PINCHES: Review > Slap Holds

Incase you've been hiding under a rock you may have missed the fact that Slap Holds sent us some of their pinches (and screw ons) for review, we're the first people in the America (North or otherwise) to get any of these holds...

Soon as we got them they hit the wall, what we got sent was a mix of two sets...

... The Fat Cats and the DR Pinches. Well the Fat Cats and one of the DR Pinches, and from the following video will show, they're pretty hard to hold... well if you're half awake on a Sunday morning, they're hard to hold :)

The holds are great, you'll spend sometime dialling in the route.. because there is a pretty exact way to hold them. Rotate the holds a little and the problem gets harder or easier depending on the hold. I've managed to set a route that I can tweak so depending upon how hard I want to climb I then change it accordingly. The holds have been all over the wall and they're easiest to climb on when they are set on a slight overhang or vertical terrain, but if you fancy sonething alittle spicier then just grab a wrench and have a turn.

Overall the holds are great, either as slopes or in their pinch format. There are lots of pinches out on the market, but these are a little different, the dynamic duo that shape the holds, Lucy and Dylan (a formidable husband and wife team), are probably some of the hardest working people I've met. Dylan is bad at holding pinches... so they've designed something that will make you work hard for the send. Let's hope he's bad at pockets and slopers as well because if these are anything to go by then they'll be great ol'holds. The one thing that is apparent from the holds we have is that Lucy and Dylan aren't shoddy at shaping. Rather than just shape a flat sided pinch they hit you with a shaped in thumb catch on a sloping pinch so there's alot of scope for where you hold.

Also the devil is in the details with these holds, screw holds to stop them spinning and nice flat bases so they lay flush to the wall.. what I notcied this morning when I was clambering about is that some of the holds have the Slap logo on them...

..which is cool, having a logo on a hold is good for when you're sorting through 1000's of holds and they're all pretty similar colors and whilst we're looking at colors Slap offers...

all the above... but what I like is this..

say it with me... "cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!", imagine having holds that look like this on your wall, you know that they're going to stand out!!

We've got a lot of pinches on the wall here, and its nice to have something that's a little harder to hold onto, if you're looking to sort out your pinching power then look no further than the Fat Cats, but i'd look into the Big Cheese's aswell!

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
Pinchy, pinchy, slopery fun for the entire family. Well if your family is a bunch of climbers anyway, hard to hold but super pleasant to hold onto... they take a while to figure out, as they're harder to read than your normal pinches. People have moved into the holds waaay to fast and have just got spat off of the wall, body position is very important with these holds and you're going to get a serious workout no matter what you do with them. As a first look at a new hold maker i'm impressed with what they're doing, we'll get some more shapes and see if this holds up in the long run... but i'm sure it will!! Overall the shapes are nice and friendly for your hands, matching isn't really an option unless you're super strong or very very careful (You can do it, but its HARD!), the texture is nice so you can catch onto the holds all day without worrying about you skin getting nailed.

[[Sorry about the lack of pictures with us climbing on the holds, our cameras have crapped out :( And we're waiting for them to get repaired]]

CHRIS SAYS
Did you watch the video? Did you? Did you see the fun the Noodles was having getting dropped onto his ass? Did you see him dive for the wrench? That's what he means about dialling in the route, that video was all shot in the space of 10 minutes before we went to the gym, and the shots that you see are sequential... there's one shot missing because the language gets a bit mature at one point whilst he's trying to move off of the 2nd move, so we left it out because it'll make you wince. He was trying super hard to get that route, he'd been trying it the day before for a while and it was good to see him work to get up something. I'd like to say that I flashed it first time, but it took me a while to get it :)

You can tell the Slap worked hard on the shapes, they're tricky to grab and to stick and that's a good thing! If you had holds that you could haul on all day they you'd just get bored.... I like them, there's no hard edges for you to kill your tendons on, and the texture doesn't rip your hands. Overall I like the holds, and I want more more more!!! Noodles just told me that Dylan is in the workshop getting out an order for some Swedes, if the Swedish are ordering these holds the YOU SHOULD probably get some for your wall too.

PROS

Tendon friendly
Great for setting hard boulder problems
If you're in the US or Canada and you get them soon you'll be one of the first to get them!
Great colors, check out the "Big Cheese" holds... they're pinches as well!

CONS

They might be expensive if you're ordering from the US... (see below point to make it cheaper!!!)
Get them shipped via boat, its longer than UPS or Fed Ex but its worth it in the end
You're not going to get any beginners climbing a boulder problem on these... so careful where you set with them, they're not really V0 material :P

PRICE