Gladiator Finals are set! Plus – The World Premiere Sneak Peek of the new E-Grips Giant Bubble Wrap Feature

The team for this comp was a little different than usual, as both Jon and Jay Jay weren’t able to come in and set.  Luckily for us Nic Sherman was available for every stripping and setting session, and along with the usual team of Jonny, Carlo, Garrett, Danny, and I, we put all those sweet grips from the hold review to good use on the 42 recreational, intermediate, advanced, open, and finals problems.

Nic setting the Beach all by his lonesome.

These are some of the Element holds, brand new for this comp since they arrived late for the hold review.

Jonny loves Element's silky smooth dual-tex

Chris Danielson, who is, among other things, the rep for e-grips, teknik, and so ill holds, came in and played around with some big green pinches to make a tricky problem that later was tweaked down into A7.  On top of all the awesome Hold Review Holds and features in the comp, Chris brought us a special hold to set with–E-grips brand new, never before seen, never before used, not even named yet bubble wrap sloper.  You can’t buy it yet–it isn’t even on their website!  We’ll only have this hold for a week, so if you want to climb on it you’d better come down to the comp and check out the sickness.  Here’s Carlo trying to hold onto it in an early iteration of O9:

Bubble Wrap Sloper Sneak Peek

Speaking of O9, how many setters does it take to get a little volume on the wall?

Four? That seems like a lot...

Because our team was smaller than usual, it took only one Volkswagen to get us to lunch.

Fiver forerunning the space problem (think meteors and rocket ships)

This is the Gladiator Finals, the conclusion of SBS Season VI, and therefore the most awesome of all the SBS VI events.  There will be jousting.  Avery beer in cans. Epic long finals problems.  Wahoo’s tacos.  Tons of sweet new tester grips.  A huge raffle.  E-Grips Bubble Wrap Sloper sneak peek.  Did we mention the jousting?  We BROKE WRENCHES setting for this thing, that’s how awesome it is.  So don’t miss out!!!

Breaking through 5/16" of solid metal? No problem for heavyweight setter Nic Sherman.

See you at The Spot!

Food Drive wrap-up, the Beach pads get a face-lift, Highline setting starts, and Carlo & Jon are back!

Food Drive Wrap-Up

So first of all, the Food Drive was brief, but went pretty well for our first effort.  Here’s the take:

Our Thanksgiving Food Drive collected a bunch of cans for Community Food Share. Thanks to everyone who donated!

The Beach Pads Get A Facelift

Josh, Brett, and a bunch of volunteers spent their Wednesday re-stuffing and shuffling the Beach’s Asana comp flooring to make a more uniform surface.  Remember that landing on this surface is different than standard blue padding or crash pads, and if you’d like to know more about it please ask at the desk.

Pads stacked to be re-placed.

Brett Merlin and Brent Apgar considering the pad puzzle.

Highline Setting Starts & Carlo and Jon are back!

Today was the first day of setting for SBS Season VI Comp 3 – the Highball/Highline Comp.  Last night after they finished improving the padding we stripped the Beach and the Dojo.  When we strip the walls, part of the time is always spent removing stuck holds.  We are only able to access the back of the Beach, part of the River, a very small section of the Hueco, and most of the Dojo, and when a hold is stuck in one of those places it’s often preferable to unbolt the hold using a long arm and wrench on one side of the wall and a pair of vice grips on the other.  Last night, to welcome Carlo home, we let him be the vice grip guy on a hold stuck high on the roof section of the Dojo.  As is obvious if you consider the height of the Dojo cave and the depth of the workout space above the Dojo, there isn’t much room to fit a setter in to get at the t-nuts.  You have to crawl on your belly to reach some of the topmost t-nuts.  Dusty is an understatement.  This is what Carlo looked like after two long plane flights, a 15 hour layover in Boston, major jet lag, a few beers, an hour and a half of stripping, and 10 minutes with the vice grips.  Was that shirt clean?  Oops.  Doesn’t Carlo look glad to be back?

The dust on his shirt kinda looks like a weird alien print, or something you'd see on the cover of a Tool album.

When we took down the tufa, this is what the wall looked like.

Garrett forerunning an early iteration of a problem for the Highball/Highline on Saturday. Jon's shadow watches him.