a BM photoshoot, no?

[Nibile]

 

[comPiler]

BACK TO NUMBERS
21 December 2013, 5:25 pm

Finally the weather crapped out...Conditions so far have been absolutely perfect and I have taken advantage of them at my best! In the last weeks the weather has been gorgeous: perfectly cold, sunny, dry winter days. Every morning I would walk to work in the morning breeze, fully clad in my suit, my right hand powerfully clenched to the handle of my leather briefcase full of papers and documents. After the small uphill, a quick match with my left hand on the handle, and then it was full left hand training until the Court of Justice building. So dry, so sticky, no need for chalk. Up and down a few flights of stairs to raise my pulse and then it was time to go out for a goregous coffee in the sun before going back to the office. Fantastic. In the late evening, the temperature was perfect for a good session on my board, or on the Beast. Not a single chance has been left behind! Fortunately, these perfect conditions magically kept disappearing during the weekend, leaving room to foggy, humid, horrible days: no need to drive to the rocks, let's spend five hours on a single sheet of plywood of my board! In doing so, of course many projects went down. Many, like one. But I also did a single move that I had been training for a couple of months. I did it, then I kept going but fell on the following moves: I quickly realized it was due to old shoes, so I promptly sent four pairs to the resoler on the following day. I also completed my power endurance setup and found great joy in making my forearms and fingers explode in another way than simply repeating problems. The video shows how great this was:

Then finally, I put my hands on the beast after (too) many weeks, with decent results. 6 kg left hand and 8 kg right hand on the three fingers slot; 12 kg and 16 kg on the incut rung, half crimped. I pity those poor bastards who are always climbing on rock: how can they thell whether they're on form or not? Climbing an 8b is clearly not enough, it could be simply due to good conditions and a bit of luck, or even - the horror, the horror - to simply climbing well a perfect sequence. The horror. How boring must it be, to simply go around in a forest, spot a problem with already chalked holds, drop the pads down and climb? Far better is having to connect holds on plastic, having to imagine incredible sequences never found on rock, contrived moves that would make the most eliminate problem look straightforward. Feet on the screw-ons only; no dropknees; compulsory matches and prehensions (no, not that side of the hold, that is out); horrible sitstarts: this is what I like. And more than this, numbers, numbers, numbers. Objective numbers: number of one armers; number of seconds on a hold; number of kilos added to a hang; number of laps on a problem. All within the domestic walls of my house. I wonder how one could do without this all.  Perfect boulders and scenery? Dry rock? Good vibes of cameraderie and partnership? Ha! I don't believe it anymore. In the world of "soft 5 mins", "syked with da crew", "thanks to my sponsors" and driving scenes in videos, poetry in global climbing is dead. So why pretend otherwise? Làthe biòsas.



Source: TOTOLORE

[Richie Crouch]

Brilliant post yet again lore. I must confess... I hope to be one of those punters who soon climbs something outside in the perfect sequence, to avoid having to get strong! (Sorry)

[Nibile]

I understand Richie: it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it.

[comPiler]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
8 January 2014, 12:25 pm

As trivial as they sound, some things are to be said.

Happy 2014 to you all is one of these.

Other trivial habit is the one that wants the blogger to give a detailed account of the past holidays: how many dinners, how many girls, how many new problems climbed and new areas visited, how many kilos put on.

I like being trivial, so the answers are: many; one; zero; zero; zero.

Sticking at what you're good at, on the other hand, may not be considered trivial and it's one of the things I like to do the most.

I am good at fingerboarding and at being an idiot, and this video proves it:



Ciao.

 

 

Source: TOTOLORE

[Fiend]

LOL Nibble, that video really cracked me up. I was wondering why you weren't looking as  on the Beastmaker as usual...

[Richie Crouch]

Mama Mia! 

[tomtom]

:D