My chimney needs pointing,i wonder if he…

Just watched it.

Liked all involved.

Tough on the mum, but I think she is secretly a little bit proud of him.

Spin – Member

What the likes of Honnold do is on another planet skills wise. For example, as an estimate the number of people in the UK who could climb this route with ropes is probably in the low hundreds I doubt if there is another climber in the world who would take it on solo.

An unbelievable solo, in the past I could put myself in those low hundreds so can appreciate the enormity of his undertaking

What the lad was doing on the program had no real objective dangers only subjective as the majority of rock climbing is. The difference being rock climbing has a level of skill, what was shown has no level of skill what so ever. Hence the reason why I turned it off it was just sensationalising some young kids who took the biggest risks by doing something illegal

The words of someone kidding themselves..
His climbing comes from free running, which takes a shit load of skill and natural ability. Plenty of mental skill involved too (hence no sweaty palms).

Dales rider – mtbing is in a high insurance bracket because so many people go above their skill and ability and injur themselves, insurance is all about the risk of shelling out cash, nothing at all to do with how extreme the sport is.

Which I personally think hits the nail on the head. People who do TRUE extreme sports tend to be control freaks, very precise people.

The last thing that extreme sports people do is just rush into things, both these lads didn’t. Its just like any extreme sport they show you the money shot. Both lads practiced extensively, and had their own ritual before doing their sport.

Not like your mtb trail centre warrior who is awesome and turns up on a Saturday morning, struts their stuff in the car park, whoops and screams his way round a red trail, and then ends up in A&E using up valuable resources…

It’s funny, but as a youngster I used to do similar things. Nowhere near the heights these guys are doing, but along the ledges of railway/road bridges, along the top of rooftops etc. I was fearless. But then one day something just changed and now I’m a right wuss, can’t even get on a plane without getting lashed 😀

It’s definitely all in the mind, and this kind of thing inspires me to start confronting my fears, whatever they be.

The only bad thing I can see coming out of all this is the government using it as an excuse to change the status of trespassing from civil to criminal.

Nope from someone who did what was probably the earliest form of free running, mind we did it outside typically in spate rivers from boulder to boulder. Or tops of pinnacles onto the main crag Brimham was one such spot. Still do a bit jumping the Strid being one as was last years trip to Font.
Also still climb at 6a just last week in Tenerife, also solo up to E2 5b.
so maybe qualify ? Oh and I’m pretty good at climbing buildings, they make them easy to do so

Cool. When’s the programme on Channel 4 about you? No? Youtube videos?

Technically pretty much anyone could do what that lad did.

And that’s my problem with the programme
That one morning one of my colleagues will go into work and find a copycat climber who thought, that looks easy, in a messy pile at the bottom of one of our towers or masts
Yes we install anti climbs and security guards whilst erecting/wiring but we can’t guard against everything and someone determined to get up, will
People make analogies to free climbing, my issue is that’s done largely in the wild, there is not innocent members of the public around to see them fall or people that have to deal with the H&S aspects afterwards
Ok it was an interesting subject for a documentary, but like the one C4 did on parkour last year people will imitate – I saw a large increase in people trying free running after that last documentary, (I live in Derby where Tim Shrieff is from so it maybe connected more with the local kids) I know it should be obvious it’s dangerous but unfortunately we live in a world with lots of stupid, easily influenced people, there wasn’t enough emphasis on its danger and illegality for my liking (speaking as someone who works at height on towers, in the construction/power/broadcast industry so has a professional interest in not having people do this stuff on our infrastructure)

As an aside at one point there was footage of him up an MF radio mast, that will undoubtedly been powered up as normal when he presumably broke in. He is very lucky if he didnt got a serious dose of RF poisoning, he may well have done some serious damage to his body, and he might not even know about it

DezB – Member

Cool. When’s the programme on Channel 4 about you? No? Youtube videos?

I only did the BBC sorry, mind I dont have to proof anything, if you knew me you could look me up in some of the climbing guides, pictures as well 😛

I thought it was really good and they certainly have incredible control and skill. The one thing I find slightly disturbing is the seeming need to keep pushing the danger level in what they do.It wasn’t a case of find harder things to climb so much of think of more and more scary things to do once you have climbed it. It felt as if the culture within the sport was to push others towards doing things they didn’t feel comfortable with whereas within a more conventional sport such as rock climbing you might not expect your fellow climbers to call you chicken if you didn’t want to try something. However this was a tv program and thus shot and edited to an agenda so very hard to come to an informed opinion.

As for the guys mother well she only had to show him the door and tell him it was time to look after himself in life. Having to grow up and take some responsibilities might have done far more to make him consider what he was doing than just telling him she was worried about him. I think with his attitude of wanting to push himself and put himself in difficult places and his clear headed calmness it what really is a life and death situation means he could make a great success at many more things if he put his mind to it. I reckon a bit of having to live a more normal life and support himself might just let him achieve some great things.

well, depression kills a hell of a lot of people in his age group, he was describing pretty severe teenage depression at one point, so in terms of risk of death, not doing something radical is probably more likely to kill him.

however, im sure the people who own, or work on the things he is climbing on find him a royal pain in the arse.