[Ru]

Maybe. Just heard that Steve McClure did his Malham project, the extension to Overnite Sensation today. That's all I know, except that there were mutterings of 9a+ and V12 cruxes whilst he was working it. If he's been lucky, Rich Heap will have caught it on camera. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about this very soon, but for now, you heard it here first.

[andy_e]

Fucking hell, seen him working this a number of times and it looks insane. Brilliant effort by the lad! 

[north_country_boy]

Brilliant effort Steve! Seen him getting close to this of late, looks very very hard, with a sick crux sequence..... brilliant he has got it done! 

[Bonjoy]

Totally amazing effort, it looks brick hard and a great line.

[abarro81]

 

[dave]

i have absolutley no idea what this line is but i'll also add my congratulations to the pile.

[Andy F]

Had the pleasure of watch Steve do this today. When he was doing it the whole catwalk was silent, no-one climbed, we all just watched and then gave a very British round of applause.    for him after all that effort.

[Adam Lincoln]

Yep, slackjaw caught it all on film. Like Andy, I had the pleasure of watching it. He even grunted! Brilliant effort......

[Andy F]

I thought he was off several times through the roof but held on brilliantly. Can't wait to see the footage.

[Bonjoy]

i have absolutley no idea what this line is but i'll also add my congratulations to the pile.

It goes through the bulge left of Rain Shadow and is a lot harder by all accounts

[SA Chris]

I have nothing to offer but my greatest respect. Was idly wondering the other day what he was up to.

[Mirf]

It`s good to see someone got something done in this wet weather. Brilliant

[Greg C]

It`s good to see someone got something done in this wet weather. Brilliant

It might have been a bit damp of late but I think there have been some premium conditions knocking about, yesterday was amazing!

Effort to the wee man. 

[Sam]

Just spoke to PIngham (did the FA of Over-nite Sensation back in the day) - said he bolted the line originally but sacked it off when he realised it was "fuckin' desperate" - even he was impressed, which is possibly more noteworthy than the touted 9a+ grade. Stunning effort from a totally world class athlete. 

[north_country_boy]

http://www.planetfear.com/news_detail.asp?n_id=6272  Steve.....Forever modest!

[Paz]

Legend

[Doylo]

I too saw Steve working this, it is truely insane! Another world class route on our fair isle.

[Adam Lincoln]

I too saw Steve working this, it is truely insane! Another world class route on our fair isle.

Just need some world class climbers to come over and get on them!

[Dave Westlake]

I saw him working it too, and it looked hideous.  Is it not true that he couldnt hang the holds on "Violent New Breed" though?

[GCW]

36 votes for Violent New Breed on CockFax so it can't be that hard after 18 repeats 
THIS was quite interesting on the same subject.

[moose]

So, how long do we have before Steve proclaims again that he is shit and weak

Well done that man though..... a proper hero - seems such an unassuming bloke.  I remember seeing him interviewed by Neil Gresham whilst he was working Rainshadow.  Gresham had been stessing the importance of incredibly long and structured warmups and positive visualization techniques etc and Steve completely undermined him by admitting that his routine was just to do a few of the lower moves, have a rest, and then hang off a few crimps in his trainers before setting off on the climb of his life!

Re the Gaskins Violent New Breed link - is he still working the "brandenburg gate" project?  Is he getting any nearer to completing it? Every so often you just hear that he's done a heinous V15 or something as a "rest" from trying it!

[Bonjoy]

It doesn't look to have had any attention in the last year or so and I've heard of no sightings of that most elusive of creatures

[Andy F]

You meant Si O' has been working it as well 

[Adam Lincoln]

And its been called 'Overshadow'

Cool thoughtful name.....

[Andy F]

Where'd you hear that from Adam?

[Paul B]

its on planetfear...

[slackline]

Even gets a mention in todays Metro (good excuse to try out the new scanner ).  As always with the Metro and media in general one has to accept that it has been sanitised for the readership and doesn't contain all the information that it perhaps should for such an astounding effort (i.e. not only is it the hardest route at Malham, but also probably the country and is likely to be high up there in the world rankings).



(No idea if the pic itself was actually taken on Raindshadow either).

[Adam Lincoln]

Think that photo was taken when he went back to get pics on Overshadow

[Somebody's Fool]

Who took that photo?  Does anyone know?

SWNS stands for South West News Service, a news agency based in Bristol.  I know this because it is one of several journalistic establishments that have snubbed my endeavours to contribute to society.

I knew I shouldn't have divulged a penchant for good modern wheels and Dutch wine.

[Doylo]

Think that photo was taken when he went back to get pics on Overshadow

yeah i recognise that position from watching steve on it. Would also be interested to know who took the picture.

[Adam Lincoln]

Think that photo was taken when he went back to get pics on Overshadow

yeah i recognise that position from watching steve on it. Would also be interested to know who took the picture.

Wonder why he never used it on the actual ascent

[fatneck]

Apparently (according to BenF) there was a(n) hilarious interview on Radio5Live with Steve featuring two disbelieving females fixated on the bat hang as being the most newsworthy bit of the whole story. Would love to "Listen Again" but don't have whatever plug-in is required to listen to it this week...

[slackline]

yeah i recognise that position from watching steve on it. Would also be interested to know who took the picture.

May well have been Keith Sharples, check out the second section of the his 9a gallery.  Angle and position are v.similar, although the trousers are different, so who knows  .

[Ru]

Keith took the shots then sold them to a news agency, which was good thinking I think.

[Moo]

So any bets on how long we have to wait for a repeat?

[Paul B]

Too long....

Thinking out loud: Is the big bang not also up there as a contender for the hardest sport route in the UK? spat off some of the best, unrepeated....?

[Paz]

In my opinion repeating things like Big Bang and the other 9as, or even the other classic `hard' ;-) 8cs deserves serious waddage, but Simpson got little more than underground recognition and cred for doing Liquid Amber, basically just a mention in the mags. 

I think it's high time we had a state of the art hardest boiled egg routes in the world article.  I at least have lost track of them, but it's not like a few years ago pre Realisation when there were a bazillion euro-9as to remember, how many at 9a+ or claimed harder are there now, 10 plus or minus, less than ten? 

Of course you'd then have to decide to only include `boulder problems'/ bloc traverses that were longer than 17.23458 moves, and at least 64.35% of these moves being are in the upper percentiles of the difficulty range, and routes that required at least 33.48295% of your training time to be devoted to endurance, or something. 

[north_country_boy]

There must be at least 10 9a+ routes (not link ups/traverses), but really only Realization & La Rambla are 'confirmed'....

Violent New Breed 9a+ (Gaskins)
Coup de grace 9a+ (Graham)
Overshadow 9a+ (McClure)
Flatmountain 9a+ (Hirayama)
Bimbaluna 9a+ (Bereziartu)
la novena enmienda 9a+ (Andrada)
Definiciòn de Resistenca demòcrata 9a+ (Andrada)
Corona 9a+ (Bock)
Akira 9b (Rouhling)
Chilam Balam 9b+ (Fernandez)
Flex Luthor 9a+ (Caldwell)
Orujo 9a+ (Fernandez)
Es Pontas 9a+ (?) (Sharma)

to start the list off....

[Fiend]

Let's get rid of VNB and Akira as they are effectively boulder problems of sorts (and extremely impressive at that - in the top category for bouldering).

Errrmmm don't have any to add. That last one is Sharma's arch thing, right??

[SA Chris]

I think it's high time we had a state of the art hardest boiled egg routes in the world article. 

Gonads is quite hard.

[Paz]

Gonads has quite small holds.

they are effectively boulder problems

I demand to know your critera for the definition of a boulder problem!  I'd say they're pieces of climbing best given a route grade and boulder problem grade respectively. 

What do we do with Grahams/Andrada's font 8b sit starts to 9as or something, in soe cave somewhere?  If there was like a font 8c up problem linked into a French 6a, would that count as the hardest route in the world?  If there wasn't a lower LO placed, I wonder if Ben Moon would sort it out by jumping off after the hard climbing (which would make complete sense IMHO)!

[north_country_boy]

What do we do with Grahams/Andrada's font 8b sit starts to 9as or something, in soe cave somewhere? 

Ali Hulk? Given 9a....some 16 year old Spanish beast repeated it a few days ago and another 9a the same day!

[Somebody's Fool]

Fiend.  Could Violent New Breed not be a route with a bouldery crux?  You know, like Humdinger at the Roaches?

[Fiend]

Isn't VNB a bouldery crux without a route around it??

[nash1]

]

Gonads is quite hard.

Quality comment, humourous and packed with history, I laughed aloud anyway! wad...

[andy_e]

Four carbon atoms? BLEEDIN' BIVI LEDGE!

[Sloper]

You weren't even a sperm back then.

[andy_e]

True, but it's still funny...

[Falling Down]

]

Gonads is quite hard.

Quality comment, humourous and packed with history, I laughed aloud anyway! wad...

Aye - nice once Chris.  It seems like ages ago....