post
Video Friday - 5/20/2011
Before the videos get started I wanted to offer a little more background on the video of Adam Ondra's FA of Chaxi Raxi (5.15b). Writing on his newly redesigned blog, Andrew Bisharat points out how Ondra added bolts to the bottom of the route so that he could climb the route "ground up" instead of with a draw pre-clipped above the V14 opening crux. While not an earth shattering revelation I did find it rather interesting since pre-clipping one draw seems to be becoming more standard these days even when safety isn't really a concern.
And now on with the videos...
11 comments
Ondra speaks about his views on pre-clipping in his Urbanclimbermag interview (good read). He believes they allow you to save energy thereby making the route easier. It might be splitting hairs but I certainly think you have to throw some extra respect his way for having this view.
Definitely a good interview. Didn't remember reading that so thanks for the
reminder.
It's definitely true what he says. There's a reason that toproping is
easier than sport or trad climbing.
I don't want to misquote (I wrote what could be inferred/paraphrased) so here's Ondra's full opinion:
"What I don't like is that nowadays so many people do routes with the second bolt pre-clipped or even the third bolt. For me, it's only correct to pre-clip the first bolt if it is for safety reasons. Only if it is bolted in a wrong way so it is not possible to climb it in a safe way, especially when the guy who did the first ascent is really tall. Otherwise, for me, this is cheating because it saves your some power."
Where exactely did you find that quote?
This is from an interview in the latest issue of Urban Climber
According to his logic, he should re-climb all his routes without any pre-clipped draws?
Thanks for the shout out, Narc ... I would've liked to contribute to the online discussion yesterday, but I was close to throwing my computer through a window ... setting up a website has, um, tested my patience
I'm a new climber, can somebody clarify what pre-clipping is and how it makes things easier? I know that in sport climbing quick draws are already clipped in to the bolts and then climbers just slide the rope through the bottom carabiner, but I'm pretty hazy on the rest. Thanks
Preclipping in this case refers to clipping the rope into the first or second draw before the attempt to climb is made and thus the climber is basically toproping to the preclipped draw. This protects dangerous first, second, etc, clips where hard moves may loom to cause a fall.
More to the point, it saves the climber the trouble of making the clip while actually climbing the route. It can be quite difficult sometimes to find a position where you can use a free hand to make a clip.
Thanks, that clarifies a lot, much appreciated