[finbarrr]

i love this thread

[thirtytwosrule]

http://www.epictv.com/media/uservideo/climbing-lalchimiste-8b-in-font/605452


Only slight dabs but a dab is a dab and on such a famous problem surely better morals are required.

[Coops_13]

http://www.epictv.com/media/uservideo/climbing-lalchimiste-8b-in-font/605452


Only slight dabs but a dab is a dab and on such a famous problem surely better morals are required.

Spotting like that does my nut in, he's basically carrying the other climber up!

[mrjonathanr]

Spotting like that is intrusive and unfortunate but I doubt it made the slightest difference to the outcome. That said it's not really cricket, old boy.

[thirtytwosrule]

I'm overly pedantic about it to be honest. Even on a rubbish 6b I would go back around but on something like L'Alchemist I would not show video and claim an ascent with that.

Each to their own I guess!

[T_B]

I'd probably take it if that was me on Alchimiste. He's virtually over the top and it's a tiny dab.

I dabbed the tree on Kendo when I was out in Font last month, just like Bart does in this vid. Didn't feel like I'd done it 

[dave]

The thing with spotter dabs like this is without eyes in the back of your head it's not reasonable to expect anyone to know where a spotter has suddenly decided to put their hands. Unless we're talking some kind of prolonged yorkshire-spot type of Sharples cradling for the entire problem of course. It's clearly a different kettle of fish to dabbing the mats/floor/trees/adjacent boulders.

[Will Hunt]

Does anybody seriously think that whatever slight contact with a spotter there was there actually made a difference to the result?

[jfdm]

Does anybody seriously think that whatever slight contact with a spotter there was there actually made a difference to the result?

What the spotters were doing didn't make a blind bit of difference.
It wasn't as though they dragged Lucas up problem.
He even kicks spotter at end.
For me definite legit
Foot dabs are a different matter, you know when you have sinned....

[tim palmer]

I cant see when he dabs on alchemist

[haydn jones]

I couldn't  even see the dab either.

[dave]

left foot as he's making last push over the top, clips the top spotter's left hand.

[thirtytwosrule]

Kicks spotters hand twice on way over top and a few just really slight spotter dabs on his t-shirt.

I definitely don't think it made the slightest difference to whether he got up it or not but I've always had the opinion that if that's OK how do you really judge whether a slight dab did make a difference so zero tolerance is only way to be certain. All personal decisions I just think if you are putting a video up of a classic it should be 100%. I can almost see if someone dabs your clothing and you genuinely didn't even feel it fair enough but if you kick someones hand you know it happened.

You can spot someone perfectly well without being so close that you are brushing their clothing, if he had sagged a bit his body would have touched his spotters hands through no fault of his own, more overly close spotting than anything.

[haydn jones]

Would fist bumping someone make an ascent invalid?

[dave]

I reckon yeah, unless you're Dave Graham.

Thing that always gets me is people doing low roof problems or traverses then halfway through chalking up from a chalkbucket on the ground, and hence immediately invalidating the ascent.

[36chambers]

I reckon yeah, unless you're Dave Graham.

Thing that always gets me is people doing low roof problems or traverses then halfway through chalking up from a chalkbucket on the ground, and hence immediately invalidating the ascent.

Are you saying this doesn't count?

Would fist bumping someone make an ascent invalid?

If anything I think this improves the style of ascent.


The worse for me is when people drop off without actually matching their hands...

[tommytwotone]

Spotter dabs you say???


See if you can spot this one (approx 1 min 25 sec in)...


Totally my fault that one!

[Footwork]

If you look real hard you might be able to spot the dab on this. Very minor at most. Totally legit ascent.

[36chambers]

If you look real hard you might be able to spot the dab on this. Very minor at most. Totally legit ascent.

Is this what aid climbing is?

[Will Hunt]

All this talk of crap spotting is a bit shit. Spotting is important on a lot of problems. In that vid of 3T, had Ian come off the slap and landed in a heap in the gully, he would have been accused of crap spotting, and Ian might have gone home in an ambulance. As it happens he gave Ian a spot and was accused of crap spotting. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Of course if Ian had styled the move then there would be no dabbing swing to speak of...

The Suavito vid has been posted before. Had Huw not stood on that boulder then I would have come nastily a-cropper on it on three previous attempts. The real crap spotting in the video is from me when Dave plummets like a meteorite into the pads (can't remember exactly but I'm sure that fall gave him a nosebleed). I learned quite an important lesson that day that if you want to give someone a proper spot on something like that, you have to be stood almost under them and you have to have you're hands up next to them (as the guy in the Alchemist does). Anything else and you haven't got a chance of helping 11 or 12 stone of Dave as he craters into the ground at 10m per second per second.

Calling out dabs is all very well and good in cases where it blatantly should have been "back around", but if it means that people don't get a proper spot on problems that really need it then maybe we need to have a think about whether it's better for your t-shirt to touch a spotters hand or to go home with a broken leg. FWIW, I'm happy to go back and do Suavito without a dab, but I'd still have a spotter on the block.

[slackline]

Calling out dabs is all very well and good in cases where it blatantly should have been "back around", but if it means that people don't get a proper spot on problems that really need it then maybe we need to have a think about whether it's better for your t-shirt to touch a spotters hand or to go home with a broken leg. FWIW, I'm happy to go back and do Suavito without a dab, but I'd still have a spotter on the block.

Spot On 

[36chambers]

All this talk of crap spotting is a bit shit.

No one is trying to fault Huw's spotting, he did a very good job, it's your shocking footwork that we're mocking here.

[Footwork]

All this talk of crap spotting is a bit shit.

No one is trying to fault Huw's spotting, he did a very good job, it's your shocking footwork that we're mocking here.

  and how dabbing (in certain circumstances) invalidates and ascent 

[finbarrr]

The real crap spotting in the video is from me when Dave plummets like a meteorite into the pads

to me the point of spotting is to make sure the falling person lands on the pads.
surely thats what the pads are for?

[erm, sam]

to me the point of spotting is to make sure the falling person lands on the pads.
surely thats what the pads are for?

+1.
Also to make sure the faller doesn't then catapult sideways into a rock after hitting the pad