Review > Atomik > Fonts 21 pack & Steep Wall Fonts

Kenny over at Atomik asked us after our last series of reviews what we'd like to see from them, as we loved their Font shapes so much, especially the XXL Font Sloper we suggested they make some more Font shapes and make some packs with them... and what did they go and do?? They only went and shaped a bunch of new Font holds.... HELL YEAH! Not only that the holds we had last time where poured from G1 (Generation 1) molds so the texture was pretty harsh... this time (and for their entire range from now on!!) these holds came from the G2 molds... DOUBLE HELL YEAH!!... so we'll see how the texture go's for the review.. let's introduce the holds we've been playing with:

21 hold Font pack, medium and smalls

Steep wall Fonts, 5 pack

These holds arrived and went straight onto the wall, there was no messing about! I wanted to see what the texture felt like on these shapes, they'd felt pretty good when they were on my desk at work so I was keen to get onto them as soon as possible... and know what? Perfect for the size of the holds, the smalls and mediums have just enough texture that you feel like you're going to be fine, and then Steeps feel the same, it's about how you grab these holds!

As you'll see in the video, we're playing on the smalls are fair amount on the overhung section of the wall, they're small and slopey in most cases so it's pretty hard going most of the time. The stand out holds are the steeps as they can go most places, the red one we have on our box got a lot of attention (and still is) just because it's so nice to hold onto, it's not in the nicest position, but where it is and how you get onto it is a very interesting move :)






These holds are going to be very good for beginners as the areas that you're going to want to grab isn't at first obvious, so they'll teach people about body movement if you set with that in mind. Where these holds will shine is going to be technical slab climbs where balance is going to be key, they're fun on traverses but the going does get tough the more the wall gets overhung, the smalls are super hard on our 30, there's no way they'll go anywhere near the 45. The reason the 45 is in there is because of the large steeps that we have as well, once these are on a steep wall you're going to have to be very delicate to grab the right spot and hang on... so therefore in our book a bunch of fun



SEB
I don't climb anywhere near as much as Chris and Noodles, and I hate small holds... but these seem to be an exception for me (maybe I was just strong that day) as I managed to get most of the way around the route without feeling like my fingers were going to explode. Small holds, as I'm a big guy are my nemesis, I avoid them, but these were very nice to climb on... I just wish my footwork was better so I could finish the route

The 51 pack is $219.99 includes bolts, t-nuts and shipping to lower 48 US states.

The 21 pack is $49.99 includes bolts, t-nuts and shipping to lower 48 US states.

There is a sale on right now... the 51 pack is $199.99 about $4 a hold i.e: CHEAP!

Review > Atomik > Fonts (Various sizes)

Atomik sent us a whole bunch of holds.. when we say a whole bunch we mean it... two boxes arrived and a couple of hours later 169 new holds were sitting on the floor, we marked each one and then in a stroke of genius this happened...
There were just so many holds that we decided to make a quick Police style body outline on the floor.

What was pretty impressive from the get go was that even though these holds came all the way from Utah to Montreal, which is a distance of 2276.46 miles and the fact that UPS normally play touch football with some of our parcels was the fact that there wasn't one single, dink, scratch or bump mark on ANY of the holds! Not one! And this was from two boxes that we're pretty full to the brim, there wasn't one defect on anything. Now that tells you something about Atomiks shipping department, they actually pack the holds really well.

Right enough about us playing with the holds in the living room, lets look at the holds:

Mini Font Roof JugsFont JugsLarge Font JugsXl Font Roof JugsXXL Font Sloper

What the above photos don't show is the color of the holds we received, most of the Fonts are yellow, but not your normal run of the mill yellow, oh no, these are the brightest yellow that I've ever seen in a hold! The largest Font the XXL sloper is blue, and again it has a kind of stopping power that when you have a pile of holds on the floor you're drawn to and just want to touch! The final holds we have are some of the pinches from the site, they're green. (You can see one of them by Chris' head)

All the shapes are split across Atomik's site by size, and rather run reviews for some holds we decided to do it by shape... we grabbed the holds (easy to find because of the color) and we got to setting..














As usual I'm looking confused :P I decided as most of the holds we're jugs of one kind or another to set across the roof and then onto our overhanging wall, to the flat where the slopes and pinches would end up.. oh we were in for a treat with these, Font is one of my favorite places to climb so I was looking forward to getting onto some of the shapes!

In the below video you can see what happened, I think I got a little carried away with the roof sequence and made the route a little harder than expected, but as we like a challenge we left it as was and went at it in our usual fashion :)

What you're going to notice about the video is that neither of us got around the route! Well actually I did after the camera that we were using to video was turned off and we switched to the stills...The roof was the trickiest part, but thankfully even the mini jugs that we're up there were pretty bomber! But even after the first attempt, we noticed one very important thing about the holds... here are some stills from the video, can you guess (if you've not watched the video) what I'm going to talk about?? Yup texture! It's fierce, really really fierce. The molds from Atomik are still first generation so the texture is crazy, it'll be super good for a commercial gym as the texture will get worn down by all of the traffic but for a home wall it was a bit OTT! So here's what we suggest, you should try them and then if needed get a rubber sanding sponge or some sandpaper and then take the texture down a little so it suits your preference.

SUGGESTED USES - JUGS



We suggest the above angles for the jugs, which as you can see is everything from slabs to roofs. Most of the shapes lend themselves to roofs when we look at any of the jugs, from the minis to the larges. They are really positive to pull on, what isn't so nice is the texture which is very much like 120 grade sand paper, like Chris says in the video you want that if you're hauling long sketchy moves across a roof, I'd agree, but for a home wall you're going to want to comfortize the holds a little with some sandpaper. In a commercial setting where there are lots of sweaty hands and street shoes hitting them the texture seems like it will hold out and becomes a big positive.

Bomber jugs, each size is large enough and deep enough that you can hang off of them without worrying too much, the larger ones can be matched if you can bump your hands. What I like is what they say on the website under the large climbing hold section... and I'll quote "Large does not mean easy to hang on to"

SUGGESTED USES - PINCHES / SLOPERS





The pinches again are very positive, they've got a nice shape to them and when they're on steep or very overhung terrain the texture helps them out a lot. There's nothing super bad to say about them, they remind me of Font, which was the purpose behind the shapes.
If I can haul a long move on a roof with them then they're pretty damn good, you just need to find the sweet spot.

The slopers again are pretty damn good and are some of the best representations of font shapes that I've seen in a long while, big and open handed, they're tricky to hold on the vertical and crazy hard on anything that starts to run into an overhang, which is the way we like it. As usual with Font style holds its always where you place your hands and fingers on these holds that determines how easy or hard they are to stick.

Both sets of holds are pretty positive even though they are slopes and pinches, but they're harder than they look, terrain aside. It depends upon your strength and climbing style that will determine how well you're going to go on these. Foot work is going to be key as is good core strength.


OVERALL BUILD
I could have sworn that these holds were resin, but after checking with the site and Kenny over at Atomik he confirmed that they are urethane. My bad :P The colors are vibrant to say the least, they're some of the brightest hues that we've seen for a long long time, there is no doubt that these holds will stand out on your wall whether it be the gym or at home.

The backs of the holds are flat and there were no surprises in 169 holds, the bolt holes are clean, so clean in fact that there isn't any urethane in them. On the material side you're going to notice that there are very few bubbles in the urethane, less so than most holds so the mix is good and consistent. The smalls holds from Atomik have been tested to destruction at around 1100+ lbs, the mediums to 1800 lbs, so the mix is good and strong!!

We'll talk texture a little bit more, what Atomik say about the texture is this:
"If you want texture, here it is. If you would prefer a slightly smoother hold with less texture, simply rub the hold a little with some sand paper or a sanding sponge", simple enough! Atomik aren't the only company that makes holds with an aggressive texture out there and it's probably for the best that they know this and tell the end user to drop the texture if it's too much, it's pretty much pimping your holds to make them totally custom

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
Yowser... texture, texture and once again texture! I wasn't expecting that, even when we were feeling the holds on the floor it was kind of hard to tell what they're going to be like until you climb on them, and they do grip a lot! But this is not like the Asana Joes, they just ripped your skin off, these you'll notice is more like climbing on emery boards so they sand down the rough patches of your skin :)

I set quickly on these holds, put some thought into it and just let rip and somehow it came out alright (I suppose 20 odd years climbing helps as well!), apart from one move that stopped me on the roof it was all good and when I did make the move the route went. Getting onto the overhang onto the pinches was nice as the pinches and then the large font sloper are amazing to grab onto, you fingers just get sucked onto them. The sloper on the vertical was good enough that if you kept low you can get a little rest, but as soon as you move it to anything overhanging you're going to have to stick it and then move off quite quickly.

Overall I'm impressed with the holds apart from the overly aggressive texture, but it's one of those things, it's not like I'm not going to climb on the holds, I'll just sand down the worst ones a little and keep them up. Some I will leave as is and then see how the texture wears over a period of time. One of the final points I'd like to make is that these are some of the best Font holds that I've seen in a long time, they may have even topped some of the Sloperz from Holdz that I've had for years that are similar, and that's a hard thing to do!
Next up we'll look at the sandstone shapes, that's going to be a longer review because that's the bulk of the shapes... did I mention that my local crag in the UK in sandstone?? Excellent!

CHRIS
Yup. I agree. The texture is pretty agressive although it was a nice relief when I got onto the big blue slope on our newly built box:) The slopes and pinches seemed to soak up the chalk more so then the jugs on the roof.

As you can tell by the video the first green pinch is tricky to get onto and I was able to get low on it to push out to the jugs sequence. Out of all the pinches that we received the best one was on the roof....obviously! The jugs is that they are big enough for one hand and they can be a real challenge to match on the roof. The problem got a facelift after we bolted the box onto the wall so the big blue slope got put onto the face of the box and the small slopes got put around the sides. In our original sequence we needed to match on the last jug but now I can forget about the match and Big Blue as a foot (much to noodles disaproval LoL) and I'm away with completing the problem.

PROS

• The fierce texture works well on the slopers, on the jugs it's so-so, it's a little bit much. But you can comfortize the holds with some sandpaper to make it to your liking. Commercial gyms WON'T have a problem as traffic will do the work for you!
  
• Nice shapes with no burrs, other than the obvious Font shapes
  
• Good for any angle...
• Jugs are good every where
• Slopes and pinches will be good up to 30 or 45 (strength depending)
  
• Packing was second to none!, no breaks or burrs
  

CONS

• The texture will need some time to wear down or you'll have to lessen it on some holds
  
• The texture does take shoe rubber really well, so hard to clean off
  

PRICE
5xl Fontainbleau Roof Jugs: $47.49
XXl Fontainbleau Sloper: $19.50
6 Large Font Jugs: $41.49
7 Font Jugs: $38.49
5 Mini Font Jugs: $36.99
The pinches weren't a full set, so you'd have to ask for a price on those

Review > Asana > Joes

Asana has been in the holds business for a short time now and they have been able to create some unique shapes from their shop. They offer a hold of the month club so we hold junkies can sample the latest abominations to come fresh out of the mold. The Joes’s are modeled after the sandstone boulders found in Joe’s valley, Utah. So throw away your chalk bag, you won't be needing it to stick to these holds. After an afternoon of climbing on these we lost a couple layers of skin. From shallow jugs to crimps, this set has a bit of everything. They range from large to small, so you get a mixed bag when you pick these up.We've had these around the wall for a while, from some simple bouldering problems to full on get over the roof screaming your heart out routes, and there is one thing that is going to become painfully clear... painfully clear... these holds hurt. Not just hurt a little, they hurt a lot to climb on! I thought that it was just me, but Noodles has backed off of some of the problems that we've set because as he said "I like my skin to stay where it is!", he even backed off of the route in the video that's below a couple of times just because where he was gripping one of the holds (one of the biggest in the set) as his thumb was getting bruised quite badly.Now maybe it's because we set the holds across the roof, but I'm afraid it's not, we set simple problems with a traverse and found that they still hurt. There are good things to be said about the holds thou, they do work on most angled walls but anything over 45 is going to start your skin hurting more than normal, they even work on the roof, if you're brave enough (Or a sadist)

As you can tell by the picture these holds do not have a nice smooth texture and aren’t made to be sweet on the hands, although when you’ve got in your grip they won’t let go, which is why sometimes when you do get off of the wall your fingers will be screaming at you for mercy. We've had small holds on harder routes across the roof and haven't had this kind of skin pain from them, I guess it's just the nature of the beast :)

Now Noodles spoke to Jamey over at Asana and was mentioning that we found the holds painful, and this is what he said "I shaped these holds after I came back from Joe's Valley. They were shaped because I got my ass kicked and I wanted to train specifically for the area", so there is method behind their madness!

SUGGESTED USES




We suggest the above angles for the holds, which as you can see is everything from slabs to 45 degrees over. But the steeper the angle the more your fingers are going to hurt, so bear that in mind.. we didn't include anything steeper than 45 or suggest using them upon a roof unless you're well warmed up, know what you're doing. We're obviously going to try to get them on the roof and the opinion is pretty unanimous over here that they shouldn't really be up there!

Incut and very dimpled!! The Joe's are positive enough they include everything from a big two hand match to small crimpers. The texture and shape of these holds allows you to crimp down on them or use it as pinches. We were able to match every one of these holds although a novice climber will find it challenging to match some of the smaller holds of the set, but you pay the price with skin loss pretty much most of the time :(

OVERALL BUILD
I'd love to see who ever shaped these, they must have been a pain in the ass to make, mind you I think that getting these out of their molds must be a challenge everytime they pour!

The urethane holds up pretty well, and considering that some of the holds have quite shallow areas I was expecting there to be some bending, but there wasn't any that we noticed (and it got pretty warm in the wall). The bolt placements are nice and clean, we didn't suffer from any spinning holds even when we were matched on one side of the largest hold.

The backs of the holds are flat, and there's no big bubbles in the urethane so the mix is nice and consistant. There aren't any huge burrs to mention other than the obvious Joes Valley texture which we found to be pretty hard going on the finger tips. And this being said, if you chalk up alot these holds will take a lot of chalk in the dimples and do take a fair ammount of brushing to get clean.

These holds are a deep red that i've not seen before, so they do stand out on the wall, they are a little dark but at least the red is different from the other shades on the market so you can see the holds when you're chucking to them

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
The latest edition of Urban Climber (Issue 23) has the Joes in there on their gear review page, and here's what they had to say about the Joes:
"Gritty, gnarly, pock-faced Joe's Valley inspired grips. One minute you're sweating blood, biting down on itsy bitsy razor crimps, praying for relief - and the next you're moving off welcoming jugs to, well, more crimps. It's a vicious cycle for the send, but one thats completly worth fighting for. Bring it home"

Thought inspiring text... but I have to agree. I backed off of some of the routes we set on our 30 degree wall and the roof just because the holds were biting my fingers, I wasn't enjoying the pain... outside is a completly different kettle of fish as you'll do anything to get the send, but indoors I prefer to keep my digits with skin on them so I can climb more rather than less. I've got a wicked bruise on my thumb from where I was bearing down on one of the holds on the roof and it just dug in so well I had to drop off (This is why you don't see me in the video, because I get onto the roof and then go "ow" and just let go)

If you're sensible in your setting and don't mind a bit of pain then you'll like these holds, but for me unless i'm taking it nice and easy (moves and angle of wall) and not dynoing to them they're fine, steep walls and roofs on these holds are out for me just because i'm a big girl.

CHRIS SAYS
The larger holds of the set work well on overhanging terrain but aren’t quite big enough to set on a roof. Being the crazy yahoos we are we put them up in the roof anyways. Our problem started on a small crimp undercling and went straight into the roof. It continued into the overhang and back onto the vertical. Initially we put the three biggest holds of the set into the roof. Our sequence went through a couple of overhauls before we realized that they were not meant to be bolted onto the roof. Our test: try hanging on them with one hand, result: FAIL, but here at climbingholdreview we like a challenge so we continued working the sequence. The moves throughout the route are long and the roof is no exception. Although the big boys of the set are positive they don’t go in very deep so when we were on the roof it required the use of our thumbs. I guess that would classify them as crimps on the roof and jugs on a vertical. Even with the assistance of our thumbs we couldn’t manage to get through the roof so we decided to switch one of the jugs with a smaller hold that had a bigger thumb catch. It worked. This made our roof sequence easier to execute and we were able send the project.

When I say easier, I mean painful, the route got sent once and then we dropped it because it's just too painful to have up all of the time. The Joe's are staying on the wall but as parts of easier routes for now, if you're a huge fan of Joe's then these are a great buy, if you're a fan of skin... then we'd shy away from them and would suggest the "Nut Jobs" from the Asana line!

PROS

• A good mix of hold sizes for a good price
• Solid construction
• If you've been to Joe's valley these seem like a good representation of the terrain, that's what they were made to do, and that's what they do do!
  

CONS

• Not skin friendly
• Are ok on most angles, but the steeper you go the more skin you'll probably loose
• These aren't holds that you want to train on for prolonged periods of time
  

PRICE
The set costs $39

Review > Asana > Waffle & Logo

Firstly we'll start with everyones favorite treat... waffles (They're kind of hard to find in Canada eh?) in the blue corner we have the Waffle, straight out of...the Waffle house, a fully paid up member of the:we have from Boise Idaho we have the Waffle!!!!Now Asana haven't been in the hold game for all that long, but they've got game. This is the second Waffle that we've had from them because Canada Post like to play full contact hockey with parcels. Think I'm joking? Nope, fraid not. The postal service did a fairly good job of nailing the parcel, so much so that even with packing this hold had a huge crack in it when we got it. Normally i'd not worry about a crack, i'll run some glue down the fissure and climb on it anyways, this time I noticed that the crack was bad enough that I could snap the hold, with my hands....No seriously...Thanks Canada Post! Bunch of monkeys.... I talked to the guys at Asana about this and they had another hold to me in a matter of days (even thou it wasn't their fault)... this time it was unscathed! Asana have great customer service, they come back to you real fast and they'll make sure you're happy with what you've got. This in a world full of people ready to sue you for anything is great, I'm always happy to sing the praises of any company that go's out of their way to make you're pleased.

And then the session began...The Waffle can be put up anyway you want... ANYWAY! Upside down, it's brutal the Waffle texture is wicked to try to hang onto, I spent a good hour just sessioning one move from one hold to this!!!Stick it vertically, and you've got some wicked matches. Which ever way you put the hold its super fun to hold onto, some ways are going to be better than others, we span the hold all over the place....Hang it, chuck it into the center of a route, spin it... hell do whatever you want with it, get enough of them you could use them as campus rails. The hold has become a staple of the wall, normally it stays on the overhang, but if you've got some lower grade climbers round bolt it onto the vertical wall and they'll have a blast! It's got a huge bag of tricks, some people will complain that it doesn't have a purpose, it's got too many ways of holding it but I see this as a mute point, the beauty of the hold is you can do anything with it :)

Next to the Waffle, from the Red corner... we set up the Asana logo hold... ...it's a tricky one, lots of potential for matching, lots and lots of matches and some really nice edges, again this depends upon which way you spin the hold. There was a small problem with the hold...
...the sanding was a little off, so we're getting the sander out this weekend and we'll sort this little problem out. Either way it went onto the wall, we applied a rule of no grabbing round the edge :P
On the overhang its pretty hard, thankfully you can get two hands on it most of the time so you've got a fair ammount of leeway for what you want to do with it!
Grab a corner, pinch the middle, hell if you're feeling strong undercut it, heel hook it and just go wild... Again it's got so many use's you can just spin it whichever way you want and have a good session!It's again one of those holds that does everything, its harder than the Waffle, but what it does do it excels at, again it's not going to be on roofs but on steep terrain or on the vertical it's great.

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
Ok, Canada Post playing chuck the parcel and some sanding that I called them about and has been sorted, Asana have been nothing but helpful with whatever questions I had, gripes aswell! Their customer service surprised me by being both quick and effective whenever anything arose, this is important when buying holds!! I like both the holds because I can just spin them around and tweak a move out to make it harder or easier with just the spin of a wrench. Both holds have enough variety that you can use them however you really feel.

The Waffle has a texture that I've not seen before and it is very Waffle-like, it's super fun to haul on even when you're on the slopey side, I love using it as a side pull and matching it.

The Asana logo quite simply for me is a pinch-fest, I was grabbing the hold all over the place, falling sometimes, grinning the rest of the time.

Overall for a company that's not been making holds I'm very impressed, I know that there are going to be great things coming from this company! We may have to wait a while, but it's sure as hell going to be worth the wait....

CHRIS SAYS
A hold that's been named after a breakfast item
a) makes me feel hungry
and
b) makes me want to see what the hell Noodles is talking about when he calls me about new holds
Seeing the hold the first time I looked at the texture and wondered how brutal it was going to be on the fingers... answer, it's actually nicer than some holds out there. It catches a little bit, but nothing that a climbers hands can't deal with.... I like the hold, I was rotating it a lot and it's easy some ways and super hard on others! I'm looking forward to getting the POW hold soon, I think its going to be a bunch of fun

The Logo hold if you like pinching and thin ledges is a good all rounder, it's almost suited to being a system hold, seriously a bunch of these would cover ledges and pinches for a wall. On sighting this hold will be a beatch, and even when you know where to grab it, I don't think that that's a bad thing being surprised by a hold you know is always going to be interesting :P Both holds clean up really well, we know we chucked chalk all over them!

PROS

• Both holds have variety written all over them, spin them about as you wish
• The Waffle has a unique texture that you'll not see anywhere else
  
• Two tone always looks wicked on a wall
  

CONS

• Neither hold is suited to roofs, but everywhere else they're great
• Sanding was so-so on the Logo hold, but that's been fixed back at Asana HQ
• You can't really use either hold to force a move (But the Logo is going to be tough to onsight at a comp)
  

PRICE
The Waffle is $30 and well worth a look
The Asana logo is $52???

Review > Franklin Handholds > Tech Set 1 / All Star Edges

I picked up some Franklin's along time ago and I loved them, so when I saw some new holds the other day I picked them up.
We set numerous routes with the Technique set 1 over the last two weeks, and its a set of holds we seem to keep coming back to for when you need a shallow edge or a really marginal sidepull. Infact when the wall was reset these were the first holds to get the wrench treatment.
As you can see we didn't even get around to moving the other holds before we started climbing. All I can say about this set of holds is that there's something for everyone, from good sized ledges to shallow pulls. There was one downside to this set is that one of the holds didn't sit flush with the wall, but a couple of minutes with some sandpaper soon sorted this out!

RATING

The set gets marked down slightly as its not really a beginner friendly set, and I did have to do some sanding on one hold, but overall i'd say if you have slightly overhanging or vertical wall then you should grab them, the holds aren't huge so they won't eat into space and will give you hours of pulling fun

I was so impressed by the Tech set, I went out and brought some more holds...

Again you're looking at another great set of holds that don't eat up wall space but they aren't for beginners. Straight out of the bag these are the easiest holds I've ever had to set V3/V4 routes with, but bear in mind I was setting on a 30 degree overhang! My only concern with the majority of these holds was that as they were so shallow in places that they'd get chalked up and would become slippery over time...
Especially the above hold, the texture takes the chalk and is surprisingly easy to clean. We also took the holds to a friends wall we can lead on and set some routes there. Again we found that you can set some nice moves as long as the walls not to overhung (we're not that strong) and that you can pull all day without worry. When I did actually get these holds home I found out that I was missing the bolts :( but a quick email to Franklin soon sorted that out, their customer service is amazing, so if you do have problems they'll sort you out really quickly

RATING
The only problem with the set is that its not that versatile, but its an edge set so it does exactly what it says on the bag... gives you edges! Again they don't eat wall space and you can pull all day without ripping your skin off.CHRIS' FINAL WORD
If only we had more of these holds. They're easy to set with and super skin friendly. If you need to work on a specific area of strength them grab the pack of holds for what you need to work on. We're probably going to buy some more early next year and we'll report back when we do.

Review > Metolius > Wood Grips

Metolius have been around for years and have the name that go's along with being a first rate hold manufacturer! Well there's always been Metolius holds on my walls, either here or in the UK and a welcome addition came in the shape of some Wood Grips. I've been aware of the holds since they came out, and always wondered what they'd be like to climb on, thankfully Brooke headed my call and sent me some over...

Now when you get the holds you're going to think that someone has just chopped up some wood, sealed it, chucked a bolt hole through it and then packaged them, well you'd be wrong! I've always thought of holds as works of art, and a climbing wall (if you have one in your home) as a piece of furniture and this is where we get to the holds. They're made from offcuts from a furniture factory, they're ALL hand sanded, shaped and hand sealed so essentially you are buying a work of art! A GREEN work of art, Metoilus have taken someone else's waste and turned it into something that people buy, I wish I'd thought of the idea.

But what are they like to climb on?
At first pull you find yourself being very very delicate on them, they're slick and hard to hold onto, but once you take some time and learn how to get onto them you start realising that they're amazing... point blank amazing. Climb on them for long enough and you'll realise that the more chalk, sweat and hand oil that touches these holds the better and better they get... skin friendly, these are probably the friendliest holds that are on the wall!
So the more they get used the better they get... at the start there would be no way I would have attempted this:
NO WAY, i'd have tried that (Sorry about the video quality, I really should get a new camera)

Let me wax lyrical about the texture some more...
Image a big dual texture hold..
Without the grippy bit!
This is what these holds will feel like the first time you climb on them, add some chalk and hand oil and they get better and better! If you want to loose some of the sealer because you want some more grip? Grab some fine grade sandpaper and sand down the area you want to hold.. you can dial these holds in as you want... I'd suggest just climbing on them for some time before you do this though

We've only got 5 of these holds but there is all of these and two training boards available, the compact and deluxe versions and they're well worth a look at:
RATING:
NOODLES SAYS
Hard to hold, but pleasing to grip. An environmentally friendly hold that should be the staple of any home wall, I wasn't sure what to make of them once I had them and climbed on them but they just get nicer and nicer the more they get used. They are complete buggers for you feet, so they will help your footwork, you're going to find your feet slipping all over the place so careful placement is paramount!
These holds probably aren't for everyone, but if you have beginners on a slab, vertical wall or very slightly overhanging I think that they'd be a welcome addition, you beginners will thank you for the skin friendliness. For anyone that's a "hardcore" climber you're going to find these holds give you more pump per movement as they're harder to hold onto.

CHRIS SAYS
After a little chalking these holds turned out to stick better than expected. Really good to hone technique and you could set a sequence with them without worry of burning skin or injuring tendons. At first I thought noodles was going mad when he suggested a dynamic move to the one crimp of the set and after a few goes its obvious that these holds have a lot to offer.

The Metolius Wood Grips look great on any home wall and would turn heads at the gym but we believe that they would not last in that kind of environment

PROS

• Skin friendly
• Environmentally friendly
• Holds get better the more they are used
• Look amazing on a wall and will make anyone look twice
• Would make an amazing addition to a home wall
• You don't have to brush them, they are better with hand gunk on them :)
  

CONS

• We're not sure what they'd be like in a commercial setting... how would they hold up to the traffic
• They do take a few climbs before they get REALLY good

PRICE

• 5 pack of holds is $39.50 = $7.90 per hold
• 25 pack is $110 = $4.40 per hold