Review > Teknik > Arnolds

If you remember way back when we ran a comp with Teknik, it was an art comp and Seb (one of the local Montreal climbers) won.. he won with this:

As Teknik had to move their production to a new facility due to Seth becoming allergic to one of the chemicals in uncured urethane, so it took a while for his prize to turn up, but turn up it did. Seb being a wonderful chap has let us borrow the hold for a few weeks for a review... mainly because it's Tekniks new mix, and because the shape is just plain sick!!Now if you liked Tekniks old resin holds, you're going to love their new urethane mix.. from the color to the feel. As soon as I saw the hold I wanted to touch it, people in my office that aren't climbers wanted to touch it, and touch it then did... not only does it look like a huge bad ass sloper but the hue of the color is so bright it's just amazing :)

We set a simple little route that was pretty well all slopers, you don't see the full route as we were looking primarily at the Arnold, so the rest of the route isn't in the video. From the get-go it was asked if the hold was going to be ok, as the new urethane mix feels slick to the touch. So we chalked up and let rip, and once you've held the hold a few times then you realize it's not as bad as it first seems.. in fact it's nice and soft (When we say soft we mean super skin friendly and deceptively grippy at the same time!).

The hold is deceptive, very deceptive... you think you have it and then... then... oh... you're on the floor :) It's great, if you like that kind of thing, there's grip... just enough grip and then when you get your balance wrong you go for a ride! Super fun, and super technical climbing can be had with Spanky! There's very little wrong with this hold, almost disappointingly so, you see it, you want to hold it.... it's a very nice sloper and we'd stake money on that fact. We always try to see the fault in what we review, but lately we've not seen much that is actually bad... there's been some stuff that just gets a bad write up and when this hold came knocking we looked for the negatives and pulled up next to nothing. Now that is saying something, we're not saying that all of the Teknik holds have weathered the transition to urethane well (we don't know), but if this is an indicator then there's not much to worry about when you spend your hard earned cash on "Spanky"


Vertical? Yup
Slightly overhung? Yup
Steeply overhung? Oooof tricky one! We were having trouble on this hold on the 30 degree overhung wall, but if you set carefully it could probably end up on some steeper terrain! We had a good mix of climbers with differing abilities try the route we set, Jacky is tall and pretty strong (5.10's), Eve is short and hates slopers and bouldering, Noodles (well he's just Noodles) is rubbish at everything but he's only 5' 7 and loves slopers (5.11 / 5.12) and then Chris, who weighs nothing, is strong as hell and will climb anything... the opinions came out pretty well the same... great on verticals, if its too easy spin it around, but as soon as you hit overhangs it's a different ball game altogether!

We like Teknik, we have a lot of their old holds... but we love the new holds more... we wish we had more of them and more vertical walls to play on!!


On first sight, I was wondering how much fun this hold was going to be, it is only one hold. Slopey on a side and big flat on the other one. On my first attempts, I felt comfortable in any position with this hold. We turned it to try lots of positions, on vertical wall you always find a good place to grab it. It's a kind of easy hold for beginner… but it depends upon how you set with it!! What was really fun was at the end of the night, one of us has proposed to place it on tilted wall, WOW! that was a real ON and OFF relationship. There’s no call, you stay on or you go off backwards! Why? The texture is so soft and good, that you trust it till the end! I loved it! Even when I fell off!!

EVE
I absolutely adore the texture of 'Spanky' - I don't know the real name' (Editors note: It's on the hold!). Brand new or covered in chalk it is paradise for sensitive fingers. So sweet on the skin, I'd use it as a pillow ;) And what's even more impressive, is that there is enough friction there to stick the damn thing, no matter the crazy angles Noodles and Chris had fun torturing us with. It's downfall? Well it feels so damn good that it plays tricks on you on overhangs (even slight ones!) See, at that angle (30 degrees overhung), you're sure you got it and then BAM! on the floor! I'd blame it on my skills if I didn't witness the monkey squad fail miserably a bunch of times too! The shape of the hold is fine, nothing impressive, plus I can't stand slopers!

All and all....we need more of these. Way way more, cause I'm a route climber and I'd like to test this new mix on the wall.