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Review > Teknik > Svelt Pinches

The Svelt pinches are new shapes from Teknik, (so new in fact that even though they have been released you won't find them on the Teknik website and you'll need to contact Seth and Zoe to put in an order) and ours came in a bright fluorescent orange. We like it when holds stand out on a wall and these holds stand out and you can easily see the sequence but don't be fooled, they are pinches with no positive edges and you'll be scratching your head trying to figure out the right beta. The holds are shaped with one flat side and one slopey side and this makes them super hard to hold onto.

We first set the route with the pinches on vertical into the 30 degree overhang. We set them quite low and we needed to squeeze hard on the hold so as not to fall off. Our local gym held a mini competition and they requested the Svelt pinches for the finals (Editors note: they asked for holds, I lent them the pinches because I wanted to seel people suffer :P). Personally, I think that these holds would be great for training purposes, but the opinions are mixed on the subject. If you're strong on crimps you'll find that these are still pretty hard to pinch and you'll be cupping and squeezing the hold like we did on the 30 degree. That being said, if you lack pinch strength you'll be struggling to hold on and the texture is quite smooth which makes it even harder to stick and those who lack the strength will be frustrated with these holds but if you're looking to increase your pinch strength, these are the holds train on. One thing that we all agreed on is that a 45 degree wall is too steep for the Svelts. We proved this to ourselves by setting a short problem on the 45. After repeatedly falling off, swapping the holds around and trying out different beta we were convinced that they will not go back on the 45. So the best place for these holds are on vertical terrain or slightly overhanging. On a vertical wall even those who struggle with pinches can work on the sequence without tormenting themselves, add some angle and they start to get harder, add more angle and you're just going to get pitched off onto the mats.

The good thing about the holds are where they come from, Seth and Zoe or Zoe and Seth have their shaping down, we can't think of a hold from their entire line that isn't nice to hold onto, the immediate sets of hols that you may have seen from Teknik that compare well to the Svelts are the Fat Pinches; if you know these and are thinking about getting the Svelts then bare in mind that these are about 25% thinner and about 1 million times slopier!!








When we put the holds on the 45, we thought that with a little work at least one of us could make it to the top but after falling repeatedly, we decided to call it a fail. Setting a full problem on pinches isn't the best for your hands and I could feel the strain from the session in my joints. There's a fine line between sticking and falling off these holds and we need On vertical and overhangs up to 30 degrees is ideal placement for the holds and are a whole lot a fun if you set a low traverse.Setting the holds so they are angled flat (rather than in pinch mode) gives you some serious sloping / pinch fun, that most people will be able to muscle their way through.





attractively or gracefully slim; and these holds are probably that, they are svelt in shape and form, they're probably more "merde" for most people when they grab them :) Yup they're not easy pinches to get a-hold of, good on the hands, sweet on the skin but soooo hard to stick if you get it wrong; is this a good or bad thing?? It's tough to say, we've been criticised for not being harsh enough on peoples holds (we're trying trust me) and we sat long and hard thinking about the pros and cons for these guys; there's not much you can say that's wrong with these holds, Teknik (as do a lot of company's) have their game down, they don't put out half baked shapes and these sure as hell aren't half baked, they're full on cooked.

The holds have a solid centre for the bolt to run through, and some of the holes are off centre a little; I don't know if these holds are sanded and then drilled or drilled and then sanded; but there was a slight lift on one hold that allowed it to spin til we tightened it more than the others. This didn't affect the holds performance in anyway, it's just a side note. Why more companies don't do this with their holds is a wonder to me sometimes, it helps with overall strength for the shape and braces the bolt somewhat.... (I asked about this and the holds are poured with the bolt hole in place, there must have been a slight mistake with the sanding, nothing major as it's really only slightly off)

Overall, I thought I was strong on pinches, have realised that I need to be stronger for the competition scene as if these holds start popping up (and I'm sure they will) I'm sure to have a hard old time getting to the top of the route; good work, I / we and maybe you will have a set of holds to work on your open hand pinch strength
JACKY
The feeling when you first see the holds is that you really want to touch the floro orange shapes, they're the kind of holds you see first when you enter the gym... then you take a couple of seconds to look at them, just so you can see the route and then you realise that these are probably the kind of pinches that are going to make you sweat and swear. I went onto the routes what were set once the holds had been chalked, so I cannot comment on the feelings that have been expressed about the holds when they are clean, but it doesn't matter, each time you arrive to a route in the gym, it's always chalked up. I'm the kind of climber that likes to climb long moves where you use a lot of strength and where my hands are on big holds, almost near slopers. The Svelt pinches are tiny and will make you use your open hand strength when they're used on vertical walls.. these holds work your body but you can't tell which muscle til the day after, but they're forearm sappers for sure!! Yeah baby I like it! The routes we set my favorite was the Svelt set as a sloper to a long more to a small hold, my favorite!!! I don't think that Noodles ever finished the route :D



AFTER A MONTH IN THE GYM
We set a route on the slab with the Top Outs / Patina's & Teknik: Svelt Pinches, a nice technical sloper / pinch route on a slab. Lot's of the real good climbers got stumped despite the lofty grade of 5.9 :P Here's some images of the holds from when they came back:The holds were used as pinches either in the vertical or horizontal plane, and they took a lot of rubber as one of them was a used as a real big rock over / match move. Using soapy water and a nylon brush the holds came up like new, with only a small ammount of shoe rubber being left, we could get it off with another dunk in hot water but we've left it on there, we're not too worried about it. Texture is like new, and there's no damge to the holds

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.

Review > Teknik > Flaps & Tron Slopers

I've had some Teknik holds for a while now, when I say some I mean a load of holds (well the ones I could get from Le Mec anyway), the Tron's I've had for ages and the Flaps we're picked up about a month ago.


Now as I grabbed the Tron's from Le Mec it means i've only got four of the above 10 pictured holds but as they've been a staple of my wall for over a year I can give you a pretty good opinion of them. Ready? Go to Teknik's site and buy them... done! Slopers are the best holds to train on (your hands work hard but you don't nail your tendons) and these are some of the best slopes out there.
Hell if I can chuck no foot cross over dyno on an overhanging wall between two of these holds then they've got to be pretty good to hold onto... the texture is grippy but just enough that you can hold without feeling a burn on your skin,

They're hollow backed so getting them shipped won't break the bank and the colors that i've seen are always vibrant, so they'll stand out on the most cluttered wall.

RATING
It's hard for me to make a call on the price of these holds, I grabbed about $600 worth of holds when I was at Le Mec one day and I only get the 2 hold set(s) not the 5 hold sets. But that aside these holds have been great to pull on for ever, I hardly ever seem to have to brush them as they stay good to hang on for weeks.Now onto the Flaps...
I picked up the bag and thought well I need some foot holds lets get these... nope, wrong. We screwed some of these to the ceiling, they're not that big but they're not that small if you are feeling cheeky you can get away with some interesting horizontal moves infact here's what the Teknik site says "Flappetty-flap-flap-flap- the most incut of all our screw-ons. Pure positivity and very, very thin in profile = neat-o. You will be floored with how great these holds are to grab" and i'm inclined to agree. They can be a little bit sharp in places, but we've put them up as sidepulls, roofjugs (?), and as undercuts... hell some of them are good enough to match on.

RATING
If you need some space fillers, small undercuts or something to just pull thats big, but not that big then these are the holds for you, they come in a 10 pack and are well worth the money.CHRIS' FINAL WORD
Did Jeremy just tell someone to go and buy some screw ons, thats a first! Mind you they are pretty special little holds and I thought that he was buying footholds (least thats what he told me) I keep unscrewing these and using them as blind sidepulls and as undercuts, I love em and they're MINT yes MINT greeny blue, how often do you see that?
On the Tron's I think we need to go and buy the full sets as they're such nice holds to have on a wall, hell Teknik should make even more of them but maybe half the size so we can bolt twice as many on the wall!