[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....