The Flash: Rock+Run Blog

Synonymous with Alex Megos, Tenaya are known for an incredible athlete line-up that speaks volumes about the quality of their climbing shoes. With Chris Sharma and Jimmy Webb joining the team in recent years, Tenaya look to be going from strength to strength, firmly establishing themselves as a market leader. This is thanks to Jose Gallego’s shoe designing prowess - Tenaya climbing shoes are some of the most technically engineered and performance orientated shoes on the market. Intuitive technologies like their SXR dynamics and Draxtor tightening system are particular performance perks.

In October 1986, Johnny Dawes made the first ascent of a climb which defined a generation, a pitch described by Paul Williams in his 1989 guidebook as being ‘of such appalling difficulty as to be almost beyond the realms of human comprehension’. The climb is, of course, The Indian Face E9 – a terrifying slab which claims centre stage on Cloggy (Clogwyn Du'r Arddu), a wall steeped in heritage, perched high on the sides of Snowdon. This short film proves a wonderful insight into the history of the route and the characters that ultimately shaped its story.

 

Co-founded in 2007 by Sheffield based bouldering masters; Ned Feehally and Dan Varian, Beastmaker started out as a simple solution to the pair’s lack of time for climbing on real rock whilst at university. In an attempt to maintain and strengthen their peak pulling performance, the pair had become obsessed with pushing their fingers to the limit, isolating individual digits and blasting out 2-hour sessions on a fingerboard. There was just one problem, the resin fingerboard they were using wasn’t conducive to their marathon sessions, causing blood blisters and various other skin problems. This pushed them to develop their own alternative – the Beastmaker.

This week’s video is a Wedge channel feature on British climbing legend, Ned Feehally. Having just released his first book, ‘Beastmaking’, Ned chats about everything from writing the book to training around the British weather and targeting his weaknesses.

Organic Climbing was founded by committed boulderer and geologist, Josh Helke, in the summer of 2003. Having worked in the outdoor industry as a writer, photographer and hold maker, Josh witnessed the very first bouldering crash pad come to market in the US.

Fingerboards are a great way to really specify your training and precisely target weaknesses in a particular grip or finger group. Find out here who should use them and how to use them safely and effectively.

Want to know what it takes to climb boulders at the highest level? Well, this week’s video comes straight from Red Rocks where Mad Rock athletes, Matt Fultz, Ethan Pringle and Taylor McNeill get together to take down some of the area’s supreme lines. From first ascents to repeats of Red Rock’s sandstone classics, the trio approach their projects in a variety of styles, utilising a diverse range of tactics to send. Mimicking their different personalities, their distinctive approaches to projecting give us a great insight into what you need to climb at the very limit – patience, grit and a whole lot of determination.

Rock+Run have called upon over 40 years of climbing, training and industry experience to develop the most comprehensive and complete fingerboard we have seen to date.

This week’s video is pretty special, not for its latest hard ascent or piece of climbing controversy but because it truly encapsulates what climbing is all about. From the waters of the idyllic Lake Saimaa, Finland’s biggest lake, we’re treated to some of Nalle Hukkataival’s latest and most local psicobloc projects.

A climbing shoe buying guide, to help you get exactly what you want in the right size. Find out about the different types of climbing shoes on the market and take a look at our climbing shoe buying guide. 

The dust has settled, grades have been discussed and finally we have the low down on Stefano Ghisolfi’s second ascent of Bibliographie. It seems only fitting then, that this week’s video focusses on Ghisolfi’s iconic ascent, taking an in depth look at the route and its torturous limestone holds. In typical limestone fashion, the holds are characteristically small, sharp and pockety with the crux sections proving to be as beautiful as they are mind blowingly difficult.

In 1969, Seattle engineer and lifelong mountaineer Larry Penberthy formed ‘Mountain Safety Research’ as a one-man mission devoted to improving the safety of climbing equipment.