[shurt]

"Yorkshire dark horse moves to Canada and inflicts more dark horseyness on the Canadians - always loved this story. But is there any footage? (sorry)"

Not very dark horse really.  He's just an older generation, so the new kids on the block never saw him climb.

He very rarely climbed alone.  Has footage of quite a lot of hard problems.  I've personally witnessed him climbing vast amounts of extremely hard stuff in the UK.  A lot of the hard stuff he's done in Font or Switzerland was done with the likes of Randy Puro and various other well known people.  A lot of the hard stuff he's done in the US has been in front of hoards of americans (as tends to be the way in places like Bishop).

The Singularity wasn't climbed alone - it was in front of one of the locals.  He wasn't even remotely a dark horse in Canada - he was pretty much running a climbing clothing company, so got to know most of the locals pretty quickly.

No video, but plenty of pictures.  e.g:

http://house-under-a-rock.tumblr.com/post/65102109201/tim-clifford-fa-on-the-unrepeated-singularity-v14

The reason it's unrepeated is because it's frickin hard.  And almost certainly harder than the vast majority of 8C's out there.  As I understand it, the likes of Paul Robinson have sunk quite a bit of time into it without success.


Basically he's a wad.  And probably the most honest rock climber I've ever climbed with.  To the extent that the tinyest dab on a spotter, where anyone else would just take it - Tim would be back around doing it again... 

In fact he ended up doing lots of problems twice - he had a nasty habit of losing concentration and dropping the very last move on lots of really hard problems - I pretty much guarantee that noone else has fallen off 8 ball at the point he did.  He slipped off on the 2a move with both hands matched on the ledge at the end!!!  5 minutes having a quick word with himself and then did the whole problem again, this time without the punter fall at the end.

The more amusing Clifford story isn't The Singularity anyway.  It's Dipende in Switzerland.  Tim was told by locals it was a project - did it and gave it 8A+.  Turned out Fred Nicole had done it a while earlier and completely unknown to Tim given it 8C!!!  Not sure how that went down...


Anyways, I'm sure The Singularity will get a repeat some time in the not too distant future - it sounds like it's hard, but not silly hard.  And there's a sit to it and a project to the left which both sound amazing, so plenty for uber wads to go visiting for.

Hey, it was an off hand comment (maybe ill advised) but thought there was humour in these hills... For the record I was not requesting footage or casting any doubt.
I have nothing but admiration for Tim (thought my comments about life in Leeds were testament to that) and was really pleased to hear about The Singularity when it was done. Im a fan of dark horses in general; people climbing hard and not seeking sponsorship etc.
I was really interested to read your thoughts and info about Tim, the ascent and other people who had tried it so nice one for that.

[36chambers]

"Yorkshire dark horse moves to Canada and inflicts more dark horseyness on the Canadians - always loved this story. But is there any footage? (sorry)"

Not very dark horse really.  He's just an older generation, so the new kids on the block never saw him climb.

He very rarely climbed alone.  Has footage of quite a lot of hard problems.  I've personally witnessed him climbing vast amounts of extremely hard stuff in the UK.  A lot of the hard stuff he's done in Font or Switzerland was done with the likes of Randy Puro and various other well known people.  A lot of the hard stuff he's done in the US has been in front of hoards of americans (as tends to be the way in places like Bishop).

The Singularity wasn't climbed alone - it was in front of one of the locals.  He wasn't even remotely a dark horse in Canada - he was pretty much running a climbing clothing company, so got to know most of the locals pretty quickly.

No video, but plenty of pictures.  e.g:

http://house-under-a-rock.tumblr.com/post/65102109201/tim-clifford-fa-on-the-unrepeated-singularity-v14

The reason it's unrepeated is because it's frickin hard.  And almost certainly harder than the vast majority of 8C's out there.  As I understand it, the likes of Paul Robinson have sunk quite a bit of time into it without success.


Basically he's a wad.  And probably the most honest rock climber I've ever climbed with.  To the extent that the tinyest dab on a spotter, where anyone else would just take it - Tim would be back around doing it again... 

In fact he ended up doing lots of problems twice - he had a nasty habit of losing concentration and dropping the very last move on lots of really hard problems - I pretty much guarantee that noone else has fallen off 8 ball at the point he did.  He slipped off on the 2a move with both hands matched on the ledge at the end!!!  5 minutes having a quick word with himself and then did the whole problem again, this time without the punter fall at the end.

The more amusing Clifford story isn't The Singularity anyway.  It's Dipende in Switzerland.  Tim was told by locals it was a project - did it and gave it 8A+.  Turned out Fred Nicole had done it a while earlier and completely unknown to Tim given it 8C!!!  Not sure how that went down...


Anyways, I'm sure The Singularity will get a repeat some time in the not too distant future - it sounds like it's hard, but not silly hard.  And there's a sit to it and a project to the left which both sound amazing, so plenty for uber wads to go visiting for.

I love comments like these, very interesting, thanks for sharing . And thanks for the picture of The Singularity, I can't believe I hadn't seen it until now.   

[andy_e]

Tim Clifford is a hero! Great photo.

[Doylo]

Another pic of The Singularity:

[ferret]

Would be very suprised if Tim Doyle hasnt repeated the singularity. As hes done pretty much everything in squamish, including loads of unrepeated fas.
Ultimate dark horse, mows lawns in squamish in the summer, lives in a van the rest of the year, done this most of his adult life. One of the best climbers I've seen, must have 100s of ascents in the v13-14 range that hes never publisized.

[chudders1]

good to see a long list of british men climbing this hard !! giving british climbing a good name !!

[tim palmer]

Would be very suprised if Tim Doyle hasnt repeated the singularity. As hes done pretty much everything in squamish, including loads of unrepeated fas.
Ultimate dark horse, mows lawns in squamish in the summer, lives in a van the rest of the year, done this most of his adult life. One of the best climbers I've seen, must have 100s of ascents in the v13-14 range that hes never publisized.

I think that problem has sent the best boulderers in the world packing since it was done.  I seem to remember landman blogging about trying it back in his pomp,  I can't imagine Jimmy Webb didn't try it when he made that video there and someone told me Paul Robinson and Sean mccoll had made several trips out there to try it with no success (but that could be an overactive imagination on my part)

[cofe]

McColl on the Singularity in 2011. No idea if he's been back on it.

Well “The Room Project” has been done from a move in by Tim Clifford and he called it “The Singularity”. I personally don’t know why he didn’t start from the obvious jug rail, but I’ve been told he just did it from the first move in and decided to call it the problem. I’ve tried it for about an hour and the first move is pretty easy. If it’s not soaked in the next month, I might be able to try it again. If I ever did it from the rail, I’m not sure whether it merits a different name. Maybe Singularity is V14, and the sit is V15?

[tim palmer]

according to his twitter thingy he was still trying it in February this year: https://mobile.twitter.com/mccollsean/status/570754256489353217

[Nemo]

All this is second hand, because I haven't been there, so take with a slight pinch of salt...

Yeah, the only slight fuss around The Singularity is the starting position.

Tim wasn't trying to climb eliminates.  He just reached what he could reach from the ground and climbed to the top.  As I understand it he started LH on rail and RH on the crimp up and R.

Others had envisaged a crouching start with both hands on the obvious rail. 

Apparently, as Sean says in that blog, the diffence in difficulty between those two starts is pretty trivial.  The way Tim did it, you've got a tricky move to get L heel onto rail.  The other way you put L heel up first and then have a tricky move to get the RH crimp.  Again apparently, it doesn't make more than a half grade difference either way...  The really hard moves start after that point.

Yet again, apparently, there is also a proper sitting start which is way way harder and adds a substantial amount of hard climbing (although I don't know how much of a rest is possible on the rail).

Pretty sure that Sean McColl, Paul Robinson and Tim Doyle have all spent quite a bit of time on it without success (unless they've done it very recently or been very quiet about it).  And obviously lots of others (Landman etc) have had brief plays on it.

Think half the trouble is it's hard.  And half is that getting good conditions (especially for visitors) is pretty tricky.
 

[Nibile]

I find Sean McColl extremely boring and presumptuous.
Am I too old for the climbing media circus?
Better get back to my board and lock me in, you never know what lies outside.

[Moo]

can I come with you?

[Nibile]

 

[tim palmer]

I find Sean McColl extremely boring and presumptuous.
Am I too old for the climbing media circus?
Better get back to my board and lock me in, you never know what lies outside.

seems a bit harsh, I don't think he is less interesting than 99% of other pro climbers (Dave Graham being a prominent exception).  They are professional climbers,  they are unlikely to be great intellects if they spend all their time training......

[a dense loner]

No you can't moo you've spent a lot of money to be able to climb on sand

[Nibile]

I find Sean McColl extremely boring and presumptuous.
Am I too old for the climbing media circus?
Better get back to my board and lock me in, you never know what lies outside.

seems a bit harsh, I don't think he is less interesting than 99% of other pro climbers (Dave Graham being a prominent exception).  They are professional climbers,  they are unlikely to be great intellects if they spend all their time training......

Hey Tim, I don't mean he's stupid or something. To the opposite, anyone who lives on climbing must be very smart!
I just find him boring, or more boring than most of the other climbers. Maybe it's also because every punter couldn't stop talking about Sean McColl's campus training, etc. when thousans of climbers have done much better, much earlier.
Plus, he's made a fool of himself on Hubble, pretending he had a chance.

[Moo]

Beach holidays can be nice 

[AMorris]

This might be  for some, but JG said he had (in the last 18 months) climbed a bunch of problems in the 8B range in his interview. Absolutely no specifics but there it is

[shark]

This might be  for some, but JG said he had (in the last 18 months) climbed a bunch of problems in the 8B range in his interview. Absolutely no specifics but there it is

What interview?

[a dense loner]

Are you reciting old news from an interview with a bumbling grey-haired be-spectacled old man?

[AMorris]

This might be  for some, but JG said he had (in the last 18 months) climbed a bunch of problems in the 8B range in his interview. Absolutely no specifics but there it is

What interview?

Are you reciting old news from an interview with a bumbling grey-haired be-spectacled old man?

That would be the one  I believe it was around the time where he was comparing his strength to 7 or 8 years back and he said he couldn't touch any of the problems he was lapping back then despite having climbed a handful of problems around 8B in the last year or two.

[a dense loner]

My dick used to be so much bigger

[shark]

That was two years ago

[AMorris]

That was two years ago

that brings it within the 5 year cut off

[SA Chris]

That was two years ago

that brings it within the 5 year inch cut off