Quinceañera!!!

For those of you who don't know what a Quinceañera is, it means a 15th birthday party. No, it's not for me, I'm way, way, past 15. But if I were a 15-year-old Mexican girl celebrating my Quinceañera, it would look like this...



Pretty creepy, huh? I promise you will have nightmares about that photo.

Like I was saying, the party wasn't for me, it was for the climbing company that changed everything. September 1st, 2010 was the 15th anniversary of Cordless.



I was going to post this yesterday, but I figured that it could wait until today because:

A - We decided to go climbing instead of banging away at a computer.
B - There's only like 12 people who read this anyway
C - I haven't posted anything in eight and a half months, so what's one more day?

That's right. 15 years ago, I bought a used Husquavarna sewing machine, a few yards of Cordura and about 40 cubic feet of foam. The rest, as they say, is history.



For those of you who know anything about these machines, it's not a walking foot but it can take bonded nylon thread. This little bastard stitched up at least 100 Crash Pads before I stepped up to a true industrial machine.

So with an initial investment of about 300 or 400 bucks in machines, fabric and foam, we built a multi-million dollar, world-wide industry and changed the climbing scene forever. Not bad, huh?



And I've still got one of those Pads right here in the shop. Technically, this one is Cordless Pad #4, as I sold Pad #3 and the first two were so shitty-looking that I popped the stitches and re-used the foam.

Anyway, yesterday we decided to go out to Little Cottonwood and take part in my two favorite things: a little bouldering session and a half-case of beer.



About a half-dozen of the extended family came out...



... and a few of them thought that crimpy problems in 85 degree heat are fun...



... which is totally stupid. But a good time was had by all, regardless.

So this one's for all of you who have helped contribute to what we have collectively built together since '95: We've taken bouldering from an unrecognized, unappreciated part of the climbing world and turned it into the scene's most popular arena. I want to give all of you my deepest gratitude. What we have accomplished will be appreciated long after we're gone.



On the flip side, I want to give a hearty Fuck You to the companies and people who are diluting the climbing world with low quality knock-offs of Cordless gear and generally treating bouldering not as a genuine, valid and viable activity, but merely as a marketing and branding opportunity. And if you need me to spell it out more clearly: Black Diamond can eat a fat dick.

Instead of getting all weepy and long-winded about who we are, where we've come from and where we're going, the best way for me to sum up the last 15 years is to include the photo and intro speech from our latest catalog...



"Here’s a photo of a shoddy one-car garage at the end of a dirt alley in Bend, Oregon. Big deal, right? To us it is a big deal, because this is where it all started. This was the Cordless shop from 1995 to 1997. And what came out of that sorry-looking hovel built an entire industry.

We didn’t start making bouldering gear because there was a ton of money in it or because there was a huge, international market. Just the opposite was true; back then, bouldering was a raw, fanatic, underground movement and we were initially ridiculed for believing that it would become anything bigger or better than that.

We did it because we saw a much larger potential, something that would take years to develop. We didn’t view the bouldering scene for what it was at the time, but what it could be. Sometimes, you have to look beyond what currently exists and see the larger picture, the massive possibilities.

Fifteen years.

We’ve been making bouldering gear for a decade and a half, longer than anybody else in the game, with more highs and lows than we can remember. But even in the worst of times, one thing has stayed the same: our devotion. Never give up and never sell out.

We don’t want to bore you with one of those “back in the day” stories. We’re all about taking things forward. This year, we are consolidating two exceptional product lines under one roof. Revolution and Pusher are now part of The Cordless Group, a collective that is dedicated to designing and producing the highest quality climbing gear worldwide.

Along with our production in North America, we have developed our European branch, Revolution/Pusher EU, to hook up all you guys on the other side of the Atlantic. We’re franchising like McDonald’s, baby.

Although it’s all too common today, we refuse to dilute the climbing world with shitty knock-offs and mass-produced junk made in some third world sweatshop. All of our products are made locally, if not specifically in-house. Same goes for the Euro crew. Local manufacturing allows us to dramatically lower our carbon footprint, maintain exceptional quality control and quickly introduce new products.

In every little intro speech we’ve written since ‘95, we have finished it with two simple words. We put it down there because we want you to know that the only reason we are still around is because of you. And you are the only reason we got into this gig in the first place. We hope you’ll understand that we sincerely mean this:

Thank You"

The Great Debate

So once again, it's been a month since I've written anything. I'm really starting to screw up this whole Blog thing. But now I'm making up for that lost time by resolving some of the most pressing issues of our time. Read on.....

COKE VS. PEPSI



Coke is better than Pepsi. Always has been. So there, it's settled. Shut the fuck up, Pepsi. Now we can finally end the stupidest debate in human history.

CAKE VS. PIE



This is a very tricky topic, but one who's answer is easy to rationalize: Cake tastes good because it's made with a lot of sugar. Pie tastes good because it's made with a lot of sugar AND a lot of butter. Therefore, Pie is better.

And this is based on a side by side comparison, both being served individually at room temperature. If one were to heat up the Pie and add Ice Cream, the Pie's superiority is magnified by a factor of 50. Whereas, heating up Cake is just plain disgusting and adding Ice Cream to it makes the Cake a sloppy mess.

Another thing to consider is the special events or occasions these two desserts are served at: Cake is usually served at birthdays or weddings, events about "me". Pie on the other hand is served at Thanksgiving and family picnics, events about "us". So Cake is a narcissistic jerk.



Finally, I have to give credit where it's due: this topic was started by my man Josh Helke at Organic. He even dedicated a T-Shirt to this grand query. Evidently, he has a lot of spare time.



FONTAINEBLEAU VS. HUECO TANKS



Ooooooooh, something about climbing. I know that this is an old-school debate, since better bouldering areas have been found in South Africa and New Zealand. But who wants to sit on an airplane for 37 hours to find out how much more bitchen' those places are? Not me. I'm containing this argument to Font v. Hueco.

Much of this depends on what style of climbing you prefer. Super-steep, powerful moves on little edges or more vert-angled, technical climbing on massive slopers.

And both areas have obvious drawbacks; Would you prefer to sit around and wait for the rare occasion when it stops raining (Fontainebleau) or would you rather pay a guide and get treated like a fucking 10-year-old on a field trip to the local Zoo (Hueco Tanks)?

But there is one thing that these two areas have in common: Although they are both populated by climbers I want to hang out with, they are both surrounded by people that annoy the shit out of me: Texans and French people.

TEXANS VS. FRENCH PEOPLE



I know that putting a picture of Bush next to De Gaulle is going to piss off a lot of French people, like putting a picture of Stalin next to the Dalai Lama. By the way, what would Stalin vs. Lama look like?



The Lama is a nice guy and all, but Stalin had the kick-ass Burt Reynolds moustache, so The Bandit wins.



But this whole "Texans vs. French People" debate is a little too complex. So let's simplify this debate even more...

COWBOY HATS VS. BERETS



One hat says: "I'm an ignorant dip-shit who voted for Dubya, twice". The other hat says: "I'm a pretentious douche-bag who reads his own poetry out loud".

By the way, did you know that "douche" means "shower" in French? Something to think about...

But I think that we can find some middle ground on this, if one were to find combination of these two annoying hats into one hat that nobody likes: Police Hats.



Taaaaa-Daaaaa! (or as the French say: Viola')

Some old stuff...

I've been going through some old stuff on my computer, and I found this Article I wrote for Urban Climber Magazine a few years back. This is the unedited version, the mag didn't want me to use the "F-Word". Read on...

Imagination and independent thought are not highly regarded these days. We are generally expected to shut up, stand in line and follow the rules. Six years of Republican administrations will do that to you. There’s not a lot of free fun any more. Oh, you wanna have fun, do ya? Then buy a ticket, get on the ride and pay $4 a gallon to find some fun, chump. Fun is now a commodity, unless you can find it for yourself. But with the right eyes, you won’t have to look too far.

When I was a little grom, skipping school to climb at Smith Rock, I walked past a woman strolling down the river trail who gave me, from her perspective, a valuable piece of information: “Why are you going to climb that, don’t you know there’s a trail that goes to the top?” Being a wise-ass, I probably responded with “Wow, thanks for the info, old lady” and kept walking. For some reason, I’ve never forgotten the example of her shortsightedness, but it does bring up a good point; Climbing as we practice it today is an abstraction. If getting to “the top” of something were the only goal, then you could take a mellow 3-hour hike to the summit of El Cap instead of spending 3 days banging away at the wall. The top of Midnight Lightning can be attained via tree, so why waste time on a boulder problem?

Climbing is more like an art form than a sport. It’s one of those rare things that are completely open to your own interpretation and practice. It’s different than other sports-like-activities in that there are no distinct measurements of achievement. There are no rebounds, RBIs or rushing yards. There are no assigned positions like halfback, point guard or pitcher. There are no set playing fields, time limits or regulation goal heights.

Some people focus on the difficulty aspect of climbing, others aim towards boldness or speed and some people just climb for fun. Some climbers spend months in the Himalayas and others spend months on a two-move boulder problem. Whatever it is, do your thing. Don’t let anybody dictate what “real climbing” is.

In that vein, you only need to look at Skateboarding for a progressive, innovative mentality towards a sport to truly realize it’s potential. In the 80’s, it was all about riding pools and half-pipes, structures designed or adapted specifically for skateboarding, until the evolution of street-style-skating. At that moment, the whole world became a skate park; everything could be ridden.

In the early 90’s, a group of Skateboarders in Portland started one of the most ambitious do-it-yourself projects in recent history. Looking for a dry and harassment-free place to skate in rainy PDX, this crew rounded up some concrete and shovels and made their way underneath a downtown bridge. Those first few banks and ramps were the foundation of what is now the Burnside Skate Park, a massive selection of terrain that is known world-wide, immensely respected within the skating community and built entirely by volunteers with their own money.

Most of us have saved up cash to visit some super-bitchin’ climbing area hundreds of miles away. Plenty of us have built little torture chambers out of plywood and plastic to stay fit. But you only need to look around you to see that we are surrounded by rock, a man-made rock called concrete.

When people talk about recycling, they use terms like “pre or post-consumer waste”, meaning the creative use of what most people throw away. Buildering is possibly the best use of massive consumer waste for the purpose of fun. By definition, it is recycling; by turning a huge, bland, soul-less piece industrial stone into an object of entertainment, challenge, diversion or whatever you want. It’s creating a use and a destination from dead space.

To borrow from a famous boulder problem in the Gunks, have a look at these man-made crags with “A New Pair of Glasses” to see what could be possible: The steep angles underneath bridges, parking lot ramps and stairs, the massive rounded bulges on freeway supports and the ubiquitous, clean-cut 90 degree arêtes on the corners of every building…the same cool features we look for at climbing areas.

This wide world of concrete is a blank canvas for climbers. But “blank” is not a good thing when you’re trying to climb. And so just as an artist steps to a canvas with his paints, the chemical gods have granted us with our own medium: epoxy.

Say you’ve found a steep angled wall that’s devoid of anything to hang onto. Any glued-on little nugget, edge, chunk, blob or pebble can potentially be used to turn a grey, lifeless, overhanging slab into a burly array of routes. The most barren arête, boring vertical wall or lame corner can become a masterpiece of technical moves, all thanks to our friends in the industrial adhesive business.

The potential of what could be done is nuts. Think about it. A handful of rocks, a $3 tube of epoxy and a wall of concrete is all you need. Every shitty industrial part of every town could have it’s own bouldering area. Places that are devoid of rock could become destinations. Lincoln, Nebraska could be the next Bishop, California. OK, that’s a big stretch of the imagination, but you get the idea.

The good news is the best potential places for such a project are located in areas that attract the least amount of attention. Chances are, the spaces around giant retaining walls and huge bridge pillars are not the best pieces of real estate in town, so your presence would be less conspicuous than trying to press out a mantel on top of the neighborhood 7-11.

So what’s the main obstacle to creating something like this? To sum it up in one word, it would have to be: Validation. If you’ve read this far and you have some comprehension of what we’re discussing, you probably have figured out that this is not entirely acceptable or 100% legal, as far as the larger community is concerned. There will be people who consider it vandalism, trespassing, etc. There will be people who have no interest or understanding of climbing, and even less of a willingness to try and understand and appreciate it. There is no easy answer to dealing with these people. The best method is to treat them with gentle respect and pity, because these sad fucks are already dead inside.

But finding validation within the climbing community itself could be an obstacle. Every new aspect of climbing is invariably met with some kind of resistance. This is the same mentality that derided John Bachar for bolting on hooks, slandered Alan Watts for working out moves by hang-dogging and thought that John Gill was wasting his talents by just bouldering. This myopic view of what climbing is and where climbing should be has rarely created anything of progress, so why bother with seeking their acceptance?

What we do is hard to describe and even harder to contain into a singular interpretation of climbing. It grows and evolves without eliminating any of preceding forms of climbing. There is a massive amount of potential that is all around us, if you know how to find it.

C.O.R.N. C.O.B

The title is an acronym. It means Central Oregon Really Needs Concentrated, Obvious Bouldering. Because what currently exists is neither concentrated nor obvious.

So last week I went back to Oregon for Thanksgiving. Mostly to chill with the family and eat a shit-load of mashed potatoes, but the weather was good enough to check out a few of my favorite Bend-area bouldering areas.

So join me for a little trip down memory lane...

Soon after the mighty Jim Karn moved to Bend from another town full of dirty hippies (Boulder, Colorado), he put up a sloping lip traverse called "Snail Trail" at Meadow Camp. I mean really slopey.



It starts on a wide, flat edge rail on the left "wing" of the boulder and tops out somewheres in the upper right of the photo. You may remember this boulder problem from the cover of the 1996 catalog for Jim's clothing company, Worm. And if you do remember that, it means you are one of about 20 or 30 people and you're at least 40 years old.

A few months after that, I found a feeble array of basalt blocks by Tumalo Creek. I started calling it "The Tick Ranch" after I came home and found four parasites had burrowed into my skin after a little cleaning session.

The Tick Ranch's only real claim to fame is a route that Alan Watts put up some time in the late 70's or early 80's. It's an 11d (French 7a for you Euros) that goes up an overhanging corner and out a roof. At that time, it was probably the hardest route in Oregon. And it looks like this:



Yes, I know that 11d is not really a big number, but you have to put it into context: It's an 11d protected by thin wires, on slick basalt patina. And this was before Spanish rubber, so Big Al was most likely wearing shitty EBs and sporting a Swami, no leg loops. All of this means extra credit points for being a bad-ass.

One of those boulders I called "The Ming Boulder", short for Mingus, a variation of Jingus, which means shitty or heinous. Not much to do in Bend but think up stupid slang and drink heavily.

I squeezed out a few problems on this block, "The Ming" and the "Ming Traverse".



The Ming is a little 2-move vert face problem on the left of the photo. John Cronin got the FA and called it V9, because every Cronin problem is V9.

The Ming Traverse starts around the other side of the boulder, passes the pine tree and finishes above the Ming face. It's somewhere in the V7/V8 range. The pine tree is really close to the boulder, so I would take a 2x4 and prop it away from the rock to give me some space to pass by. That's some MacGyver-type shit.

Soon enough, Cronin got the FA on another problem I had been trying a hundred yards away from the Ming block. It starts with a sit-down near the small cave on the left of the photo and moves around to the right, finishing on a slab on the back side.



Cronin graded this V11, which means it may be the only Cronin problem not graded V9. He called it "Path of the Righteous Man" after that famous speech in Pulp fiction...



You may think that the theme of this little blog session is "A tribute to sloping lip traverses". And you would be correct in assuming that. But you have to work with what you got in Central Oregon: a shitload of sloping lip traverses.

That does not mean there is a lack of rock in the area, actually there is plenty of rock. But 99.999% of it is just too short for decent climbing. As Metolius employee Erik Von Heidiken once said "Central Oregon would be the greatest bouldering area in the world if you were 12 inches tall".

Important info about Machetes

If you're confused about this title and topic, please refer to the previous post about New Bouldering Areas. Then it will totally make sense and you'll understand how incredibly important and relevant this is.

As the proud owner of a new Machete which I have purchased to hack any obstructing vegetation out of a New Bouldering Area, I would like to introduce you with a few other owners of Machetes, many of them cooler than me.

JASON VORHEES

For reals, I think that this is Sarah Palin, not Jason Vorhees. Why, you ask? Because he wore a hockey mask and killed teenagers who were trying to have sex in the woods.

INDIANA JONES

Han Solo's gonna carve you up, punk! Then he'll whip you. Seriously, a whip? What kind of fruit-cake uses a whip? Is he trying to be a dominatrix? Where's the black stiletto boots to go with that whip, Mistress Jones?

DANNY TREJO

I once met Danny Trejo at a mall in Salt Lake. He was buying shoes. He is also much shorter than he appears on film. But I still think he could beat the shit out of me. Just look at him.

DUDES IN FRANK FRAZETTA POSTERS


OK, that last one is not really a Machete. It's more like a sword. I'm putting it on here as a reference to my future plans...

Now that I have a bitchin' crag-grooming instrument like a Machete, I may need an equally bitchin' Chevy Van. On the side of the Van, there will be a big, Frank-Frazetta-style, air-brushed painting of me and my Machete, on top of a volcano, wearing a Viking helmet, with a girl wrapped around my leg. And I'm totally slaying a dragon, with a Machete.

It will look something like this:



Why would I do that? So that when I pull up to your local crag, You will know I mean business. Nobody drives a van like this unless they intend to kick massive ass. And you will say to yourself: "I bet that motherfucker has a Machete inside that van".

One last thing: Sorry it took me 6 weeks to write more stuff on the blog. Just been busy.

2010 Spot

In case you missed my constant spray about the 2010 line of Revolution Crash Pads, here's some more. But this one is a little different because it's not really about Pads specifically. It's about the cosmic anomaly that is known as The Spot.

In case you've never heard of The Spot, which I assume means you've been living in a fucking cave for the last 15 years, this is one of the most versatile pieces of climbing gear ever made. In 1994, the one and only Mike Call came up the the basic idea behind this baby when he wasn't busy doing his Spielberg/Scorsese thing.



The idea behind this rig is that it is a lean, mobile bouldering pad, a very capable backpack, a rope bag, there's even been a few folks who have specifically used this for Yoga. Nice one, Hippies! Work your Chakras!

Anyways, here's what's new this year: the Pack System. We sell the majority of The Spots to Japan, and we were getting a few concerns about Spot customers of "shorter stature". So we did the same 3-option pack height set-up that we have on the Mission Pads and the 12-G.


As for the open size, it's 48" x 27" x 1.125".


Before you ask, the answer is Yes: that extra 1/8 of an inch on the thickness means something, we're not just artificially jacking up the thickness to look cool. It's a lamination on the top of the foam that provides a more rigid landing area and improves the over-all life of The Spot's foam. So there.

1/2 Off Crash Pad Sale

We have about a dozen of last year's Crash Pads sitting around here, so we figured that we might as well get 'em out the door and make some space for the new stuff. So we're offering 50% off the remaining 08/09 Crash Pads.

Here's the breakdown:

12-Gauge Pad (54" x 48" x 5") now $212 - 5 remaining
Mission Pad (48" x 41" x 3.625") now $138 - 4 remaining
Commando Pad (41" x 32" x 3") now $89.50 - 2 remaining

As far as we can tell, this is the best deal on Crash Pads at the moment. Not to mention these are QUALITY Pads. So if you're interested, give us a free call (877-2-BOULDER) or do the e-mail thing: info@revolutionclimbing.com