AidanWad

[andy popp]

I was thinking of posting exactly the same.

In the meantime, freshly released video from last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVo-EzWWzP0

 

[gme]

So it's now been out for a week, free in the public domain via the podcast, (and in the case of Spots of Time, for months via the paid podcast), that Aidan has climbed 2 first ascents this winter, both of which look excellent, both of which were harder for him than Alphane, one is likely the hardest in the UK, the other of which is one of the the hardest in the world.


And nothing on any of the climbing news sites, just because there's no picture and grade on insta? really?

I like how he is controlling his own media, journalism seems so lazy these days and most of the climbing sites just re hash Instagram posts in the guise of news, check UKCs recent ones of Shauna and Dave Mc for classic examples. Until they add something to the story why bother reading it.

Pretty sure there will be a more long form interview, film and comment in time, which i personally prefer.

More importunately we have a likely 9A in the UK (wills not even managed all the moves yet after a few sessions) and a contender for the hardest in the world. Aiden also sounds very close to Burden.

UK boulderers leading the world.

 

[Duma]

I was thinking of posting exactly the same.

In the meantime, freshly released video from last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVo-EzWWzP0

Lovely, thanks. Swiss Air looks so amazing, wish it was in my pay grade!

 

[Duma]

I like how he is controlling his own media, journalism seems so lazy these days and most of the climbing sites just re hash Instagram posts in the guise of news, check UKCs recent ones of Shauna and Dave Mc for classic examples. Until they add something to the story why bother reading it.

Fair enough, but do you think he's asked sites not to report these ascents? seems unlikely?

 

[remus]

I like how he is controlling his own media, journalism seems so lazy these days and most of the climbing sites just re hash Instagram posts in the guise of news, check UKCs recent ones of Shauna and Dave Mc for classic examples. Until they add something to the story why bother reading it.

I've got some sympathy for UKC in particular as they do put out good quality, original content alongside the lower effort stuff like Shauna on Fat Lip recently. It's a tricky balance in the era of instant news because either you put out a quick post with minimal details to get something that's current, or you wait a week for an interview and have a better article, but you're a week too late and nobody cares.

I guess it's not so different to traditional news outlets in a lot of ways. A lot of 'news' these days is articles from a wire agency (reuters etc.) that are lightly re-written for your site of choice.

Having said that I do wish more news sites would lean in to interviews, further research etc. It feels like that's where they can add real value, whereas anyone who wants speedy reporting can just follow people they're interested in on insta.

 

[jwi]

There is no need to read daily updates on climbing news. It's just a bunch of mostly insignificant datapoints. A monthly update is plenty.

I am of the same opinion on general news. Getting the news once a week is already bordeline pathological. Several times per day is psychotic.

Cf https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli

 

[Duma]

But none of this answers the question of why the news sites (UKC in particular, given the UK angle) haven't picked it up? They're clearly not averse to just tweaking and reposting - ie the Shauna Fat Lip repeat another catch heel I see So why would you ignore these ascents? Doing a newsflash brief piece doesn't stop you putting out something more in depth later. These are 2 of the 3 most significant ascent's this winter for UK readership.

 

[lukeyboy]

I don't know the economics but climbing is still quite niche, so I can imagine the 'return' on a news story may not be worth someone reasonably competent/paid spending more than quite a limited amount of time on, even if they could or wanted to.

Even within the niche of climbing, there will only be a small subset of nerds like us who follow and particularly care about news stories like this.

Aside from all that I agree with Duma's point that it's odd no-one has published even just a brief 'newsflash' about this, based on the podcast where the ascents are publicly recounted in detail by the person who made them (i.e. the information is available, public and reliable).

 

[Wellsy]

UKC's news is more of a content aggregator than it is like, there are rumours of X, we contacted to confirm or deny etc

Like, does anyone working at UKC know of Aidans recent climbs?

 

[T_B]

Duma - there’s been nothing published on UKC about Aidan since August 2022 that hasn’t been lifted off his IG. I suspect you’ll find the same with all the other sites. So difficult for them to publish anything with no photos and just referencing his/Sam’s podcast?

 

[remus]

Like, does anyone working at UKC know of Aidans recent climbs?

Definitely. At the start of the patreon-only pod about Spots of Time Aidan mentioned that someone from UKC had contacted him about the lakes thing, so guess that would have been around mid-march?

 

[Bradders]

Duma - there’s been nothing published on UKC about Aidan since August 2022 that hasn’t been lifted off his IG. I suspect you’ll find the same with all the other sites. So difficult for them to publish anything with no photos and just referencing his/Sam’s podcast?

There's a lovely photo of Spots of Time on the Wedge Patreon Discord

:fishing:

 

[teestub]

So it's now been out for a week, free in the public domain via the podcast, (and in the case of Spots of Time, for months via the paid podcast),

Podcast on Patreon of Spots news was 22nd March, so not quite months yet Aidan also said on that podcast that UKC had approached him for a story when he’d only told a few people he’d done it. Maybe we will get a nice essay in the next issue of Spotter instead.

 

[Will Hunt]

Full news story up on UKC now.
https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2024/04/aidan_roberts_climbs_two_top-end_projects-73655

I spoke to Rob about this and they've known for ages. They've wanted to put this up earlier but were waiting for more info from Aidan which took longer than they'd expected.

There's a longer interview on the way.

 

[Fiend]

That's pretty informative. I'll be looking forward to the video of Spots, unless it's paywalled for devoted acolytes only.

 

[lukeyboy]

UKC's news is more of a content aggregator than it is like, there are rumours of X, we contacted to confirm or deny etc

I think that's a bit harsh - IMO they are one of the better sites out there for fact checking and trying to get interviews / more info to add to the bones of the story.

 

[Dac]

And as if by magic:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2024/04/aidan_roberts_climbs_two_top-end_projects-73655

 

[teestub]

UKC's news is more of a content aggregator than it is like, there are rumours of X, we contacted to confirm or deny etc

I think that's a bit harsh - IMO they are one of the better sites out there for fact checking and trying to get interviews / more info to add to the bones of the story.

Yeah agree, they’ve massively improved their news offerings in the past few years. I’m sure Rob G lurks on here looking for news nuggets, it seems this improvement on the site is thanks to his and his team’s work.

 

[Fiend]

Was watching the recently uploaded video of some random steep hard things in some random euro place, and I just wanted to say that it is really rather exciting that we have not one, but two, multiple 9A boulderers come through in the recent couple of years, both inspiring climbers and one of them seems to have the biggest smile in climbing, and basically it's cool, people are pulling hard on small holds :2thumbsup:

 

[Fultonius]

It'll be interesting to see where Will Bosi thinks Honey Badger and Terranova fit amongst these.

Aidan's got so much specific strength that it might hold Bosi back for a while! We'll see...