Red Tips T-Shirts!

So, this morning the first batch of the Red Tips T-Shirts arrived, I was pretty god dam excited to check them out and see how good they was, and to be honest I was surprised how accurately them came out, and how clear the logo and colours were. I am going to set my pay pal account up tomorrow so people can buy them online, and have them delivered to them. They are £16, without delivery, I will find out how much the delivery will cost tomorrow as well. I personally think they are good value for £16, comparing the quality of design and colours to other leading climbing T-shirts like the Moon Climbing ones, which are all £20. I do like some of the moon climbing ones though, it's just that the Red Tips ones are cheaper, and in these harsh times of recession, price is important! Visit http://www.red-tips.com/ to buy or for more info.

http://www.red-tips.com/

Training & Buildering

I'm going climbing on Sunday, to Rubicon Wall, as I haven't been out in a while, I've just been training indoors, training quite specifically for 'The Press' (Font 7b+/V9) at Rubicon Wall. I've also been doing some 'Buildering', yeah, it's bouldering, but on buildings instead of rock.

This is what me and my friends have to do sometimes, when were short of money and want to climb outside. Me and my friend Josh Ellis made a video for the other day for http://www.red-tips.com/ . It shows one of the best buildering problems in Scunthorpe, called 'No Parking'. It was first climbed earlier this year and became an instant classic, it starts at the back of a roof, and climbs the full length of the roof outwards on metal girder's.

The link is here: http://red-tips.webs.com/apps/videos/videos/view/2571050-liam-copley-no-parking-font-7a-ish It's about Font 6c+/7a , mostly depending on the degree of heel & toe hooks you use. Regardless of the grade, this is a three star problem and should be on anybody buildering tick-list. Hope you like the video, don't take me too seriously on it please!
More Buildering videos and buildering Topos @ http://www.red-tips.com/

Red Tips T-shirts ready by 1st April! Pre-order now at red-tips-climbing@hotmail.co.uk

OR see the 'T-shirt' page on http://www.red-tips.com/ . I think that's enough links for now, I'll get some pictures and videos on Sunday.

Curbar, Rubicon Wall & The Edge

My dad had the day off, so he offered to take us out climbing in the Peak, plus, he also wanted to get out somewhere. The day started off good, before we set off my Dad found out he had won
£1000 from a draw thing, which is good! he is going to give me and Brandon £100 to produce the first small batcth (20)of the Red Tips T-shirts. These will be available as soon as possible, click the link at the side of this page to get to the website itself. Anyways! we went to the Trackside Boulder at Curbar, and I did some nice easy gritstone problems. Brandon failed to exclaim that he wanted to climb on Limestone, so after warming up, we set off to Rubicon Wall.






We warmed up at Rubicon, and after Brandon taking some violent-un-attended-spotted-falls (I wasn't expecting them!) we headed to the Kudos Wall. I'll cut it straight, we didn't do anything. But, as they say, limestone was made for training, and that's pretty much what we did, mostly. Just trying hard things, seeing how far we can get. All I have to do is this Font7b+ and then I will be able to do most of the other extensions. The 7b+ is a lower start to a 7b which I nearly flashed (got it second go), called A Bigger Splash Direct. I can nearly do the 7b+. And I mean, nearly!





Anyway we then went to the Fox House Inn, I got 'Hunters Chicken', which is chicken, with bacon on top, and then melted cheese on top. and a pint of Strongbow, then me and Brandon had a short and intense session at The Edge, then did some serious core body, lock-off, static wide move shizzle on this pull-up bar thing on the train. Only serious train-users will know about this amazing 2m+ long bar. It's just one of those little perks of being a 100% committed full time climber.

Rubicon Wall - 21.4 Miles

Brandon came and got me out of bed at 5am, although I was awake before hand. We biked to the train station, although, today there was a possible disaster on the horizon. We got the 6am train, and the connecting train in Sheffield left at 7:12, we would have 1/2 minutes to get across to the other platform and get the train, with bouldering mats, bags, bikes, ect.

A train station staff member was very mad at us both because we decided to ride our bikes on the platform to catch the train in time, he was extremely mad, he said that he had been watching us for weeks on the CCTV riding our bikes to catch trains, which I thought was pretty funny. After some persuasion, he let us go catch our train, but as we got close, we thought it might randomly leave, so we got on our bikes and biked again, and got on the train. I was happy to be on the train, but not so happy that the guy had actually chased us and was now on our train coming towards us. He threatened us with various things for about 3 minutes, he also said that he would be watching us on the CCTV when we was to come back later on.

We got off at Grindleford and had a painful bike ride to Rubicon Wall, we went wrong at one point and had to go back on our self to get to the wall. We warmed up on some polished eliminate problems, that we made up our self. After we was warmed up we headed over to the Kudos Wall. The first problem I tried was 'A Bigger Splash Direct', Font7b / V8. The sun was out, clear blue sky, I had my top off and it felt like a summers day, I was psyched. I almost flashed it, slapping for the sharp jug, and almost holding it. I managed to send it on my second go, which is my best ascent so far, and I was pretty happy about it. I tried loads of other things, and got close on most of them. I think next time I go here I will be more familiar with he place and will be able to crank really hard. There is a F8a route which I really want to do called Hot Fun Closing, next time I go, if i get a lift in a car, I will take a rope and try it.

We biked back, and also went to check out some boulders on top of this hill at Grindleford, which we thought was White Edge, although we got lost in some woods and came back. In total we have biked/walked 21.4 miles today. All in the name of climbing.

Training, Raven Tor Tomorrow

So, we're into the third month of 2009, and I've only really had one day climbing outside. This is because I have been training for some steep, fingery and powerful Limestone boulder problems. I've started to go off the Grit for some reason, I guess it's because, in general, I don't actually like the style of climbing that the majority of the problems provide. Except there are some amazing problems on the grit, and too be fair I have only sampled what climbing venues Gritstone has to offer. I've made recent additions to my home wall which is helping, and in general I've just been training on steep problems, with bad/small footholds, and doing big moves. This should help on the Lime. So yeah, me and Brandon are going to Raven Tor tomorrow, except I'm not too optimistic about the 10mile bike ride. And it should be pretty bad for Brandon as well, considering he has no seat! I would tell you what problems I want to try, but to be fair, I am just going to try everything and anything and spend more time on the things that actually inspire me there and then. Below is a picture of me after a 6hour session at The Works yesterday, wearing my new Moon 3/4's which are really cool.

And this is The Motherboard at The Works, which is now my favourite piece of indoor climbing wall.