Things climbing-related that annoy you

When indoor boulderers who don't even know what aid climbing is joke that everything is aid. You wish!

Rain.

Chris Wernette wrote:

... one of my related gripes is if you say you sent the route, but don’t mention it was on toprope. To send it has to be cleanly climbed on lead, no falls no takes. 

People who don't know what climbing terms mean, and/or purposely don't use specific terminology to describe their accomplishments

People who think being a dirtbag cool.

You know what’s cool? Not living in your car…

Jay Crew wrote:

People who don't know what climbing terms mean, and/or purposely don't use specific terminology to describe their accomplishments

Dang... thaz some serious shizz... pretty much why the only thing that annoys me are just other peeps in my area. 

Chris Wernette wrote:

People who use liquid chalk with pof aka rosin aka pine resin in it, which gunks up the holds outside.

What’s more annoying is most companies putting this in their liquid chalk and not telling anyone, and disguising it with a different name.

And what’s the most annoying is when people get defensive when you try to educate them, similar to the toproping off fixed gear issue.

Is Tokyo boost in this category ?

x15x15 wrote:

Dang... thaz some serious shizz... pretty much why the only thing that annoys me are just other peeps in my area. 

In order of awesomeness: onsight, flash, redpoint, pinkpoint(if it's a gear route), TR flash, freeburn on TR, dogged it, rope-magic ascent, french-free, AO

Onsight solo, solo to top your list of awesomeness. Naked is a bonus 1up on all categories

TJ Bindseil wrote:

Is Tokyo boost in this category ?

Hey TJ I’m not sure. Is Tokyo boost liquid chalk?

I’m holding a bottle of Petzl “power liquid” I bought at my local climbing gym a few years back and one of the ingredients is “Colophonium”. A quick google search returns “Colophonium, also known as rosin or colophony, is a natural substance derived from pine tree sap. It's a complex mixture of over 100 substances”

The Tokyo Boost company doesn’t seem to put their ingredients list on their website, but if they have an ingredients list on the back of the bottle you should check for this ingredient, or any others that sound fishy and search them.

What’s heartening is looking at the Petzl website now under the technical specifications it says their power liquid only contains “Magnesium hydroxide carbonate, isopropyl alcohol” so hopefully they removed this ingredient from current batches, but I haven’t bought any more to know for sure.

Chris Wernette wrote:

Hey TJ I’m not sure. Is Tokyo boost liquid chalk?

I’m holding a bottle of Petzl “power liquid” I bought at my local climbing gym a few years back and one of the ingredients is “Colophonium”. A quick google search returns “Colophonium, also known as rosin or colophony, is a natural substance derived from pine tree sap. It's a complex mixture of over 100 substances”

The Tokyo Boost company doesn’t seem to put their ingredients list on their website, but if they have an ingredients list on the back of the bottle you should check for this ingredient, or any others that sound fishy and search them.

What’s heartening is looking at the Petzl website now under the technical specifications it says their power liquid only contains “Magnesium hydroxide carbonate, isopropyl alcohol” so hopefully they removed this ingredient from current batches, but I haven’t bought any more to know for sure.

I’ve never been a liquid chalker but I’ve borrowed a squirt or two over the years.

I have made my own with rubbing alcohol and plain ol chalk.

The commercial version stayed on my hands way longer than the homemade. Way way longer. I remember falling into the water on a deep water solo, and after drying out, there was still a little white left on my hands. I wonder if the rosin is binding the chalk to your hands more than plain ol chalk and alcohol.

I don’t generally have any issues with sweaty hands so I’ve never gotten into it. 

Chalk and chalk discussions are creeping up my list, lol.  

highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion wrote:

I’ve never been a liquid chalker but I’ve borrowed a squirt or two over the years.

I have made my own with rubbing alcohol and plain ol chalk.

The commercial version stayed on my hands way longer than the homemade. Way way longer. I remember falling into the water on a deep water solo, and after drying out, there was still a little white left on my hands. I wonder if the rosin is binding the chalk to your hands more than plain ol chalk and alcohol.

I don’t generally have any issues with sweaty hands so I’ve never gotten into it. 

Put your chalk in a blender and get über fine. Then dry it on the oven for 15-20 mins at 400 to pull all moisture out of it then mix with ISO. I found this mimics the best of liquid chalks that don't use rosin.
I think the finer you get the chalk the better when making your own liquid, the drying in the oven thing is just really for when I use the chalk "normally".....it makes the ground up chalk feel like a cloud. If you've ever used Bison chalk, they bake their chalk to pull all moisture, and why I was inspired to do it many moons ago. It truly does make a difference in feel of the powder and seems to coat the hands better compared to just grinding the chalk up fine. YMMV.

Chris Wernette wrote:

Hey TJ I’m not sure. Is Tokyo boost liquid chalk?

I’m holding a bottle of Petzl “power liquid” I bought at my local climbing gym a few years back and one of the ingredients is “Colophonium”. A quick google search returns “Colophonium, also known as rosin or colophony, is a natural substance derived from pine tree sap. It's a complex mixture of over 100 substances”

The Tokyo Boost company doesn’t seem to put their ingredients list on their website, but if they have an ingredients list on the back of the bottle you should check for this ingredient, or any others that sound fishy and search them.

What’s heartening is looking at the Petzl website now under the technical specifications it says their power liquid only contains “Magnesium hydroxide carbonate, isopropyl alcohol” so hopefully they removed this ingredient from current batches, but I haven’t bought any more to know for sure.

I think I was told it was a primer to help the chalk stay on your hands.  I don’t actually use it, but when someone described it to me I immediately thought of the rosin they use in font and how it detextured the rock. Interesting to see it in the ingredients list like you pointed out

Mark Pilate wrote:

Chalk and chalk discussions are creeping up my list, lol.  

If you’re gonna talk the talk, you better make damn sure you chalk the chalk 

Ricky Harline wrote:

When people first started using sticht plates and tube devices was it common to belay with your hands above the device most of the time? Every operation he does his hands are above the device,...

Er, that's  exactly how they were designed/intended. You put a bight of rope through the device, clip the bight with a locking biner, clip the biner to your belay loop on  your harness - by definition you hold the ropes above the device and pull down toward your hip hard in the event of a fall. Virtually no one belayed off the anchor and the (intentional) soft catch wasn't a thing. In fact the catalog description of the original ATC stated that it was designed to let rope slip if the impact on the belayer was above 400 lbs. (No one really spoke in kN then, either.)

 and only once he has taken in rope does he lower his brake hand into position below the device and into a good braking position. Did you see this a lot? Seems very less than ideal to me. 

Allows you to give or take slack much more quickly.

When people call thin, steep face climbs "slab climbing."

Friction smearing is slab, thin crimping and edging is face climbing.

Not the same, gears = grind. :)

Jason Mills wrote:

When people call thin, steep face climbs "slab climbing."

Friction smearing is slab, credit card crimping is thin face climbing.

Not the same, gears = grind. :)

Slab climbing is frequently separated into thin slab (what you're describing with your credit card crimping) and friction slab. I hear old timers who are also confused about this "thin slab" idea and who say back in their day it was just face climbing. 

I don't have a horse in this race, but those two things don't have a lot in common, that's for certain. 

Ricky Harline wrote:

Slab climbing is frequently separated into thin slab (what you're describing with your credit card crimping) and friction slab. I hear old timers who are also confused about this "thin slab" idea and who say back in their day it was just face climbing. 

I don't have a horse in this race, but those two things don't have a lot in common, that's for certain. 

To me the problem is more about the angle than the hold type. Slab has to be significantly less than vertical. Some boulderers/sports climbers are so used to overhung stuff that they’d call a “dead vertical thin face” slab, which is plainly incorrect. 

Ricky Harline wrote:

Slab climbing is frequently separated into thin slab (what you're describing with your credit card crimping) and friction slab. I hear old timers who are also confused about this "thin slab" idea and who say back in their day it was just face climbing. 

I don't have a horse in this race, but those two things don't have a lot in common, that's for certain. 

I think that it was just super-cool in the 90's to call anything that wasn't Rifle "slabby"    "Smith is so slabby"

Ricky Harline wrote:

Slab climbing is frequently separated into thin slab (what you're describing with your credit card crimping) and friction slab. I hear old timers who are also confused about this "thin slab" idea and who say back in their day it was just face climbing. 

I don't have a horse in this race, but those two things don't have a lot in common, that's for certain. 

There are definitely two types of slab which warrant different types of shoes. In the RRG there is slab that’s off vertical, but it’s probably like 80-85 degrees and has tiny edges you’re standing on. A really stiff downturned shoe like the miuras or otakis works great there.

And then there’s the smearing slab which tends to be lower angle, and not as defined edges. Like what you find on a lot of granite climbing. A flatter softer shoe usually works better there. A lot of times people will wear a flat stiff shoe such as TC pros as well, since they’re so comfy for long routes.

Definitely both are slab because of the wall angle is < 90 degrees, IMO.