UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => chuffing => Topic started by: Tommy on September 26, 2006, 10:46:45 am
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According to his Si O'Connor-esque website www.freesoloist.com Mr Reardon has been on an onsight soloing mission this summer on the grit. Whateva...
Stanage Without Oxygen - OS solo
Warm Love - OS solo :o
Neon Dust - OS solo
It's almost funny (as are the pictures) :-\
What's also quite funny is the pic at the bottom of Si's 8a profile vs. Reardon's pic at the bottom of his "About" page. :guilty:
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What an absolutely sickening character.
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Fucking genious, pass me the shotgun, I don't know who to do first me or him
http://img.ukclimbing.com/i/38499.jpg
http://www.freesoloist.com/Quickstart/ImageLib/blood3.jpg
Compare and contrast
Favourite climbing area: Anywhere in Ireland
(http://www.freesoloist.com/Quickstart/ImageLib/Ireland.jpg)
"Warmlove" (E6 7a) with a sheep carcass as a crashpad - Stanage, England Hmmm, who'd say a thing like that? :-\
http://www.freesoloist.com/Quickstart/ImageLib/GalleryGapOneArm.jpg
http://img.ukclimbing.com/i/45962.jpg
Compare and contrast
(http://www.freesoloist.com/Quickstart/ImageLib/WPNeon800.jpg)
Neon Sunset indeed :whistle:
Don't forget kids, "Life's short - play hard" :wank:
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Hey, you beat Mick posting this as a news item :lol:
Watching Return2Sender, I got some suspicions that this guy was a bit smarter and not quite the complete cock he pretends to be. Those suspicions are fading a bit now...
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I know - It's hilarious isn't it??! It's made my day for sure. :P
Thanks for posting up the images - I'm a bit too dumb to work it out. I don't think I would have taken much notice of it all if it wasn't for the rediculous idea of stating that he OS'd WL, ND and SWO in the middle of the summer! And he's a totally normal standard climber. I think he should have set his aims a little lower :lol:
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And judging by the information from his 'about me' section, it looks like he might well be making a 'blockbuster' about himself. Maybe we could get some odds on that, could be worth a dabble.
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To describe the Grit in mere words is unconscionable.
:agree: :wank:
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" For the uninitiated, the Burren is a primitive area bigger than The Grit of England, with MORE rock of even BETTER quality. "
You what !?
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This tosser can't be for real. Has anyone else been experiencing elevated blood pressure over the last hour from this tool?
Predictably enough, his videos are set to pentatonic masturbation efforts.
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He's the US version of Si O' - there's a lot of people who can't stand him over there and doubt pretty much everything he's done. The one person who has stuck by is Bachar who claims he's the "real deal."
Personally I've bouldered with him once in the UK (during his trip this summer) and he is a bit of a wally. I was asking him about the routes that he'd soloed on his trips to Ireland and England but he was really cagey about what he'd done only saying "oh, I just soloed a bunch of stuff.... Man... that Grit IS rough!" Then he spouts all over his website about his sends once he gets back. Hmmm.
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" For the uninitiated, the Burren is a primitive area bigger than The Grit of England, with MORE rock of even BETTER quality. "
You what !?
Well it's partially true, the area is bigger, with more rock, if you count the cliffs of Moher. Wish he had gone soloing there.
He must be taking the piss.
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What bigger in terms of length of proper crag than all the grit crags in the Peak, Yorkshire, North Pennines and Northumberland combined?? Stanage alone is nearly 5miles long! Peak grit has six hefty guidebooks worth of routes. :shrug:
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Rock and Ice mag got me to hook up with him to do a feature on his grit rampage in the summer. Due out soon!!!
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I've heard about this, should be a treat!
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I'm intrigued. What was your take on him, or would that spoil article for me?
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What bigger in terms of length of proper crag than all the grit crags in the Peak, Yorkshire, North Pennines and Northumberland combined?? Stanage alone is nearly 5miles long! Peak grit has six hefty guidebooks worth of routes. :shrug:
Based on surface area of rock, it is possibly bigger, I think The Burren is a pretty big area. The cliffs of Moher are a hundred or so feet high and extend for a couple of miles.
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I'm intrigued. What was your take on him, or would that spoil article for me?
That's not a fair question to ask, sir!
Actually, what with the weather, and other things, his visit, and ticklist was pretty underwhelming. As regards to Neon Dust, he later told me he had only done the boulder problem start then traversed into Valkyrie. I explained to him that ND, E6 7a, was the route, but hey ho. In the R&I still wanted a narticle but there wasn't all that much to say about MR.
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What bigger in terms of length of proper crag than all the grit crags in the Peak, Yorkshire, North Pennines and Northumberland combined?? Stanage alone is nearly 5miles long! Peak grit has six hefty guidebooks worth of routes. :shrug:
Based on surface area of rock, it is possibly bigger, I think The Burren is a pretty big area. The cliffs of Moher are a hundred or so feet high and extend for a couple of miles.
That's Stanage out of the way then, just the rest of the peak, yorkshire, northumberland.... ;)
Actually, what with the weather, and other things, his visit, and ticklist was pretty underwhelming.
I don't know, Warm Love onsight, in the heat, above a rotting sheep is quite impressive.
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'grizzly man'
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That's Stanage out of the way then, just the rest of the peak, yorkshire, northumberland.... ;)
Actually they are
230 metres above the ground at their highest point and 8km long
but actually outside "the Burren" anyway.
Talk about over analysis of an off-the-cuff comment. ::) :)
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Well i'm going to be going there next year to look for myself and god help you Chris if I find you've been telling me porkys
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I had never heard of this guy until now. I've just sat through his 'circuit 2' video. Shit sandwich. I was waiting for the camera to pan back and show massive walls, not see him hanging off massive jugs :jaw:
He doesn't even look like he should be able to pull down. But then again you don't need to be strong to climb trad do you ;)
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Well i'm going to be going there next year to look for myself and god help you Chris if I find you've been telling me porkys
Go, it's fantastic. Do you surf at all? Ailladie (or however it's spelt) is amazing, Pembroke without holds. Some amazing boulders at it's base. Murroughkilly is worth a visit just to check out the limestone pavements. Cliiffs of Moher are worth a look to see the biggest things you would never want to climb; makes the Culm Coast look tame.
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Reardon on Heason;
"The ground doesn't lie, and neither do the tendons and ligaments in your legs, or fine bones in your wrists and hands, or the plates of the skull … or the spine. Heason laid on the ground in a state of shock, believing he'd “just get up and have another go.†Then, as time passed, he realized he'd broken both ankles, doing severe soft-tissue damage to one of them — damage that would take years to heal. “It hurt a bit,†says Heason. “But not as much as I'd have expected broken bones to.â€
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Er, what happened to Mr Heason? is he allright?
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think the incident was a little way back was it not? (Narcissus maybe?)
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isn this shit for real? :wank:
what a load of funking bollards.
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Its all strikingly at odds with what Grimer told me whilst informing me I wouldn't be required to take photos of Reardon for his article...
Its a hilarious choice of routes though. Hopefully he'll inspire Si O into a one-upmanship bullshitting war.
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Guy strikes me as a bit of a fool.
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undoubtedly a total tool but the pictures of him onsight soloing romantic warrior look nice...if you believe he did it...
(http://www.crimpermag.com/images/Michael%20Reardon/RWP52-2.jpg)
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This dude is clearly very bold but he talks more shite than I do. Some achievement...
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This dude is clearly very bold but he talks more shite than I do. Some achievement...
Give him a medal...
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(http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e67/houdini2/gravestone-text.jpg)
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(http://www.trophies2go.com/images/productimages/G85.jpg)
posthumously awarded
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(http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e67/houdini2/22222222.jpg)
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here's the original shot, before being photoshopped. if you look really closely you can just about make out the faint trail of a rope or two..
(http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/1951/reardonzm3.jpg)
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I'm getting ET to the rescue of this one Soaps.
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the guy comes across as a bit of a knob on return to sender.
I'm looking forward to reading the article about him in Rock and Ice.
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Only briefly skimmed through the article so please ignore the following if I have wildly missed any hidden subtleties,
In Brief:
A fair few amusing, mocky comments about the white polo shirt wearing, bay watch wannabe - nice one Grimer ;)
A mass of random grit info about the people, places etc - presumably because Michael was nothing to write home, or to America, about, and thus something was needed to bulk what would otherwise been a very short article.
Lots of pictures of other people climbing on the grit - presumably because Michael didn't do/wasn't witnessed doing, anything worth snapping?
One token shot of him on the ramp of rampart, captioned as if he is soloing soul doubt - presumably to try to save his rep by missleading the average Joe into thinking he has done something impressive?
All in all, well done grimer,
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oh thank you James. Yeah, it did need some fleshing out from the original brief because apart from anything, it did rain an amazing amount when he was here. Sorry if it was rambly, but it was kinda hard to get psyched about just another article about the grit.
Well done yourself, by the way. :)
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So what did this demi god actually do?
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Dave (supertopos.com)
I met Michael this summer at Tahquitz, it was interesting to say the least. Goes something like this: We're playing hacky sack in the lot waiting for some friends, finishing coffee,etc.. MR speeds up skids to a stop says high to a mutual friend of ours and gives us his itenerary: warm up Whodunnit, Super Pooper next and then the Vampire!! Jumps in his car and speeds away. Wow I thought. Later at the crag he warms up on Wong climb 5.7, then we see him later top out on Whodunnit, while sitting on the summit he says he did Y crack and Green Roseeta (.11c o.w.) before Whodunnit. So back at the base hanging out under Fred he commences to tell us how he just got back from the Brittish Isles claiming to have on-sighted, solo of course, all the Brits "headpoint" test piece routes claiming them as lite and the brits as weak!! Says the Irish climbing federation or club or something like that paid for him to develop some crags that they could'nt touch, all solo of course. So after that mega spray session my friend and I do some short 5.9 slab before we bail and Michael eye's it for a sec. ask if it's all face climbing and then shrugs it off and bails out of sight. Should'nt that be lite for him, being that he sent the Vampire which has several .11 slab/ thin face cruxes? Hmmm.?!
O.k. so I'm not saying he did or did'nt do stuff, but those claims about the brits are pretty bold, any brits know anything about this? I have a friend whos' president of a climbing club in Manchester (grit home turf) he says he never even heard of the guy. You'd think those brits would be up in arms over that, or at least have to say cheers if not! One last thing, one of my friends who I was climbing with that day, whom many of you know was just blown away, saying that (in comparison to Bachar) that if you were hanging at the cookie the difference was that Bachar would walk up and solo Crack-a-Go-Go right in front of you.
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Is that you or not Si?
Ay up. I climbed and hung out with Michael quite a bit over in uk. But yeah, he did some good stuff over here. When I wasn't with him, he did the boulder problem start of Neon Dust and West Side Story. At Froggatt with me he did loads of stuff, including Sunset Slab, Checker's Buttress and Tody's Wall.
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I applaud you Grimer :bow:
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Did this psysdo guru do any thing at Stanage, fuck this wana be grit on site bitch ass ass hole holic, there is no way he did warm love OS,,,,
Heason events will do a lecture... .com
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Is that you or not Si?
Ay up. I climbed and hung out with Michael quite a bit over in uk. But yeah, he did some good stuff over here. When I wasn't with him, he did the boulder problem start of Neon Dust and West Side Story. At Froggatt with me he did loads of stuff, including Sunset Slab, Checker's Buttress and Tody's Wall.
soloing an e2 and a couple of hvs's is a far cry from doing warm love or any of the other shit he claims.
seems like a total bullshitter to me.
:thumbsdown:
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yeah grimer its moi. Hope your good. Im in colorado livin it up.
Yeah I email michael just cause i was interested in the stuff he had done in uk and the homeland cause its close to home you know, but he just brushed me off. funny article. old sunset slabs a tricky one eh. I have seen nigel kershaw solo it in his hi tec silver shadows with no hands, impressive. Maybe rock and ice would be interested in that.
regards mate.
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At Froggatt with me he did loads of stuff, including Sunset Slab, Checker's Buttress and Tody's Wall.
now if we were talking Chequers Crack not Buttress then that would have been a good effort.
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soloing an e2 and a couple of hvs's is a far cry from doing warm love or any of the other shit he claims.
seems like a total bullshitter to me.
:thumbsdown:
He did an E2???
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sorry i was thinking of sundowner!! not sunset slab! :oops: :-[
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so some interesting stuff.....
Ricky bell has just turned up at my house for a week or so. Ricky bell to those of you who do not know is a very reputable climber with a string of first ascents and repeats up to E8/9 all over the place. He bumped into reardon at squamish few weeks ago as he was giving a slide show.
During the slide show reardon showed various pictures including one of him on the jug at the start of end of the affair and the shot of him on rampart/soledoubt and a shot of him on masters edge just off the ground. He told the crowd of 150 people at least that these shots were of him ABOVE the cruxes on all the routes. He said that he onsighted the routes but had to downclimb through the cruxes becasue the top easy sections where wet. HE TOLD THIS TO THE CROWD INFRONT OF RICKY BELL AND VARIOUS OTHER IRISH PEOPLE. It was very embarrasing.
The hardest route he did in ireland was an E5 called blockhead at the burren. He top roped the route to death then soloed it. Bare in mind that I onsighted this route when i was a child. The route is probably e4. The crux is 8 foot protected by an rp of the ground followed by the rest of the route which is no more than VS.
Now where the fuck are all the routes upto 13 X that reardon sprays about on his websight.
Michael reardon sprayed a complete load of embarrassing bullshit, depending on who he is talking to or where he is lecturing. Im gonna be so syked if he brings his lying gritstone tour to boulder colorado.
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just of note
ricky bell has just informed me that his mother did sunset slab
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... the crowd of 150 people at least ...
Jeebus! That's a lot of people turning up to hear bollocks. Does no-one at these lectures give him any grief?
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Jeebus! That's a lot of people turning up to hear bollocks.
Maybe he should do a UK lecture tour with Si O'Conner :ang:
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Okay so what about the stuff in Return To Sender??
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Haven't seen it. What does he do in that?
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I applaud you Grimer :bow:
Me too. You must have a diploma in diplomacy.
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I remember watching the photographer taking pics of him on the 5b crack at the start of Rampart, as he went up and down loads of times. I jusk knew where the pic was going, you could almost see the caption.
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Okay so what about the stuff in Return To Sender??
Is that at Malibu Creek? If you've been to Malibu Creek.....(where they filmed Planet of the Apes and Mash)...let's just say I've soloed 5.11 there.
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Okay so what about the stuff in Return To Sender??
its not very impressive, he soloes some 5.11s (F6c or something) and does a 5.10 at joshua tree. I don't get how people get all excited about these climbs when half the people climbing have soloed these kind of grades at some point.
At the end i think he solos a 12c (7b+) sport route, and the caption says 'First solo of this route' like its something people aspire to do, it a fucking sport route, it has bolts there to protect it, i don't get why anyone would want to solo it, it looked pretty shit.
The movie doesn't talk about how mch practice he's had on the routes but by the fact theres qds at the top of the routes at malibu creek i'm guessing he practiced them on top-rope first.
I just don't get what the fuss is about 8b and 8b+ have been soloed by other people, thats impressive, this guy is way off the pace. He's totally hypocritical talking about how you have to solo for the right reasons otherwise your going to have an accident, hen he's obviously doing it for the media attention. it almost makes me wish he had an accident.
:wank:
nicely written article by the way grimer.
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did ricky put up with that shite si? I hope not.
i'd say its time for you boys to take a trip TO one of his lectures to sort this debacle out.
(ps - grit weather is good, -2 at burbage this morning at 7 bet you wish you were here ;))
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So Warm Love has been repeated? this is, for sure the greatest os going, someone point this guy at London Wall. sorry, on second thoughts do not...
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I take it that the ascent of Warm Love has been captured on video? I don't believe that this yankee punter is telling the truth.
In fact! I put it to you Sir, that you are a liar and I challenge you (Motherfucker) to prove me wrong. Go!
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:oops: Ah! The perils of posting after going on the lash... I'd like to scratch that comment about your mother. But RE Warm Love, if you are going to talk-the-talk then you really should walk-the-walk & prove it. (In a pigs' eye!)
(Assuming you read this drivvel...)
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Tell me about it, been on a bender recently, and am totaly cringing about the pimping stuff in france thread. Been hanging out with the wrong crowd and been subject to much "pay to play" girl action, thought i would share it with the climbing lot and now wish i had not, will make my last post today and hope every one forgets about it. There are loads of prozzers at Bas Cuvier though...
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Oh yeah, this "taking the mick Readon" guy, Hes a photo slut so he should have his proof, There are things that are unbelivable, If Jonny Brown, or one or two members of his crew had claimed an os asscent, it would go without saying that the hype would be buzzing and there would be no doubt.
I am totaly out of touch with the scene, however i have worked this route and will say this much, it is totally condition dependant and i would love to know the temp on the day he sent the second asscent of one of the last great taboo routes....
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Whatever happen to that innocent young dancer?
(http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/yhst-52805104314370_1917_34049750)
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I take it thats me on the right...
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sorry, i ment on the left, shit now i am confused.
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the motto on his website "lifes short play hard" was an old reebok advert featuring patrick de gaillardon sky surfing.
anyone remember?
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I take it that the ascent of Warm Love has been captured on video? I don't believe that this yankee punter is telling the truth.
In fact! I put it to you Sir, that you are a liar and I challenge you (Motherfucker) to prove me wrong. Go!
I called him a liar on the UKC thread... he responded sometime later and I couldn't be arsed replying.
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doesnt the pic of him climbing the stautue seem a bit strage, like the left arm/hand?
seems pasted.
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http://www.climbing.ie/cgi-bin/cieyabb/YaBB.pl?num=1160047343/15#15
reardon's reply on climbing.ie
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If it does turn out to be true that he OS soled WL then I'll kiss his arse, his mothers' arse and if she's still alive, his grans' arse too.
Can't say fairer than that... :spank:
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No mention of warm love. this guy seems to be covering tracks. I do not care about any of the other bully, only the claim of this route.
I am not a bitter person but i would claim it is a possibility that this route is totally on site-able, just not by some maverick chancer.
still you have to lend the guy the credit.
Well done mate, E mail me your sequence...
PS was it wet.
ppS did you take any falls?
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What grade is Warm Love, and where is it?
I was going to google it, but then as i was typing it in i realized thats probably not a good idea from a work computer
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http://www.rockfax.com/databases/r.php?i=958 (http://www.rockfax.com/databases/r.php?i=958)
here you go. One for real grit afficionados!
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So I'm guessing someone has top-roped it successfully and given it a UK tech grade of 7A and not 7B, which is what I thought JD gave it.
Lad pulls a most excellent gurn on that vid.
I do not care about any of the other bully, only the claim of this route.
Ditto.
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It has to be 7B the doors. It has a tall mans sequence at 7A, but it would be a real nasty side ways fall from the crux, possibly head first if the heel hook holds! But it was lead with gear, so not an issue if you place the cam...
but OSS would have to be a flash, as whatever the story, the very last push is the end of the crux.
I would like to state that it is great to see someone else showing an intrest in this route, its an A1 route, and well suited to the first acentionist
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All routes that wait years for a second ascent have an aura about them. If you are prepared to stick your head up and claim one of them (and in such a fine style) you really should be prepared to defend your claim. If you cannot or won't, why bother saying a word at all? The fact that this guy is fully-loaded yet still accepts free equipment speaks volumes...
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Its all kudos craving...
climbing is freedom from thought control.
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This might be me being completely dumb or computer Gremlin's but he's since changed that article and now there's no mention of Warm Love. With regards Stanage With Out Oxygen he just says "five minutes later I'm on the top" but doesn't mention how he got there - probably walked round the back. I reckon he did Fish or Chips, or Breakdancer. He's just using the route names as airy fairy section titles anyway. At some point allowing or encouraging people to think you've done things you haven't (as he's done in his talks) counts as bulshitting and even though there's possibly confusion between american onsight and british isles ground up. If you're a professional sponsored climber there's a bit of an onus on you to make sure you're on the right route and you know where it goes. Otherwise you're an unprofessional sponsored climber. He dismisses our routes as boulder problems, but didn't think to use a pad - wtf? And he still sounds like a knob on his site.
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And he didn't even come to Staffordshire... Loser..
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His visit in his own words, not had time to listen to all of it yet.
http://www.podclimber.com/audio/pclb_CL_005_Reardon_002-2006-07-27.mp3 (http://www.podclimber.com/audio/pclb_CL_005_Reardon_002-2006-07-27.mp3)
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:rtfm: dont care who you are, you cant os british 7a on a grit route
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Why not?
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Ditto?
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Cos it'll get down graded or declared morpho as soon as anyone does it?
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Just one thing to interject here as some of the comments, eg, slim's don't have much grounding. During Reardon's stay here, it was the most amazingly bad week of weather of the entire year. Just that people get so carried away when the smell blood that perspective gets lost a bit. Not defending what seems to be misleading propoganda on his part, as that is a bit of a wind up, but that's no reason to go just as far in the other direction.
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Like that french bloke once said 'if something has been climbed once, then it can be climbed on-sight'. There is no reason that someone can't on-sight 7a, it's only a grade harder than 6c (which isn't that hard anymore and 6b is approaching a rest)!
I've no doubt it's been done on grit boulders, so why no routes?
As for it being declared morpho afterwards, of course it will, but that is just par for the course, when things get technically hard grades they normally are weird morphological moves (dyno's or rounded mantles etc), especially on grit. I think we can expect that!
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Exactly. I mean, he could be six feet tall with massive arms, good at dynoing incredibly good looking with too much dark hair? Although he did just happen to be five foot five with hair like a forty nine year old prostitute, and wierd little sticky out hooves like richie p has.
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well ok wasnt ment to be over analized...
yes there is no reason that a 7a grit route cannot be onsighted....
however whoever can os 7a on lead on route is frankly a legend, and i can see it being done anytime soon...
prove me wrong
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of course it can be done
i saw leo onsight the hard 7a part of against the grain only to stuff up on the e4 ledge.so thats 1 example i have seen,i dont get out much.
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You shouldn't be so modest, Mark. I've seen you fall off ledges too. Mark Sharratt, the man who put the Ledge back in Ledgend.
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ho ho ho.