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General Climbing Discussion

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Uber classic oz offwidths 8-Jan-2017 At 8:07:07 PM PThomson

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Did you do it with Nathan, Ev? I heard that he may have repeated it cleanly?

Heh. Funny to hear you're comment about taping, because I was JUST having a debate with Neil about exactly that (I refuse to ever tape because I've found numerous examples where taping -even to minimise damage to my hands- makes the climbs grades easier, which to me is defeating the physiological uniqueness that makes climbing "the great leveler"). I feel like if you use tape or Hand Jammies or whatever on this route, you don't deserve to call it a tick... Because it's approaching it as a roof-offwidth which makes it the challenge. Taping to make your hands bigger for the sake of ticking it is defeating the entire point of this climb. I didn't put a scrap of tape on today.

I genuinely have no doubt if I'd taped to add a 1mm or two to the circumference of my hands I'd have been able to do it today, but in doing so I'd be artificially countering the aspects of my physiology which makes tight hands easy for me to climb (which, in turn, would be hard for someone with mitts big enough to do this route as Fist jams). Unlike climbing shoes or chalk, taping specifically to achieve climbs is not providing an "equal" (or more-or-less equal) advantage across the field, because it becomes a different experience specifically depending on physiology. Hence, as far as I'm concerned, it's a form of aid climbing.

Let the flaming begin (dons flame-retardant overalls). =P

Both hands and both feet in the offwidth (well, except for the hand that's currently chalking up):

-Paul T