I have so many video footage, I’m trying to manage it though. Today I’ll spoil you with some Upload videos.
As you know a while ago Upload package #7 has been delivered at Bussum Rocksteady. Rocksteady Bussum seems to be the place to shoot some action!
On the delivery day I managed to be at the venue as well. I brought some company with me, team member Vera Zijlstra and Mirthe van Liere. When we arrived at the climbing gym, we just missed the setters. Talking about a good timing ha!
Anyway, we brought 2 crashpads with us. I brought a few pieces of my new Moon collection with me: green hoody, organic shirt + trousers. I have to admit that it feels really comfy. Luckily the weather was really good, which made me happy.
We started to check out the women’s problems. 3 nice problems. In my opinion I like female problem #3 the most which is set by Joppe and located in the back of the garden.
And after the women’s problems I also checked out the men’s problems. It’s suppose to be a hard package and the setters succeeded in delivering a hard package. I returned once to this climbing gym to climb the first men’s problem, which is actually the easiest problem of all 3. I like the second boulder problem as well, it has a nice swing to it.
You’re missing boulder problem #3. Unfortunately I haven’t send the final boulder problem yet. It’s set in the roof, the first time I was kind of de-motivated when I tried it. The second time when I returned at Bussum, I figured it isn’t really my style of climbing. It’s not an excuse though.
Well, that’s it for now. It was nice to climb at different locations. I’ll send the videos to the Upload webpage soon to collect some more points. Check out the rest of my videos in my previous posts or click here.
Last weekend a Regional Mountaineering day was held at Bussum Rocksteady climbing gym.
The climbing federation invited me to show a demonstration for lead climbing on a high level. When I entered the climbing gym it was pretty crowded and there were lots of climbing activities going on.
Boulder workshops, speed climbing, free fall, free fun climbing, mountain biking, drytool and lead climbing demonstration, GPS tour, you name it everything was possible.
Among all the people I ran into spokesperson Joost Hofman, ice climber Marianne van der Steen and former team member Ferdinand Schulte.
At half past 1 Marianne was showing how to use drytools. She set a challenging route using chunks of trees! It was nice to see how she locks off her arms to reach the next hold with her axes.
At 2 P.M. it was my turn to perform in front of a crowd. My task was to show how to climb a difficult route. While Joost was introducing me to the crowd I was already busy climbing the route. My mindset was set to climb with precision and focusing on the holds. It took me a few minutes to finish the route and my job was done.
After my route, Joost asked me a few more questions about the national team. Yes, we have 6 boulder members and 4 lead climbers including me. Curious who’s part of the national team? Click here to check the selection!
Ferdinand was leading workshops to teach people how to climb even better. Later on I spotted him climbing with axes too! Unbelievable, it looks so funny yet powerful.
It was nice to be a climbing example to everyone. I’m glad I was part of this Regional Mountaineering day and I hope many kids / people keep on climbing.
By the way, come Saturday I’ll be at Bussum Rocksteady again to join the first boulder competition. Hopefully the sun will keep on shining like last weekend!
Today the Lead Climb Off competition was held at Rocksteady at Bussum. I have to mention that I had a nice climbing session today.
I still had to qualify for the National Championship and collected too few points at the Promotop competitions. The competition started at 13.00 h which I think is an acceptable time for such an event. You don’t have to get up early on Sunday, I like that.
18 Men and 10 women signed up for this event. Not that much but the competition went fast. My job for today was to climb 2 onsight routes. It felt more as a training instead of a competition to me. I still need to improve my onsight level though, I’ll work on that soon.
The first route was a route with black holds on the right side of the main wall. The route went just fine until I arrived at the last 6 holds. From there the holds were set in a straight line without foot holds. In my opinion it wasn’t that spectacular / nice.
The second route was a yellow route, which was also set on the main wall. It had some difficult boulder movements in the beginning. I barely made it to the next hold though.
When I arrived at the big overhang, I was a bit confused. I didn’t know which sequence I was suppose to climb. When I prepared the route, I figured out a different sequence and now I had to improvise.
My foot placing sucked and from that position I had to deadpoint to a pocket hold. Unfortunately I missed the hold and fell out of the route.
I missed my competition mind set today. I don’t know why, perhaps because it felt like an onsight training. Furthermore I had a good time and it was nice to catch up among other climbers who I haven’t seen for a while. In general the sphere was relaxed, music was fine and the competition was quickly organised.
After 15 minutes the results were published. In the first route you could collect more points than the second route. Together I managed to collect enough points for a 2nd place. I’m okay with that, as long as I can compete on the NC on 6th of November. I’m happy with my sack of chalk, a jar of Climb on and not to forget my green access card for the National Championship. It makes my day.
To check out the results of the Climb Off event, click here. Just one more month and then the National Championship Lead climbing 2010 will be held at Arnhem. I’m looking forward to it, but for now I’ll try to improve myself.
Today I was tagging along with Dirk Mol, Timo Tak, Ulf Lennertz and Jaap Maaskant to Bussum to join Boulder 2. It is the second boulder qualification competition to qualify for the national championship bouldering. I really felt like having a fun day of bouldering. There were plenty difficult boulders but apparently it wasn’t my day today.
Even our national coach Wouter Jongeneelen and some supporters were trying to help me to get through a boulder. I received some clues from Vera Zijlstra, Ferdinand Schulte and Casper ten Sijthoff, some national boulder top-notchers! Thank you though, but the boulders weren’t set for me or is this a sign that I’m too weak? I don’t know, I ended up as 11th.
Dirk and Timo both managed to end up in the finals. The finals contained a lot of volumes and a few holds. Nice but everyone had to work hard to send a boulder. To view the results, click here.
I still have had a nice day with everyone around me. By the way, thanks for the delicious natural power bars, Nicky’s mom. Okay, for now I will focus on routes instead of boulder competitions. See you in a month THEA.
Last week I signed up for Back to Bleau which has held this Saturday at Rock Steady in Bussum. Together with Alexander Ledovskikh, it took us an hour and a half of driving to reach the venue. Fortunately, the weather was good because all the boulders were outdoors in the boulder garden. It was great seeing familiar faces there like Rens Schop, Victor Burger, Niek Fransen, the Fuerza ladies, and of course my sponsors Ad Siemons and Jort Veen. I decided to do all the boulders with Rens. There were 62 boulders in total and I had done more than 40 boulders. Time went by so fast and luckily, I was able to make it to the finals.
There were two boulders with a maximum of two attempts allowed for both the men and women’s finals. I didn’t do so well in the first boulder, but i was able to sent the second boulder on my first attempt and it was enough to land me in first place after all the scores were counted. Alexander came up in 4th and he was satisfied with his result. All this bouldering sure made everyone hungry so the barbecue afterwards was a great welcome.
This is my first victory and I have to say I am both happy and pleased with this result. So a big thanks to Rock Steady and the organisers of Back to Bleau for this great event.