Ruby's Cafe 

For those of you who know (and hopefully love) the colorful desert hermit/IC climber extraordinaire Alf Randell, or "Alf", you will appreciate this vignette:

Apparently, Alf had done this climb in the dark past with stoppers and tri-cams. Think 1970s. Think bad-ass. And think of my friend, Herb Crimp, a burly climber in his own right, but a modern child weaned on SLCDs and sticky rubber. Touting the more illustrious ascent, Alf guilt-tripped Herb into leading this route. Herb flailed, but flailed respectively, eventually gaining the anchors. Upon lowering, Herb complained, "just because Alf leads something in 1975 with stoppers and tri-cams doesn't mean I have to lead it."

Wise words. You had to be there.

I first tried rubies when friend 1-4 with no half sizes were available. I took one fall at the crux during my lead attempt, and top-roped it with no trouble [around 1980]. I am pleased by the solid grains of truth to be had from the comments i have read here. Thank you all for your fairness and kindness!

what a sweet route! I aided the line to put up a toprope and give it a go....barely missed the upper crux my first go! Much more managable than i imagined it would be, and so much fun locking in the knee-bar up high! A classic for sure.