[jwi]

Just learned about the greatest prank ever. Apparently Claude Idoux and Aris Theodoropoulos has taken on themselves to change around route names on some of the new routes in Kalymnos so that Rockfax new guidebook will be outdated and wrong when the new authoritative Climb Kalymnos guidebook comes out.

Usually that's unnecessary since most Rockfax guidebooks are so riddled with errors to be unusable for any route above median difficulty (not true for all RF guidebooks, of course, but if CC is involved...), so who knows, this might be a case of two wrongs make a right.

Anyway I thought it was hilarious, so are the reactions on UKC... (But... who WILL THINK OF THE CHILDREN ....)

[Fiend]

Pretty sure the children would appreciate the long term benefits of local guides that are more likely to be exhaustively researched and will have clearer bolt fund supports, and definitive guides that help spread the climbing load and keep more routes climbable compared to endless repetitive select guides.

[AJM]

I assume it screws over the older non-RF guides too?

[jwi]

As far as I understand it's just the new routes that Claude Idoux put up recently. Absolutely brilliant, imho.

Not only are they changing names on the rock they are swapping names about, leading to confusion and differing pitch lengths which is an accident waiting to happen if your rope isn't the correct length!

Well, it's not like when a ten pitch route is meticulously drawn, with belays indicated and all, on a photo of a completely different mountain as in some guides I could mention...

[spidermonkey09]

Without wishing to piss on anyone's bonfire, am I the only one that doesn't find this all that funny? It comes across as extremely petty and the gleeful response strikes me as unbecoming. But maybe thats just me.

[nik at work]

I agree. I don't know anything about Kalymnos or guidebook friction in the area but from an outside perspective it just looks dumb.

If the contention is that Rockfax is full of mistakes and inaccuracies then this action is just providing Rockfax with an excuse for those errors. More amusing would be a locally produced (and money generating) supplement to the Rockfax correcting the mistakes. Of course that assumes there are that many mistakes so...

Anybody got any SCIENCE on the number of mistakes/errors in Rockfax compared to other guidebooks?
Annecdotes are nice but my nan smoked 80 a day and lived to 106...

[Will Hunt]

Changing pitch lengths around is a bit of a shitter. Changing route names will just make the whole area confusing and potentially a pain in the arse - it just seems like shooting themselves in the foot. Surely the way to fight Rockfax is to produce a better product and make it accessible and desirable to the English speaking public.

[Teaboy]

Changing pitch lengths around is a bit of a shitter. Changing route names will just make the whole area confusing and potentially a pain in the arse - it just seems like shooting themselves in the foot. Surely the way to fight Rockfax is to produce a better product and make it accessible and desirable to the English speaking public.

This is already the case and yet despite that RF are obviously confident they can poach enough sales from that guide to be profitable, that is not an inconsiderable number.

[tim palmer]

Without wishing to piss on anyone's bonfire, am I the only one that doesn't find this all that funny? It comes across as extremely petty and the gleeful response strikes me as unbecoming. But maybe thats just me.

I think it is funny but I also think that changing the names around at a crag (?which these guys developed and are producing a guidebook to?) was a reasonably time consuming thing to do which probably reflects how annoyed these guys are with the rockfax model of business. 

 Is it reasonable to suppose that If rockfax has any substantial local support you would imagine that the names would be changed back but it would seem that is highly unlikely.  This likely reflects the degree to which rockfax are viewed as "vampires" against which local climbing activists need to protect themselves?

Edited for typo

[cheque]

It does seem to be punishing climbers more than Rockfax.

But given that people on sport trips generally refers to non-classic routes by terms like “the 7a” or “that long 7b+ with the tufas” rather than their actual names I can’t see it having that much effect. 

[jwi]

A certain JP once decided to attack the rather runout 53m route "Les Ailes du Désir" in Gorges du Tarn with a forty-nine meter rope. Two metre below the second belay he heard the yell "That's me!" from the belayer that had already climbed up to the first bolt in trainers with the knot jammed to the belay device. After a few minutes of thinking our brave hero decided to jump off and further descend by jumping off from every bolt of the second pitch. Problem solved. True story.

Anyway, only the tiny minority of climbers using RF will be affected, so no harm no foul. Still funny.