Thursday evening I headed over to Sheffield, I'd arranged to buy some Dragons and also meet a couple of friends at the Works. But the weather was looking nice so I decided to head over a little earlier than planned and call in at Ravens Tor. I'd been having vague notions of trying Ben's Roof and Powerband for a while and this seemed like the opportunity to get stuck in. I was heading over from my mums house (in Macclesfield) and the first thing I realised was just how close Ravens Tor is. It is probably only half an hour door to rock if you get a good run and know where you're going, which suggests future visits will be on the cards when visiting the parentals.
Anyway I arrived and realised I really didn't have a clue about this place, I didn't know any problems at all having only been once or twice before back in the day. I knew vaguely where Powerband was but not where it started, and I also knew roughly where Ben's Roof went, but it looked very sequencey so I settled in for a “working it out” session. Luckily a kindly young lady took pity on me and demonstrated a sequence which saved me a lot of work. Duly informed of a workable technique I set to work and in the end I did all the moves and managed to do a couple of decent links. I'm fairly confident I can do this on my next session, however time was moving on and I wanted to try Powerband. Powerband is pretty steady until the last move, which is brutal. I couldn't even do it in isolation. Although to be fair I was probably getting pretty tired by now and I only had a couple of quick goes as it was time to depart.
Off to the Foundry, bloody hell this area has changed. It all looks like a young professionals wet dream nowadays, obviously the inside of the Foundry didn't appear to have changed in the last 10 years. Anyway a quick exchange of readies for footwear and I am now the proud owner of a pair of Dragons. In the past I have mocked the multi-shoe owning climber, but now I stand proud amongst you my comrades. Mind you they felt bloody uncomfortable compared to my lovely baggy Verdes, this multiple shoe phase may be short lived....
Then the Works where I spent a couple of gentle hours on the red circuit with a couple of friends. Very nice it was, I was feeling pretty battered at this stage but still had an enjoyable time. At the end of the session I had a brief attempt at some classic training/posing test-pieces. First off I went for the newcomer, the Beastmaker and managed to hang the 45's for a short time (about 7 seconds) then the campus board where I did 1-4-7 for the first time but failed to 1-5-8 and finally the chin up bar where I amazed myself by doing a one armer with each arm. Obviously these “feats” are nothing more than party tricks but that doesn't mean they're not fun, trouble is on the odd occasion when I do try these things it's invariably at the end of a session which means (a) I'm not performing at my best and probably more importantly (b) I'm tired so not moving in a crisp and co-ordinated fashion, instead my sloppy slapping is more likely to result in injury than improved performance. Hey-ho...
Leap forward to Saturday, I am heading over to the Isle of Man for a few days torture at the in-laws. I'm sailing from Heysham in the afternoon so a plan is hatched to head up that way early doors and pop in to Silverdale for a raid on Hyning and Woodwell to crush Transgenic and Not Bad Dave SDS. I've got Dragons now so surely these will be crushed to dust? The weather was supposed to be awful but in fact was pretty good, there was a wet streak next to the pocket at the end of Transgenic but all the holds were dry so things were looking good. However I'm an arse. When will I learn. I cannot warm up on an 8A. So instead of getting the body prepped for bearing down instead I pull on and get pumped and powered out. Also my skin is feeling very sore for some reason and my back is feeling stiff and sore, but these are just excuses at the end of the day I ruined any chance I had of doing this problem in this session by leaping on it and assuming I could just monster it, I can't. Obviously it didn't go down but I did manage my best link yet so not a complete failure, just stupid stupid stupid. I was rewarded for this idiocy with a sore left elbow and shoulder and shooting pains down my arm, hmmmm.....
Anyway on to Woodwell. Not Bad Dave is surely in the bag, I mean I've got the right boots for the heel hook move bring it on. But yet again I was to be denied. My skin was too sore and my core too tired. I went for a coffee and cake and then tried again, with much the same result. So not only had my stupidity on Transgenic cost me any chance of doing it, it had also cost me any chance of doing this, arse. The truly enormously stupid thing about this is that the evening before in debate with the G-unit the proposed strategy was warm-up crushing Not Bad Dave then go on to Transgenic. I am absolutely sure that if I had done this I would have crushed Not Bad Dave and would certainly have done no worse on Transgenic. Hindsight and all that. Anyway they are both good problems so I'm happy to return to them again at some point, the rock isn't going anywhere.
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